Excerpt from The Beaux-Stratagem An empty purse may cramp your genius, I desire you to ace, my mite; here is twenty guineas.' Farquhar set to work, an brought the plot of his play to Wilks the next day; the latte: approved the design, and urged him to proceed without delay. Mostly written in bed, the whole was begun, finished, and acted within six weeks. The author designed to dedicate it to Lord Cadogan, but his lordship, for reasons unknown, declined the honour he gave the dramatist a handsome present, however. Thus was Tbe Bmtratagem written. Farquhar is said to have felt the approaches of death ere he finished the second act. On the night of the first performance Wilks came to tell him of his great success, but mentioned that Mrs. Oldfield wished that he could have thought of some more legitimate divorce in order to secure the honour of Mrs. Sullen. Oh, ' said Farquhar, I will, if she pleases, solve that im mediately, by getting a real divorce marrying her myself, and giving her my bond that she shall be a widow in less than a fortnight! Subsequent events practically fulfilled this pre diction, for Farquhar died during the run of the play: on the day of his extra benefit, Tuesday, 29th April 1707, the plaudits of the audience resounding in his ears, the destitute, broken. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.