or
to think of matrimony unless advantage was annexed to it, she fell upon
the stratagem of giving herself out for a great fortune, and then took
an opportunity of letting our poet know that she was in love with him.
Vanity and interest both uniting to persuade Farquhar to marry, he did
not long delay it, and, to his immortal honour let it be spoken, though
he found himself deceived, his circumstances embarrassed, and his family
growing upon him, he never once upbraided her for the cheat, but behaved
to her with, all the delicacy, and tenderness of an indulgent husband.

His next comedy named the Twin-Rivals, was played in 1705.

Our poet was possessed of his commission in the army when the Spanish
expedition was made under the conduct of the earl of Peterborough, tho'
it seems he did not keep it long after, and tho' he was not embarked in
that service, or present at the defeat of the French forces, and
the conquest of Barcelona; yet from some military friends in that
engagement, he received such distinct relations of it in their
epistolary correspondency, that he wrote a poem upon the subject, in
which he has made the earl his hero. Two or three years after it was
written, the impression of it was dedicated by the author's widow to the
same nobleman, in which are some fulsome strains of panegyric, which
perhaps her necessity excited her to use, from a view of enhancing her
interest by flattery, which if excusable at all, is certainly so in a
woman left destitute with a family, as she was.

In 1706 a comedy called the Recruiting Officer was acted at the
theatre-royal. He dedicates to all friends round the Wrekin, a noted
hill near Shrewsbury, where he had been to recruit for his company; and
where, from his observations on country-life, the manner that serjeants
inveigle clowns to enlist, and the behaviour of the officers towards the
milk-maids and country-wenches, whom they seldom fail of debauching, he
collected matter sufficient to build a comedy upon, and in which he
was successful: Even now that comedy fails not to bring full houses,
especially when the parts of Captain Plume, Captain Brazen, Sylvia, and
Serjeant Kite are properly disposed of.

His last play was the Beaux--Stratagem, of which he did not live to
enjoy the full success.

Of this pleasing author's untimely end, we can give but a melancholy
account.

He was oppressed with some debts which obliged him to make application
to a certain noble court