Sir George Etherege, 1635(?)–1691. Born, 1635(?). Perhaps educated at Cambridge, and subsequently at one of the Inns of Court. Comedy, “The Comical Revenge,” produced at Lincoln’s Inn Fields Theatre, 1664; other plays, 1667–76. Knighted, about 1680(?). Married about same time. To Hague on diplomatic mission, 1684(?); at Ratisbon, 1685–88. To Paris; died there, 1691. Works: “The Comical Revenge,” 1664; “She Wou’d if She Cou’d,” 1667; “The Man of Mode,” 1676. Collected Works: 1704; ed. by A. W. Verity, 1888.

Personal

  Nature, you know, intended me for an idle fellow, and gave me passions and qualities fit for that blessed calling, but fortune has made a changeling of me, and necessity now forces me to set up for a fop of business.

  Sir George Etherege was as thorough a fop as ever I saw; he was exactly his own Sir Fopling Flutter. And yet he designed Dorimant, the genteel rake of wit, for his own picture.

  In the words of Oldys, Sir George Etherege was “a man of much courtesy and delicate address.” Profligacy, sprightliness, and good humour, seem to have been his principal characteristics. In person he is described as a “fair, slender, and genteel man,” and his face is said to have been handsome. In later times, however, his comeliness is reported to have been spoiled by the effect of intemperance and the exceeding irregularity of his career.

  There seems no clue whatever to the date of his death, except that in an anonymous pamphlet, written by John Dennis, and printed in 1722, Etheredge is spoken of as having been dead “nearly thirty years.” Dennis was over thirty at the Revolution, and is as trustworthy an authority as we could wish for. By this it would seem that Etheredge died about 1693, nearer the age of sixty than fifty. But Colonel Chester found the record of administration to the estate of a Dame Mary Etheredge, widow, dated Feb. 1, 1692. As we know of no other knight of the name, except Sir James Etheredge, who died in 1736, this was probably the poet’s relict; and it may yet appear that he died in 1691. He was a short, brisk man, with a quantity of fair hair, and a fine complexion, which he spoiled by drinking. He left no children, but his brother, who long survived him, left a daughter, who is said to have married Aaron Hill.

General

  George Etheridge a Comical writer of the present age, whose two Comedies, “Love in a Tub,” and “She would if she could,” for pleasant wit and no bad Oeconomy are judged not unworthy the applause they have met with.

  A Gentleman sufficiently eminent in the Town for his Wit and Parts, and One whose tallent in sound Sence, and the Knowledge of true Wit and Humour, are sufficiently conspicuous…. “Comical Revenge.”… This Comedy tho’ of a mixt nature, part of it being serious, and writ in Heroick Verse; yet has succeeded admirably on the Stage, it having always been acted with general approbation. “Man of Mode, or Sir Fopling Flutter.”… This Play is written with great Art and Judgment, and is acknowledg’d by all, to be as true Comedy, and the Characters as well drawn to the Life, as any Play that has been Acted since the Restauration of the English Stage…. “She wou’d if she cou’d.”… This Comedy is likewise accounted one of the first Rank, by several who are known to be good Judges of Dramatick Poesy. Nay our present Laureat says, ’Tis the best Comedy written since the Restauration of the Stage. I heartily wish for the publick satisfaction, that this great Master would oblidge the World with more of his Performances, which would put a stop to the crude and indigested Plays, which for want of better, cumber the Stage.

  The standard of thy style let Etheredge be.

  This expedient to supply the deficiencies of wit, has been used more or less by most of the authors who have succeeded on the stage: though I know but one who has professedly writ a play upon the basis of the desire of multiplying our species, and that is the polite Sir George Etheridge; if I understand what the lady would be at, in the play called “She would if She could.” Other poets have, here and there, given an intimation that there is this design, under all the disguises and affectations which a lady may put on: but no author except this, has made sure work of it, and put the imaginations of the audience upon this one purpose, from the beginning to the end of the comedy. It has always fared accordingly; for whether it be that all who go to this piece would if they could, or that the innocents go to it, to guess only what she would if she could, the play has always been well received.

  He seems to have possessed a sprightly genius, to have had an excellent turn for comedy, and very happy in a courtly dialogue. We have no proof of his being a scholar, and was rather born, than made a poet. He has not escaped the censure of the critics; for his works are so extremely loose and licentious, as to render them dangerous to young, unguarded minds: and on this account our witty author is, indeed, justly liable to the severest censure of the virtuous, and sober part of mankind.

