Another incident in the "Recruiting Officer" might have had its value a hundred years ago—just the time since the play was first acted; but to the present generation, it is so dull, that it casts a heaviness upon all those scenes, whereon it has any influence. Fortune-tellers are now a set of personages, in whom, and in whose skill or fraud, no rational person takes interest; and though such people still exist by their profession, they are so vile, they are beneath satire; and their dupes such ideots, they do not even enjoy sense enough, for their folly to produce risibility.
Perhaps, the author despised this part of his play, as much as the severest critic can do; but having expended his store of entertainment upon the foregoing scenes, he was compelled to supply the bulk of the two last acts, from the scanty fund of wasted spirits, and exhausted invention.
The life of Farquhar was full of adventures.—As a student, he was expelled the college of Dublin, for adventuring profane wit upon a sacred theme, given to him by his tutor for his exercise.
As an actor, he forsook the stage in grief and horror, on having unknowingly made use of a real sword, instead of a counterfeit one, by which he wounded a brother performer, with whom he had to fence in a tragedy, nearly to the loss of his life.
In love, and marriage, his enterprises were still more unhappily terminated.—And merely as an author, and a soldier, can any events of his life be accounted prosperous.
As a dramatic writer, Farquhar was eminently successful; and in his military capacity, he was ever honoured and beloved—whether fighting with a great army in Flanders, or recruiting with a small party in Shropshire.
DRAMATIS PERSONÆ.
| Captain Plume | Mr. Holman. |
| Justice Balance | Mr. Murray. |
| Worthy | Mr. Whitfield. |
| Serjeant Kite | Mr. Knight. |
| Bullock | Mr. Fawcett. |
| First Recruit | Mr. Munden. |
| Second Recruit | Mr. Emery. |
| Welsh Collier | Mr. Farley. |
| Constable | Mr. Thompson. |
| Captain Brazen | Mr. Lewis. |
| Melinda | Miss Chapman. |
| Rose | Mrs. Gibbs. |
| Lucy | Mrs. Litchfield. |
| Sylvia | Mrs. Johnson. |
| SCENE—Shrewsbury. | |