THOMAS DUFFET. FLOURISHED ABOUT 1676. [Of Thomas Duffet very little is known except that he was an Irishman who kept at first a milliner's shop in the New Exchange, London, and who while thus engaged discovered an ability for song-writing and burlesque. This last talent, however, has got him into sad disfavour with some of his biographers, the editors of Biographia Dramatica taking him hotly to task for his presumption in laughing at Dryden, Shadwell, and Settle. Indeed, so occupied with this part of their task were they that they neglected even to state the time of his death or to mention a single song of his, and all encyclopaedic biographers from then till now have followed their example. Indeed in many cases their words have simply been reprinted, although their reverence for Settle and Shadwell is but an absurdity to us; while we all know that Dryden, though a great poet, was not a great dramatist, and his plays are just the kind for a clever burlesque writer to delight in. That Duffet's burlesques were successful even the editors of Biographia Dramatica acknowledge, but they declare that for the favourable reception they found "Mr. Duffet stood more indebted to the great names of those authors whose works he attempted to burlesque and ridicule than to any merit of his own." Of these burlesques six are at present known: The Amorous Old Woman (doubtful); Spanish Rogue; Empress of Morocco; Mock Tempest; Beauty's Triumph; and Psyche Debauched. The best of these, say the biographers just quoted, met with the worst success, -a thing not uncommon even in our days. However it is as a song-writer that Duffet is now remembered, and as such only do we care to study him and present him here.] TO FRANCELIA. In cruelty you greater are, Than those fierce tyrants who decreed The noblest prisoner ta'en in war Should to their gods a victim bleed. 1 Written in 1676 to "The Irish Tune," composed originally by Miles Reilly of Cavan, and afterwards carried into Scotland by the famous harper Connallon, where it A year of pleasures and delight The happy prisoner there obtained, And three whole days ere death's long night, In power unlimited he reigned. To your victorious eyes I gave My heart a willing sacrifice, But two short hours of troubled bliss For all my sufferings you restore, And wretched I must die for this, And never never meet you more. Never! how dismally it sounds,— If I must feel eternal pain, Close up awhile my bleeding wounds, And let me have my three days' reign. SINCE COELIA'S MY FOE.1 Where some river The trees shall appear Each leaf with a tear. When I make my sad moan From each hollow But with silent disdain No answer again. Ah, Coelia! adieu, When I cease to pursue, You'll discover No lover Was ever so true. became and is still well known as "Lochaber." On its first introduction to Scotland it was called for a short time "King James's March to Ireland." Your sad shepherd flies From those dear cruel eyes, Which not seeing, His being Decays, and he dies. Yet 'tis better to run To the fate we can't shun, Than for ever To strive for What cannot be won. What, ye gods, have I done, That Amyntor alone Is so treated, And hated, For loving but one? THE MISTAKE. Alas! how short, how false, and vain, how true, how fixed are, His restless pain? His certain grief and never-ceasing care? The trees that bend with flakes of snow, Spring will adorn with verdant leaves; The fruitful grain that buried lies, In joyful blades again shall rise, And grow, To pay the rustic's pain with golden sheaves. Once in love's boundless ocean launched, no more By flatt'ring hope deceived- I thought on her Amyntor shone, Which swell'd my joys to such a wild extreme, Thy comfort's vanished, but thy grief is whole. Rivers by ebbing waves left dry, Returning tides as swiftly fill; The valley that does lowest lie Ends at the rising of a hill; All things to change do swiftly haste. A welcome light Only my passion and my pain must last, Since my Francelia's rigid doom is past; Confin'd as sinners are in hell, I see with envy where the happy dwell. Deep lakes and rugged way My passage stay, But ah! how soon That weak defence should down, Were it not guarded by my angel's frown! Mistaken hope, be gone! Wait on the happy and the fair, To whom thy cheats are yet unknown, So close my fire shall be confin'd, To this long difference of love and hate, Unless our present thoughts attend our future state. That point I'll leave to those that here are blest, Can find no greater hell by seeking rest. Were it assured Francelia, though too late, A love so true deserved a kinder fate. UNCERTAIN LOVE. The labouring man that plants or sows, But my too much loved Celia's mind But ere my swiftest thought can thence COME ALL YOU PALE LOVERS. Come all you pale lovers that sigh and complain, While your beautiful tyrants but laugh at your pain, Come practise with me To be happy and free, In spite of inconstancy, pride, or disdain. I see and I love, and the bliss I enjoy My mistress so fair is, no language or art With such ease she can kill, Each look with new passion she captures my heart. Her smiles, the kind message of love from her eyes, When she frowns 'tis from others her flame to disguise. Thus her scorn or her spite I convert to delight, As the bee gathers honey wherever