It is an honour to the morality of the present age, that this most entertaining
comedy is but seldom performed; and never, except some new pantomime, or other gaudy
spectacle, be added, as an afterpiece, for the attraction of an audience.

The well drawn characters, happy incidents, and excellent dialogue, in "The
Beaux Stratagem," are but poor atonement for that unrestrained contempt of
principle which pervades every scene. Plays of this kind are far more mischievous
than those, which preserve less appearance of delicacy. Every auditor and reader
shrinks from those crimes, which are recommended in unseemly language, and from
libertinism united with coarse manners; but in adorning vice with wit, and audacious
rakes with the vivacity and elegance of men of fashion, youth, at least, will be
decoyed into the snare of admiration.²

Charmed with the spirit of Archer and Aimwell, the reader may not, perhaps,
immediately perceive, that those two fine gentlemen are but arrant impostors; and
that the lively, though pitiable Mrs. Sullen, is no other than a deliberate violator
of her marriage
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vow.³ Highly delighted with every
character, he will not, perhaps, at first observe, that all the wise and witty
persons of this comedy are knaves, and all the honest people
fools.

It is said, that this play was written in six weeks—it is more surprising
still, that it was written by a dying man!

Farquhar was a gentleman of elegant
person and bewitching address, who, having experienced the vicissitudes of life, as
man of fashion, an actor, a captain in the army,⁴ an author, a
lover, and a husband; and having encountered bitter disappointment in some of his
adventures—though amply gratified by others—He, at the age of
twenty-nine, sunk into a dejection of spirits and decline of health; and in this
state, he wrote the present drama.—It had only been acted a night or two, when
the author, in the midst of those honours, which he derived from its brilliant
reception—died.⁵

As a proof that Farquhar was perfectly
sensible of his dangerous state, and that he regained cheerfulness as his end
approached, the following anecdote is told:—

The famed actress, Mrs. Oldfield,
performed the part of Mrs. Sullen, when the comedy was first produced; and being
highly interested in its success, from the esteem she bore the author; when it drew
near the last rehearsal, she desired Wilkes, the actor, to go to him, and represent—that she advised him
to make some alteration in the catastrophe of the piece; for that she was
apprehensive, the free manner in which he had bestowed the hand of Mrs. Sullen upon
[Page 5]Archer, without first procuring a divorce from her husband, would
offend great part of the audience. "Oh," replied Farquhar, gaily, when this message was
delivered to him, "tell her, I wish she was married to me instead of Sullen; for
then, without the trouble of a divorce, I would give her my bond, that she should
be
a widow within a few days."⁶

In this allusion he was prophetic;—and the apparent joy, with which he expected
his dissolution, may be accounted for on the supposition—that the
profligate characters, which he has pourtrayed in
"The Beaux Stratagem," were such as he had uniformly met with in
the world;⁷ —and he was rejoiced to leave them all
behind.

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