FAR'QUHAR, GEORGE, was b. at Londonderry in 1678, and received his education at the Dublin university, where, although he did not take any degree, he secured among his comrades the reputation of a wit who was a spendthrift of his witticisms. When he left the university, he was engaged as an actor by one of the Dublin theaters, but, like most dramatists who have figured on the stage, he proved but an indifferent performer. Playing a part in Dryden's Indian Emperor, and forgetting that lie wore a sword instead of a foil, he accidentally wounded a brother-performer, and was so shocked occurrence that lie at once quitted the boards. Accompanied by the actor Wilks, he proceeded to London, and shortly after received a commission in the regiment com manded by the earl of Orrery, which was then stationed in Ireland. Urged by Wilka, and perhaps stimulated by the gayety and leisure of military life, he, in 1698, produced his first comedy; entitled EOM and a Bottle, which proved a success. Two years after wards his Constant Couple appeared, which met with a brilliant reception, and to which he wrote a sequel, called Sir Harry TVildair. In 1703, he produced The inconstant,
founded on the Wild-goose Chase of Beaumont and Fletcher, a version in which all the coarseness, and none of the poetry, of the elder dramatists is retained. He married in the same year, and falling into serious.pecuniary difficulties he sold his commission, and, struggling with adverse fortune, succumbed. He died of decline in 1707, leaving "two helpless girls" to the care of his friend Wilks. During his last illness, lie wrote the best of his plays, The Beau's Stratagem—in six weeks, it is said—and died while its wit and invention were making the town roar with delight F. is one of the finest of our comic dramatists, although Pope called him a "farce writer." He is less icily brilliant than Congreve, and possesses on the whole more variety of character than any of his compeers. He had wit in abundance, but he had humanity too. He was a tender-hearted and somewhat melancholy man, and—what was rare in his school and in his time—tears are found glittering among the brilliants of his fancy.