Remarks from Farquhar
Some excerpts from Farquhar beyond The Beaux' Stratagem, taken from his other plays and from an essay on theatre (in which Farquhar considers, among other points, the tyranny of the ancient unities and further restrictions). Note the the dates given for plays match the first publication rather than the first production.
LUCINDA: Pray, sir, unmask, by telling who you are; and then I’ll unmask, and show who I am.
-Love and a Bottle, Act One, Scene One (1699)
LOVEWELL: [W]hat relish have you of comedy?
LYRIC: No satisfactory one: my curiosity is forestalled by a foreknowledge of what shall happen; for as the hero in tragedy is either a whining cringing fool, that’s always a-stabbing himself, or a ranting, hectoring bully, that’s for killing everybody else: so the hero in comedy is always the poet’s character.
LOVEWELL: What’s that?
LYRIC: A compound of practical rake and speculative gentleman, who always bears off the great fortune in the play, and shams the beau and squire with a whore or chambermaid: and as the catastrophe of all tragedies is death, so the end of comedies is marriage.
LOVEWELL: And some think that the most tragical conclusion of the two.
-Love and a Bottle, Act Four, Scene Two (1699)
ANGELICA: Unhappy state of woman! whose chief virtue is but ceremony, and our much boasted modesty but a slavish restraint. The strict confinement on our words makes our thoughts ramble more; and what preserves our outward fame, destroys our inward quiet.—’Tis hard that love should be denied the privilege of hatred; that scandal and detraction should be so much indulged, yet sacred love and truth debarred our conversation.
-The Constant Couple, Act Three, Scene Three (1700)
COLONEL STANDARD: How weak is reason in disputes of love!
That daring reason which so oft pretends
To question works of high omnipotence,
Yet poorly truckles to our weakest passions,
And yields implicit faith to foolish love,
Paying blind zeal to faithless woman’s eyes.
-The Constant Couple, Act Three, Scene Four (1700)
WIFE: Oh, Mr. Constable, here’s a rogue that has murdered my husband, and robbed him of his clothes.
CONSTABLE: Murder and robbery! then he must be a gentleman.—Hands off there! he must not be abused.
-The Constant Couple, Act Four, Scene One (1700)
SIR HARRY WILDAIR: But pray, madam, be pleased to consider what is this same virtue that you make such a mighty noise about. Can your virtue bespeak you a front row in the boxes? No; for the players can’t live upon virtue. Can your virtue keep you a coach and six? No, no, your virtuous women walk a foot. Can your virtue hire you a pew in church? Why, the very sexton will tell you no. Can your virtue stake for you a picquet? No. Then when business has a woman with virtue?
-The Constant Couple, Act Five, Scene One (1700)
Our youthful author swears he cares not a pin
For Vossius, Scaliger, Hedelin, or Rapin:
He leaves to learned pen such labour’d lays,
You are the rules by which he writes his plays.
From musty books let others take their view,
He hates dull reading, but he studies you.
[…]
Thus, then, the pit and boxes are his schools,
Your air, your humour, his dramatic rules.
Let critics censure then, and hiss like snakes,
He gains his ends, if his light fancy takes
St. James’s beaux, and Covent Garden rakes.
-prologue to Sir Harry Wildair (1701)
COLONEL STANDARD: If your wife has wronged ye, pack her off. Ay, but how! The Gospel drives the matrimonial nail, and the law clinches it so very hard, that to draw it again would tear the work to pieces.
-Sir Harry Wildair, Act One, Scene One (1701)
The world was never more active or youthful, and true sense was never more universal than at this very day; 'tis neither confined to one nation in the world nor to one part of a city; 'tis remarkable in England as well as France, and good, genuine reason is nourished as well by the cold of Swedeland as by the warmth of Italy [...] Then why should we be hampered so in our opinions as if all the ruins of antiquity lay so heartily on the bones of us that we could not stir hand and foot? No, no, sir, ipse dixit is removed long ago, and all the rubbish of old philosophy that in a manner buried the judgment of mankind for many centuries is now carried off; the vast tomes of Aristotle and his commentators are all taken to pieces and their infallibility is lost with all persons of a free and unprejudiced reason.
Then above all men living, why should the poets be hoodwinked at this rate and by what authority should Aristotle's rules of poetry stand so fixed and immutable?
-"A Discourse upon Comedy...," 1702 (as printed in Dramatic Theory and Criticism, p. 376; read the "Discourse" online here)
[A]n English play is intended for the use and instruction of an English audience, a people not only separated from the rest of the world by situation but different also from other nations as well in the complexion and temperament of the natural body as in the constitution of our body politic. As we are a mixture of many nations, so we have the most unaccountable medley of humours among us of any people upon earth. These humours produce variety of follies, some of 'em unknown to former ages. These distempers must have new remedies, which are nothing but new counsels and instructions.
-"A Discourse upon Comedy...," 1702 (as printed in Dramatic Theory and Criticism, p. 379; read the "Discourse" online here)
How must this secret of pleasing so many different tastes be discovered? Not by tumbling over volumes of the ancients but by studying the humours of the moderns. The rules of English comedy don't lie in the compass of Aristotle or his followers, but in the pit, box, and galleries.