he flies. My vows she receives from her lover unknown, If our hearts did agree, Since already I find so much pleasure alone. WISDOM. (FROM "BEAUTY'S TRIUMPH.") Why should short-liv'd mortals strive to gain Can drive intruding care away. Is the emperor of fate. Rough tempests that make kingdoms roll GEORGE FARQUHAR. BORN 1678- DIED 1707. [George Farquhar, "the fine and noble- | his acquaintance with Wilks, by whom he was minded, and, in every sense, the honourable after a time induced to write his first comedy, Farquhar one in the shining list of geniuses Love and a Bottle. This appeared in 1698, that adorn the biographical page of Ireland," and being full of sprightly dialogue and busy was born in Londonderry in the year 1678. scenes, was well received. In 1700, the year In that city he received the rudiments of of jubilee at Rome, he produced his Constant education, and before leaving it he began to Couple; or, Trip to the Jubilee, in which Wilks display the bent of his genius. In 1694 he made a great hit as Sir Harry Wildair. Toentered at Trinity College in Dublin, and forwards the end of the year he visited Holland, a time made great progress in his studies. probably in fulfilment of the duties of a lieuHowever, being of a volatile nature, the steady-tenancy which the Earl of Orrery obtained for going life of the university grew distasteful to him, and having formed an intimacy with the celebrated actor Wilks, he obtained a situation in the Dublin theatre. Being hand-subject. some in person and gifted with ability, his appearance was successful, and he would doubtless have remained an actor all his life were it not for an accident which made him forswear the histrionic art. In playing the part of Guyomar in Dryden's Indian Emperor, by an act of forgetfulness he wounded a brother tragedian so grievously that his life was only just saved after great anxiety. Having now no further business in Dublin, he went over to London, where he renewed him. While there he wrote home two very facetious letters descriptive of what he had seen, as well as a set of verses on the same In 1701, on his return to England, the great success of Trip to the Jubilee caused him to write a continuation, which appeared under the title of Sir Harry Wildair; or, The Sequel of the Trip to the Jubilee. In this Mrs. Oldfield made a great success, while Wilks added to his reputation as the Sir Harry Wildair of married life. In 1702 he published his Miscellanies; or, Collections of Poems, Letters, and Essays, in which may be found many “humorous and pleasant sallies of fancy;" and in 1703 he produced The Inconstant, a play whichever was written-buoyant without inauity; has ever since kept the stage, and which was acted only the other day in London with great success. The play was not, however, at first very well received, owing, it is said, to the sudden springing up among the public of a taste for opera. This year also he was entrapped into marriage by a female adventurer, who became madly enamoured of him. Though immediately after marriage he found how he had been deceived, though embarrassments closed round him, and though a family quickly appeared to add to his troubles, he never once upbraided his wife, but after the first shock of discovery treated her with kindness and affection. Early in 1704 he produced, with the assistance of a friend, the farce called The Stage Coach, which was well received. In 1705 his comedy The Twin Rivals appeared, and in 1706 the comedy called The Recruiting Officer. His last work was The Beaux' Stratagem, which he did not live to see produced, and which is perhaps the best of all his works. Oppressed with debt, he applied to a courtier friend for assistance; but the creature advised him to sell his commission, and pledged his honour that in a short time he would find him another. Farquhar followed the advice; but when he applied to his patron to help him to a new commission the worthy declared that he had forgotten his promise. This disappointment so preyed upon his mind that it broke him down completely, and in April, 1707, while The Beaux' Stratagem was being rehearsed at Drury Lane, he sank into his last sleep in the twenty-ninth year of his age. After his death the following letter to Wilks was found among his papers:-"Dear Bob, I have not anything to leave thee to perpetuate my memory but two helpless girls; look upon them sometimes, and think of him that was to the last moment of his life, thine, George Farquhar." It is pleasant to know that Wilks did his utmost for the widow and two girls, all of whom, however, fell into pitiful circumstances before their death. Farquhar is far more natural than Congreve or any other of his rivals; "his style is pure and unaffected, his wit natural and flowing, his plots generally well contrived." His works were so successful in book form, as well as on the stage, that within fifty years of his death they had gone through more than eight editions. "The character of Wildair appears to me," says Cowden Clarke, "one of the most naturally buoyant pieces of delineation that reckless, wanton, careless, irrepressibly vivacious, and outpouring, without being obstreperous and oppressive, and all the while totally free from a tinge of vulgarity in the composition." "Farquhar's gentlemen