those that rail at the watery Dutch.
He will even be a little Jacobitish for pure foppery, and have a fling
at the Church, but in his heart he is with the Ministry. He meets a
friend at White's, and they adjourn presently to the Fleece Tavern,
where the drawer brings them a bottle of New French and a neat's
tongue, over which they discuss the doctrine of predestination so
hotly that two mackerel-vendors burst in, mistaking their lifted
voices for a cry for fish. His friend has business in the city, and so
our poet strolls off to the Park, and takes a turn in the Mall with
his hat in his hand, prepared for an adventure or a chat with a
friend. Then comes the play, the inevitable early play, still, even
in 1700, apt to be so rank-lipped that respectable ladies could only
appear at it in masks. It was the transition period, and poor Comedy,
who was saying good-bye to literature, was just about to console
herself with modesty.

However, a domino may slip aside, and Mr. George Farquhar notices
a little lady in a deep mourning mantua, whose eyes are not to be
forgotten. She goes, however; it is useless to pursue her; but the
music raises his soul to such a pitch of passion that he is almost
melancholy. He strolls out into Spring Garden, but there, "with
envious eyes, I saw every Man pick up his Mate, whilst I alone walked
like solitary Adam before the Creation of his Eve; but the place was
no Paradise to me; nothing I found entertaining but the Nightingale."
So that in those sweet summer evenings of 1700, over the laced and
brocaded couples promenading in Spring Garden, as over good Sir Roger
twelve years later, the indulgent nightingale still poured her notes.
To-day you cannot hear the very bells of St. Martin's for the roar of
the traffic. So lonely, and too easily enamoured, George has to betake
himself to the tavern, and a passable Burgundy. There is no idealism
about him. He is very fit for repentance next morning. "The searching
Wine has sprung the Rheumatism in my Right Hand, my Head aches, my
Stomach pukes." Our poor, good-humoured beau has no constitution for
this mode of life, and we know, though happily he dreams not of it,
that he is to die before he reaches thirty.

This picture of Farquhar's life is nowhere given in the form just
related, but not one touch in the portrait but is to be found
somewhere in the frank and easy pages of _Love and Business_. The
poems are of their age and kind. There is a "Pindaric