-"A Discourse upon Comedy...," 1702 (as printed in Dramatic Theory and Criticism, p. 380; read the "Discourse" online here)
[T]o stoop to the authority of either [Aristotle or Shakespeare], without consulting the reason of the consequence, is an abuse to a man's understanding, and neither the precept of the philosopher nor example of the poet should go down with me without examining the weight of their assertions. We can expect no more decorum or regularity in any business than the nature of the thing will bear.
-"A Discourse upon Comedy...," 1702 (as printed in Dramatic Theory and Criticism, p. 384; read the "Discourse" online here)
YOUNG MIRABELL: I tell thee, child, there is not the least occasion for morals in any business between you and I. Don’t you know that of all commerce in the world there is no such cozenage and deceit as in the traffic between man and woman; we study all our lives long how to put tricks upon one another. […] What are your languishing looks, your studied airs and affectations, but so many baits and devices to delude men out of their dear liberty and freedom?
-The Inconstant, Act Two, Scene One (1702)
CAPTAIN DURETETE: How d’ye like this play?
YOUNG MIRABELL: I liked the company; the lady, the rich beauty in the front box, had my attention. […] [T]he playhouse is the element of poetry, because the region of beauty. The ladies, methinks, have a more inspiring triumphant air in the boxes than anywhere else; they sit commanding on their thrones with all their subject-slaves about them. Their best clothes, best looks, shining jewels, sparkling eyes, the treasure of the world in a ring. Then there’s such a hurry of pleasure to transport us; the bustle, noise, gallantry, equipage, garters, feathers, wigs, bows, smiles, ogles, love, music, and applause. I could wish that my whole life-long were the first night of a new play!
-The Inconstant, Act Five, Scene One (1702)
SILVIA: What care I for his thoughts! I shou’d not like a man with confin’d thoughts; it shews a narrowness of soul. Constancy is but a dull, sleepy quality at best; they will hardly admit it among the manly virtues.
-The Recruiting Officer, Act One, Scene Two (1706)
PLUME: You are no logician, if you pretend to draw consequences from the actions of fools. There’s no arguing by the rule of reason upon a science without principles, and such is their conduct. Whim, unaccountable whim, hurries ’em on like a man drunk with brandy before ten o clock in the morning.
-The Recruiting Officer, Act Four, Scene One (1706)
KITE: [T]he devil is a very modest person; he seeks no body unless they seek him first; he’s chain’d up like a mastiff, and can’t stir unless he be let loose.
-The Recruiting Officer, Act Four, Scene Two (1706)
Back to George Farquhar.
LUCINDA: Pray, sir, unmask, by telling who you are; and then I’ll unmask, and show who I am.
-Love and a Bottle, Act One, Scene One (1699)
LOVEWELL: [W]hat relish have you of comedy?
LYRIC: No satisfactory one: my curiosity is forestalled by a foreknowledge of what shall happen; for as the hero in tragedy is either a whining cringing fool, that’s always a-stabbing himself, or a ranting, hectoring bully, that’s for killing everybody else: so the hero in comedy is always the poet’s character.
LOVEWELL: What’s that?
LYRIC: A compound of practical rake and speculative gentleman, who always bears off the great fortune in the play, and shams the beau and squire with a whore or chambermaid: and as the catastrophe of all tragedies is death, so the end of comedies is marriage.
LOVEWELL: And some think that the most tragical conclusion of the two.
-Love and a Bottle, Act Four, Scene Two (1699)
ANGELICA: Unhappy state of woman! whose chief virtue is but ceremony, and our much boasted modesty but a slavish restraint. The strict confinement on our words makes our thoughts ramble more; and what preserves our outward fame, destroys our inward quiet.—’Tis hard that love should be denied the privilege of hatred; that scandal and detraction should be so much indulged, yet sacred love and truth debarred our conversation.
-The Constant Couple, Act Three, Scene Three (1700)
COLONEL STANDARD: How weak is reason in disputes of love!
That daring reason which so oft pretends
To question works of high omnipotence,
Yet poorly truckles to our weakest passions,
And yields implicit faith to foolish love,
Paying blind zeal to faithless woman’s eyes.
-The Constant Couple, Act Three, Scene Four (1700)
WIFE: Oh, Mr. Constable, here’s a rogue that has murdered my husband, and robbed him of his clothes.
CONSTABLE: Murder and robbery! then he must be a gentleman.—Hands off there! he must not be abused.
-The Constant Couple, Act Four, Scene One (1700)
SIR HARRY WILDAIR: But pray, madam, be pleased to consider what is this same virtue that you make such a mighty noise about. Can your virtue bespeak you a front row in the boxes? No; for the players can’t live upon virtue. Can your virtue keep you a coach and six? No, no, your virtuous women walk a foot. Can your virtue hire you a pew in church? Why, the very sexton will tell you no. Can your virtue stake for you a picquet? No. Then when business has a woman with virtue?
