duate and became an
actor, but owing to his accidental killing of another player he left
the stage and secured a commission in the army. He soon turned his
attention to the writing of plays, and was responsible in all for
eight comedies. He has left us some characters that are very humorous
and at the same time true to life, such as Scrub the servant in _The
Beaux' Stratagem_ and Sergeant Kite in _The Recruiting Officer_. His
Boniface, the landlord in the former of these two plays, has become
the type, as well as the ordinary quasi-facetious nickname, of an
innkeeper. He was advancing in his art, for his last comedy, _The
Beaux' Stratagem_ (1707), is undoubtedly his best, and had he lived
longer--he died before he was thirty--he might have bequeathed to
posterity something even more noteworthy. As Leigh Hunt says of him:
"He was becoming gayer and gayer, when death, in the shape of a sore
anxiety, called him away as if from a pleasant party, and left the
house ringing with his jest."

Southerne was also a student of Trinity College, Dublin. At the age
of eighteen, however, he left his _alma mater_, and went to London to
study law. This profession he in turn abandoned for the drama. His
first play, _The Persian Prince, or the Loyal Brother_, had
remarkable success when performed, and secured him an ensign's
commission in the army (1685). Here promotion came to him rapidly and
by 1688 he had risen to captain's rank. The Revolution of that year,
however, cut off all further hope of advancement, and he once more
turned his attention to the writing of plays. His productions number
ten. His tragedies _Isabella, or the Fatal Marriage_ (1694) and
_Oroonoko_ (1696), both founded on tales by Mrs. Aphra Behn, are
powerful presentations of human suffering. His comedies are amusing,
but gross. Southerne had business ability enough to make play-writing
pay, and the amounts he received for his productions fairly staggered
his friend Dryden. It is to this faculty that Pope alludes when he
says that Southerne was one whom

heaven sent down to raise
The price of prologues and of plays.

He was apparently of amiable and estimable character, for he secured
and retained the friendship not only of Dryden--a comparatively easy
matter--but also that of Pope, a much more difficult task. Known as
"the poets' Nestor", Southerne spent his declining years in peaceful
retirement and in the enjoyment of the fortune which he