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.]

[Footnote 2:  Memoirs of Mr. Farquhar, before his Works.]

[Footnote 3:  For the moral character of Mrs. Oldfield, see the Life of Savage.]

[Footnote 4:  Farquhar’s Letters.]

[Footnote 5:  Memoirs, ubi. supra.]

* * * * *

Edward Ravenscroft.

This gentleman is author of eleven plays, which gives him a kind of right to be named in this collection.  Some have been of opinion, he was a poet of a low rate, others that he was only a wit collector; be this as it may, he acquired, some distinction by the vigorous opposition he made to Dryden:  And having chosen so powerful an antagonist, he has acquired more honour by it, than by all his other works put together; he accuses Dryden of plagiary, and treats him severely.

Mr. Dryden, indeed, had first attacked his Mamamouchi; which provoked Ravenscroft to retort so harshly upon him; but in the opinion of Mr. Langbain, the charge of plagiarism as properly belonged to Ravenfcroft himself as to Dryden; tho’ there was this essential difference between the plagiary of one and that of the other; that Dryden turned whatever he borrowed into gold, and Ravenscroft made use of other people’s materials, without placing them in a new light, or giving them any graces, they had not before.