are Irish gentlemen," he continues, "frank, generous, eloquent, witty, and with a cordial word of gallantry always at command." Hazlitt had a high opinion of Farquhar, who, he says, "has humour, character, and invention in common with the other (Vanbrugh), with a more unaffected gaiety and spirit of enjoyment which sparkles in all he does. . . His incidents succeed one another with rapidity, but without premeditation; his wit is easy and spontaneous; his style animated, unembarrassed, and flowing; his characters full of life and spirit." "In short," says Cowden Clarke, "he was a delightful writer, and one to whom I should sooner recur for relaxation and entertainment-and without after cloying and disgust-than to any of the school of which he may be said to be the last."] A WOMAN OF QUALITY.1 A Lady's Apartment. Two Chambermaids enter. First Cham. Are all things set in order? The toilette fixed, the bottles and combs put in form, and the chocolate ready? Second Cham. 'Tis no great matter whether they be right or not; for right or wrong we shall be sure of our lecture; I wish, for my part, that my time were out. First Cham. Nay, 'tis a hundred to one but we may run away before our time be half expired; and she's worse this morning than ever. -Here she comes. LADY LUREWELL enters. Lure. Ay, there's a couple of you indeed! But how, how in the name of negligence could you two contrive to make a bed as mine was last night; a wrinkle on one side and a rumple on t'other; the pillows awry and the quilt askew!-I did nothing but tumble about, and fence with the sheets all night along.-Oh! my bones ache this morning as if I had lain all night on a pair of Dutch stairs-Go, bring 1 This and the following extract are from The Constant Couple and its sequel Sir Harry Wildair. chocolate.-And, d'ye hear? Be sure to stay an hour or two at least-Well! these English animals are so unpolished! I wish the persecution would rage a little harder, that we might have more of these French refugees among us. The Maids enter with chocolate. These wenches are gone to Smyrna for this chocolate. And what made you stay so long? Cham. I thought we did not stay at all, madam. Lure. Only an hour and half by the slowest clock in Christendom-And such salvers and dishes too! The lard be merciful to me! what have I committed to be plagued with such animals?—Where are my new japan salvers-Broke, o'my conscience! All to pieces, I'll lay my life on't. Cham. No, indeed, madam, but your husband Lure. How? husband, impudence! I'll teach you manners. [Gives her a box on the ear.] Husband! Is that your Welsh breeding? Ha'n't the colonel a name of his own? Lure. How! the colonel use my things! How dare the colonel use anything of mine? -But his campaign education must be pardoned And I warrant they were fisted about among his dirty levee of disbanded officers? Faugh! The very thoughts of them fellows with their eager looks, iron swords, tied-up wigs, and tucked-in cravats, make me sick as death.-Come, let me see.--[Goes to take the chocolate, and starts back.] Heavens protect me from such a sight! Lord, girl! when did you wash your hands last? And have been pawing me all this morning with them dirty fists of yours? [Runs to the glass.]—I must dress all over again-Go, take it away, shall swoon else.-Here, Mrs. Monster, call up my tailor; and d'ye hear? you, Mrs. Hobbyhorse, see if my company be come to cards yet. The Tailor enters. you I Oh, Mr. Remnant! I don't know what ails these stays you have made me; but something is the matter, I don't like them. Rem. I am very sorry for that, madam. But what fault does your ladyship find? Rem. Why, truly, madam, I can't tell.— But your ladyship, I think, is a little too slender for the fashion. Lure. How! too slender for the fashion, say you? Rem. Yes, madam! there's no such thing as a good shape worn among the quality: your fine waists are clear out, madam. Lure. And why did not you plump up my stays to the fashionable size? Rem. I made them to fit you, madam. Lure. Fit me! fit my monkey-What! d'ye think I wear clothes to please myself! Fit me! fit the fashion, pray; no matter for meI thought something was the matter, I wanted quality-air.-Pray, Mr. Remnant, let me have a bulk of quality, a spreading counter. do remember now, the ladies in the apartments, the birth-night, were most of them two yards about. Indeed, sir, if you contrive my things any more with your scanty chambermaid's air, you shall work no more for me. I Rem. I shall take care to please your ladyship for the future. [Exit. A Servant enters. Serv. Madam, my master desiresLure. Hold, hold, fellow; for God's sake hold: if thou touch my clothes with that tobacco breath of thine, I shall poison the whole drawing-room. Stand at the door, pray, and speak. [Servant goes to the door and speaks. Serv. My master, madam, desires-Lure. Oh, hideous! Now the rascal bellows so loud that he tears my head to pieces.Here, Awkwardness, go take the booby's message and bring it to me. [Maid goes to the door, whispers, and returns. Cham. My master desires to know how your ladyship rested last night, and if you are pleased to admit of a visit this morning. Lure. Ay-why, this is civil.-—”Tis an insupportable toil though for women of quality to model their husbands to good breeding. |