



Produced by David Widger





THE BEAUX-STRATAGEM

By George Farquhar


     'He was a delightful writer, and one to whom
     I should sooner recur for relaxation and
     entertainment and without after-cloying and disgust,
     than any of the school of which he may be said
     to have been the last The Beaux-Stratagem
     reads quite as well as it acts: it has life,
     movement, wit, humour, sweet nature and sweet
     temper from beginning to end.'
     CHARLES COWDEN CLARKE




PREFACE

_The Author_. 'It is surprising,' says Mr. Percy Fitzgerald,
'how much English Comedy owes to Irishmen.' Nearly fifty
years ago Calcraft enumerated eighty-seven Irish dramatists in
a by no means exhaustive list, including Cong