-The Constant Couple, Act Five, Scene One (1700)
Our youthful author swears he cares not a pin
For Vossius, Scaliger, Hedelin, or Rapin:
He leaves to learned pen such labour’d lays,
You are the rules by which he writes his plays.
From musty books let others take their view,
He hates dull reading, but he studies you.
[…]
Thus, then, the pit and boxes are his schools,
Your air, your humour, his dramatic rules.
Let critics censure then, and hiss like snakes,
He gains his ends, if his light fancy takes
St. James’s beaux, and Covent Garden rakes.
-prologue to Sir Harry Wildair (1701)
COLONEL STANDARD: If your wife has wronged ye, pack her off. Ay, but how! The Gospel drives the matrimonial nail, and the law clinches it so very hard, that to draw it again would tear the work to pieces.
-Sir Harry Wildair, Act One, Scene One (1701)
The world was never more active or youthful, and true sense was never more universal than at this very day; 'tis neither confined to one nation in the world nor to one part of a city; 'tis remarkable in England as well as France, and good, genuine reason is nourished as well by the cold of Swedeland as by the warmth of Italy [...] Then why should we be hampered so in our opinions as if all the ruins of antiquity lay so heartily on the bones of us that we could not stir hand and foot? No, no, sir, ipse dixit is removed long ago, and all the rubbish of old philosophy that in a manner buried the judgment of mankind for many centuries is now carried off; the vast tomes of Aristotle and his commentators are all taken to pieces and their infallibility is lost with all persons of a free and unprejudiced reason.
Then above all men living, why should the poets be hoodwinked at this rate and by what authority should Aristotle's rules of poetry stand so fixed and immutable?
-"A Discourse upon Comedy...," 1702 (as printed in Dramatic Theory and Criticism, p. 376; read the "Discourse" online here)
[A]n English play is intended for the use and instruction of an English audience, a people not only separated from the rest of the world by situation but different also from other nations as well in the complexion and temperament of the natural body as in the constitution of our body politic. As we are a mixture of many nations, so we have the most unaccountable medley of humours among us of any people upon earth. These humours produce variety of follies, some of 'em unknown to former ages. These distempers must have new remedies, which are nothing but new counsels and instructions.
-"A Discourse upon Comedy...," 1702 (as printed in Dramatic Theory and Criticism, p. 379; read the "Discourse" online here)
How must this secret of pleasing so many different tastes be discovered? Not by tumbling over volumes of the ancients but by studying the humours of the moderns. The rules of English comedy don't lie in the compass of Aristotle or his followers, but in the pit, box, and galleries.
-"A Discourse upon Comedy...," 1702 (as printed in Dramatic Theory and Criticism, p. 380; read the "Discourse" online here)
[T]o stoop to the authority of either [Aristotle or Shakespeare], without consulting the reason of the consequence, is an abuse to a man's understanding, and neither the precept of the philosopher nor example of the poet should go down with me without examining the weight of their assertions. We can expect no more decorum or regularity in any business than the nature of the thing will bear.
-"A Discourse upon Comedy...," 1702 (as printed in Dramatic Theory and Criticism, p. 384; read the "Discourse" online here)
YOUNG MIRABELL: I tell thee, child, there is not the least occasion for morals in any business between you and I. Don’t you know that of all commerce in the world there is no such cozenage and deceit as in the traffic between man and woman; we study all our lives long how to put tricks upon one another. […] What are your languishing looks, your studied airs and affectations, but so many baits and devices to delude men out of their dear liberty and freedom?
-The Inconstant, Act Two, Scene One (1702)
CAPTAIN DURETETE: How d’ye like this play?
YOUNG MIRABELL: I liked the company; the lady, the rich beauty in the front box, had my attention. […] [T]he playhouse is the element of poetry, because the region of beauty. The ladies, methinks, have a more inspiring triumphant air in the boxes than anywhere else; they sit commanding on their thrones with all their subject-slaves about them. Their best clothes, best looks, shining jewels, sparkling eyes, the treasure of the world in a ring. Then there’s such a hurry of pleasure to transport us; the bustle, noise, gallantry, equipage, garters, feathers, wigs, bows, smiles, ogles, love, music, and applause. I could wish that my whole life-long were the first night of a new play!
-The Inconstant, Act Five, Scene One (1702)
SILVIA: What care I for his thoughts! I shou’d not like a man with confin’d thoughts; it shews a narrowness of soul. Constancy is but a dull, sleepy quality at best; they will hardly admit it among the manly virtues.
-The Recruiting Officer, Act One, Scene Two (1706)
PLUME: You are no logician, if you pretend to draw consequences from the actions of fools. There’s no arguing by the rule of reason upon a science without principles, and such is their conduct. Whim, unaccountable whim, hurries ’em on like a man drunk with brandy before ten o clock in the morning.
-The Recruiting Officer, Act Four, Scene One (1706)
KITE: [T]he devil is a very modest person; he seeks no body unless they seek him first; he’s chain’d up like a mastiff, and can’t stir unless he be let loose.
-The Recruiting Officer, Act Four, Scene Two (1706)
Back to George Farquhar.
