llants and mistresses in plays and
novels--unfortunately, with the same short memories too! Authors, and
some who do not generally deal in wonders, often make persons, the most
tenderly attached to each other, so easily forget the shape, the air,
the every feature of the dear beloved, as to pass, after a few years
separation, whole days together, without the least conjecture that each
is the very object of the other's search! Whilst all this surprising
forgetfulness possesses them, as to the figure, face, and mind of him or
her whom they still adore, show either of them but a ring, a bracelet,
a mole, a scar, and here remembrance instantly occupies its place,
and both are immediately inspired with every sensation which first
testified their mutual passion. Still the sober critic must arraign the
strength of this love with the shortness of its recollection; and charge
the renewal of affection for objects that no longer appear the same, to
fickleness rather than to constancy.

The biographers of Farquhar, who differ in some articles concerning him,
all agree that he was married, in the year 1704, to a lady, who was so
violently in love with him, that, despairing to win him by her own
attractions, she contrived a vast scheme of imposition, by which she
allured him into wedlock, with the full conviction that he had married a
woman of immense fortune.

The same biographers all bestow the highest praise upon poor Farquhar
for having treated this wife with kindness; humanely forgiving the fault
which had deprived him of that liberty he was known peculiarly to prize,
and reduced him to the utmost poverty, in order to support her and her
children.

This woman, whose pretended love was of such fatal import to its object,
not long enjoyed her selfish happiness--her husband's health gradually
declined, and he died four years after his marriage. It is related that
he met death with fortitude and cheerfulness. He could scarcely do
otherwise, when life had become a burden to him. He had, however, some
objects of affection to leave behind, as appears by the following
letter, which he wrote a few days before his decease, and directed to
his friend Wilks:--

"DEAR BOB,

"I have not any thing to leave you to perpetuate my memory, except two
helpless girls; look upon them sometimes, and think of him that was, to
the last moment of his life, thine,

"GEORGE FARQUHAR."

Wilks prote