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.’