He was oppressed with some debts which obliged him to make application to a certain noble courtier, who had given him formerly many professions of friendship. He could not bear the thought that his wife and family would want, and in this perplexity was ready to embrace any expedient for their relief. His pretended patron persuaded him to convert his commission into the money he wanted, and pledged his honour, that in a very short time he would provide him another. This circumstance appeared favourable, and the easy bard accordingly sold his commission; but when he renewed his application to the nobleman, and represented his needy situation, the latter had forgot his promise, or rather, perhaps, had never resolved to fulfil it.
This distracting disappointment so preyed upon the mind of Mr. Farquhar, who saw nothing but beggary and want before him, that by a sure, tho' not sudden declension of nature, it carried him off this worldly theatre, while his last play was acting in the height of success at that of Drury-lane; and tho' the audience bestowed the loudest applauses upon the performance, yet they could scarce forbear mingling tears with their mirth for the approaching loss of its author, which happened in the latter end of April 1707, before he was thirty years of age.
Thus having attended our entertaining dramatist o'er the contracted stage of his short life, thro' the various characters he performed in it, of the player, the lover, and the husband, the soldier, the critic, and the poet, to his final catastrophe, it is here time to close the scene. However, we shall take the liberty to subjoin a short character of his works, and some farther observations on his genius.
It would be injurious to the memory of Wilks not to take notice here, of his generous behaviour towards the two daughters of his deceased friend. He proposed to his brother managers, (who readily came into it) to give each of them a benefit, to apprentice them to mantua-makers; which is an instance amongst many others that might be produced, of the great worth of that excellent comedian.
The general character which has been given of Mr. Farquhar's comedies is, 'That the success of the most of them far exceeded the author's expectations; that he was particularly happy in the choice of his subjects, which he took care to adorn with a variety of characters and incidents; his style is pure and unaffected, his wit natural and flowing, and his plots generally well contrived. He lashed the vices of the age, tho' with a merciful hand; for his muse was good-natured, not abounding over-much with gall, tho' he has been blamed for it by the critics: It has been objected to him, that he was too hasty in his productions; but by such only who are admirers of stiff and elaborate performances, since with a person of a sprightly fancy, those things are often best, that are struck off in a heat[5]. It is thought that in all his heroes, he generally sketched out his own character, of a young, gay, rakish spark, blessed with parts and abilities. His works are loose, tho' not so grossly libertine, as some other wits of his time, and leave not so pernicious impressions on the imagination as other figures of the like kind more strongly stampt by indelicate and heavier hands.'
He seems to have been a man of a genius rather sprightly than great, rather flow'ry than solid; his comedies are diverting, because his characters are natural, and such as we frequently meet with; but he has used no art in drawing them, nor does there appear any force of thinking in his performances, or any deep penetration into nature; but rather a superficial view, pleasant enough to the eye, though capable of leaving no great impression on the mind. He drew his observations chiefly from those he conversed with, and has seldom given any additional heightening, or indelible marks to his characters; which was the peculiar excellence of Shakespear, Johnson, and Congreve.
Had he lived to have gained a more general knowledge of life, or had his circumstances not been straitened, and so prevented his mingling with persons of rank, we might have seen his plays embellished with more finished characters, and with a more polished dialogue.
He had certainly a lively imagination, but then it was capable of no great compass; he had wit, but it was of no peculiar a sort, as not to gain ground upon consideration; and it is certainly true, that his comedies in general owe their success full as much to the player, as to any thing intrinsically excellent in themselves.
If he was not a man of the highest genius, he seems to have had excellent moral qualities, of which his behaviour to his wife and tenderness to his children are proofs, and deserved a better fate than to die oppressed with want, and under the calamitous apprehensions of leaving his family destitute: While Farquhar will ever be remembered with pleasure by people of taste, the name of the courtier who thus inhumanly ruined him, will be for ever dedicated to infamy.
[Footnote 1: Memoirs of Wilks by Obrian, 8vo. 1732.]