The Beaux-Stratagem | Page 5

has been acted since that date.
Bibliography. The first edition was published in a small quarto (78
pages) by Bernard Lintott, 'at the Cross-Keys next Nando's
Coffeehouse in Fleet Street' between the two Temple gates. The British
Museum Catalogue dates it 1707 (the copy in my possession, however,
bears no date), but it is supposed not to have been published till 1710,
three years after Farquhar's decease; whence some have erroneously
dated his death in that year. Lintott, on January 27, 1707, had paid the

dramatist £30. in advance for this play, double what he usually gave for
a play. The same publisher issued the first complete edition of
Farquhar's plays in an octavo volume, dedicated to John Eyre, with a
quaint illustration prefixed to each play (we reproduce that prefixed to
The Beaux-Stratagem), introducing all the characters of the play, and a
frontispiece representing Farquhar being presented to Apollo by Ben
Jonson. The general title-page is undated, but the title-pages of the
various plays bear the date 1711, and all bear Lintott's name
(sometimes alone, sometimes with others) save Sir Harry Wildair,
which is said to be printed by James Knapton. Some say this volume
did not appear till 1714. In 1760 Rivington published an edition of
Farquhar which appears to be slightly 'bowdlerised.' At least two
complete editions of his works were published in Dublin; one,
described as the seventh, in two volumes small octavo, by Risk and
Smith, in 1743 (including a memoir, and Love and Business), in which
the title-pages of the various plays bear different dates, ranging from
1727 to 1741, The Beaux-Stratagem being described as the twelfth
edition, and dated 1739; the other, charmingly printed by Ewing in
three 16mo volumes, dated 1775, with a vignette portrait and other
illustrations, and containing a life by Thomas Wilkes. An Edinburgh
edition of The Beaux-Stratagem, with life, appeared in 1768, and an
edition in German in 1782 by J. Leonhardi, under the title Die
Stutzerlist. Separate editions of the play also appeared in 1748, 1778,
and 1824 (New York), and it is included in all the various collections of
English plays, such as Bell's, Oxberry's, Inchbald's, Dibdin's,
Cumberland's, etc., and in the collected editions of Farquhar's works
dated 1718, 1728, 1736, 1742, 1760, and 1772. The principal modern
editions of Farquhar are Leigh Hunt's (along with Wycherley,
Vanbrugh, and Congreve), and Ewald's (1892), in two volumes large
octavo.

ADVERTISEMENT
The reader may find some faults in this play, which my illness
prevented the amending of; but there is great amends made in the
representation, which cannot be matched, no more than the friendly and

indefatigable care of Mr. Wilks, to whom I chiefly owe the success of
the play. GEORGE FARQUHAR.

DRAMATIS PERSONAE
With names of the original actors and actresses.
[Illustration: Dramatis1]
S C E N E.--Lichfield.

PROLOGUE
Spoken by Mr. Wilks.
WHEN strife disturbs, or sloth corrupts an age, Keen satire is the
business of the stage. When the Plain-Dealer writ, he lash'd those
crimes, Which then infested most--the modish times: But now, when
faction sleeps, and sloth is fled, And all our youth in active fields are
bred; When through Great Britain's fair extensive round, The trumps of
fame, the notes of UNION sound; When Anna's sceptre points the laws
their course, And her example gives her precepts force: {10} There
scarce is room for satire; all our lays Must be, or songs of triumph, or
of praise. But as in grounds best cultivated, tares And poppies rise
among the golden ears; Our product so, fit for the field or school, Must
mix with nature's favourite plant--a fool: A weed that has to twenty
summers ran, Shoots up in stalk, and vegetates to man. Simpling our
author goes from field to field, And culls such fools as many diversion
yield {20} And, thanks to Nature, there's no want of those, For rain or
shine, the thriving coxcomb grows. Follies to-night we show ne'er
lash'd before, Yet such as nature shows you every hour; Nor can the
pictures give a just offence, For fools are made for jests to men of
sense.

THE BEAUX-STRATAGEM

ACT I., SCENE I.
A Room in Bonifaces Inn. Enter Boniface running.
Bon. Chamberlain! maid! Cherry! daughter Cherry! all asleep? all
dead?
Enter Cherry running.
Cher. Here, here! why d'ye bawl so, father? d'ye think we have no ears?
Bon. You deserve to have none, you young minx! The company of the
Warrington coach has stood in the hall this hour, and nobody to show
them to their chambers.
Cher. And let 'em wait farther; there's neither red-coat in the coach, nor
footman behind it. {10}
Bon. But they threaten to go to another inn to-night.
Cher. That they dare not, for fear the coachman should overturn them
to-morrow.--Coming!