  Lastly, that I may leave the reader in better humour with the name at the head of this article, I shall quote one scene from Etherege’s “Love in a Tub,” which for exquisite, genuine, original humour, is worth all the rest of his plays, though two or three of his witty contemporaries were thrown in among them, as a make weight.

  I have only to add a few words respecting the dramatic writers about this time, before we arrive at the golden period of our comedy. Those of Etherege are good for nothing, except “The Man of Mode, or Sir Fopling Flutter,” which is, I think, a more exquisite and airy picture of the manners of that age than any other extant. Sir Fopling himself is an inimitable coxcomb, but pleasant withal. He is a suit of clothes personified. Doriman (supposed to be Lord Rochester) is the genius of grace, gallantry and gaiety. The women in this courtly play have very much the look and air (but something more demure and significant) of Sir Peter Lely’s beauties. Harriet, the mistress of Dorimant, who “tames his wild heart to her loving hand,” is the flower of the piece. Her natural, untutored grace and spirit, her meeting with Dorimant in the Park, bowing and mimicking him, and the luxuriant description which is given of her fine person, altogether form one of the chefs-d’œuvre of dramatic painting. I should think this comedy would hear reviving; and if Mr. Liston were to play Sir Fopling, the part would shine out with double lustre, “like the morn risen on mid-noon.”

  George Etheredge first distinguished himself among the libertine wits of the age by his “Comical Revenge, or Love in a Tub.” He afterwards gained a more deserved distinction in the comic drama by his “Man of Mode, or Sir Fopling Flutter,” a character which has been the model of all succeeding stage petits-maîtres.

  Etheredge is the first to set the example of imitative comedy in his “Man of Fashion.”

  Etheredge’s comedies possess, in their chronological progression, both importance and interest, as furnishing early—probably the earliest—examples of a style of comic dialogue which was of natural growth and which owed much less than might at first be supposed to French examples…. He wrote as a man of the world for men and women of the world, who flocked to his plays to see themselves in his comic mirror, and pointed the way to the style of English comedy, of which Congreve afterwards shone as the acknowledged master. Of characterisation few traces are perceptible in Etheredge’s comedies; and in this respect too he anticipated Congreve.

  According to all the bibliographers, old and new, Etheredge’s first play was “She Would if She Could,” 1668, immediately followed by “The Comical Revenge,” first printed in 1669. If this were the case, the claim of Etheredge to critical attention would be comparatively small. Oldys, however, mentions that he had heard of, but never seen, an edition of this latter play of 1664. Neither Langbaine, Gildon, or any of their successors believe in the existence of such a quarto, nor is a copy to be found in the British Museum. However, I have been so fortunate as to pick up two copies of this mythical quarto of 1664, the main issue of which I suppose to have been destroyed by some one of the many accidents that befell London in that decade, and Etheredge’s precedence of all his more eminent comic contemporaries is thus secured. The importance of this date, 1664, is rendered still more evident when we consider that it constitutes a claim for its author for originality in two distinct kinds. “The Comical Revenge, or Love in a Tub,” which was acted at the Duke of York’s Theatre in Lincoln’s Inn Fields, in the summer of 1664, is a tragi-comedy, of which the serious portions are entirely written in rhymed heroics, and the comic portions in prose…. The serious portion of “The Comical Revenge” is not worth considering in comparison with the value of the prose part. In the underplot, the gay, realistic scenes which give the play its sub-title of the “Tale of a Tub,” Etheredge virtually founded English comedy, as it was successively understood by Congreve, Goldsmith, and Sheridan.

  Etheredge was clever in catching the fashions of the day; but the vivacity which won popularity for his plays has long evaporated.

  Sir George Etheredge is neither an edifying nor an attractive writer of comedy, but his plays are of considerable historical importance as prototypes of the comedy of manners afterwards so brilliantly developed by Congreve. They are “Love in a Tub” (1664), “She Would if She Could” (1668), and “The Man of Mode” (1676). The last is celebrated for the character of Sir Fopling Flutter, who is said to have been the image of the author, though it is added on the same authority that his intention had been to depict himself in the character of the heartless rake Dorimant, whom others took for Rochester. All the plays suffer from a deficiency of plot, a deficiency of wit, and a superfluity of naughtiness, but cannot be denied to possess a light airy grace, and to have imbibed something of the manner, though little of the humour, of Molière.