Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 9.djvu/50

 40 F A R F A R by a certain Grim Kamban in the time of Harold Haar- fager ; and Christianity was introduced by Sigmund Bres- tersou at the command of Olaf Tryggvason. They are said to derive their present name from the number of sheep (faar); in the Middle Ages they were known by the name of Fries- land, which was corrupted by the Arabian geographers into Reslanda. English adventurers gave great trouble to the inhabitants in the 16th century, and the name of Magnus Heiresen, a native of Stromo, who was sent by Frederick II. to clear the seas, is still celebrated in many a song and story. There was formerly a bishopric at Kirkebo, but it was abolished at the introduction of Protestantism by Christian III., and the islands are now ecclesiastically dependent on the bishopric of Zealand. The kingdom of Denmark retained possession of the Faroes at the peace of Kiel in 1815, though they had originally belonged to Norway. The language of the people is a remnant of the Old Norse, but that of the courts, churches, and schools is the modern Danish. The statement that there is no native literature is a mistake : not to speak of the famous Fcerey- inga Saga, which was published by Rufn and Mohnike at Copenhagen in 1833, the botanist H. C. Lyngbye, who visited the islands for the study of their Algae, brought back and published in 1822 a number of the popular songs about Sigurd, and a new treatment of the same theme appeared at Paderborn in 1877. Literature. Lucas Jacobson Debes, Feroa Rcscrata, Copenhagen, 1673 (English translation by Slerpin, London, 1675, German by Mengel, Copenhagen, 1757); Torfieus, Comm. hist, de rebus gcst is Fcereyensium, ibid. 1695 ; Landt, Beskrivelse over Fdrocrne, 1800, and Descriptions of the Feroc Islands, London, 1810 ; An account of their geology and mineralogy, by Sir G. S. Mackenzie and Thomas Allen, in the Trails. of the Roy. Soc. of Edinburgh, vol. vii. ; Pauly, Topog. von Ddnnemarck cinschlicsslich Islands und der Faroer, Altona, 1828 ; Forchhammer in The Transactions of the Danish Royal Society; R. Chambers, Faro Islands and Iceland, 1856; K. Maurer, &quot;Die Faroer&quot; in Westermann s Illust. Monatsheftcn, Brunswick, 1862 ; A. J. Symington, Pen and Pencil Sketches of Faroe and Iceland, London, 1862; Tennant in Journal of Scottish Meteorol. Soc., 1871 ; Willemoes Siihm in Nature, 1872; G. A. Richter, &quot;Die Faroer und Thorshavn,&quot; in A us Allen Wdttheilcn, 1874 ; Sjurthar Kraeth, Die ftiroischen Lieder von Sigurd zum erstenmal mit Einleit. &c., Paderborn, 1877. FARQUHAR, GEORGE (1678-1707), a dramatist of the last century, the successor in comedy of Wycherley and Con- greve, was the son of a clergyman, and was born in London derry, Ireland, in the year 1678. In his sixteenth year he was sent to Trinity College, Dublin, under the patronage of the bishop of Dromore. He was entered as a sizar or servitor, a class of poor scholars, who were compelled to wear a peculiar dress and perform menial offices. These are no longer exacted from their successors, but Goldsmith, sixty years after the date of Farquhar s admission, had to submit to the humiliations incident to the position of a sizer to sweep part of the college courts, to carry up the fellows dinner to table, and to wait in the hall till the fellows had dined. It certainly implied a contradiction, as Goldsmith observed, for men to be &quot; at once learning the liberal arts, and at the same time treated as slaves,&quot; and neither in the case of Farquhar nor of Goldsmith was the system attended with favourable results. The former soon broke away from his studies, and appeared as an actor on the Dublin stage. He had the advantage of a good person, though with a weak voice, but was timid and sensitive, and an accident which happened to him when he had only been about a twelvemonth on the boards made him resolve to quit the profession. When performing the part of Guyomar in Dry den s Indian Emperor he had omitted to exchange his sword for a foil, and in a fencing scene wounded a brother performer so severely that his life was despaired of. The sufferer recovered, but Farquhar would never again return to the stage. The earl of Orrery gave him a lieutenancy in hn regiment then in Ireland, and as a soldier Farquhar is said to have given proofs of his courage and conduct, though none are recorded. We have two letters written by him in Holland in 1700, but in these he says nothing of military service. While yet a minor he appeared as a dramatist. His comedy of Love and a Bottle was performed at Drury Lane in 1698, and its success far exceeded his expectations. His next comedy, The Constant Couple (1700), was still more favourably received. Wilks, a popular comedian and a special friend of Farquhar s (they had been associates in Dublin), by his performance of the part of Sir Harry Wildair contributed very much to the success of the play. &quot; He made the part,&quot; says Farquhar. i In the following year the dramatist brought out a sequel i to it, entitled Sir Harry Wildair. Wilks s acting was
 * again attractive, but like all continuations (that of Don

I Quixote excepted) the second part was much inferior to the I first. Leigh Hunt has stated that Mrs Oldfield, like Wilks, was not the original heroine (Lady Lurewell). The part I was acted by Mrs Yerbruggen. Mrs Oldfield performed in, the two last and best of Farquhar s seven comedies, and is said to have taken to the stage by his advice. She was the theatrical idol the Mrs Jordan of her day. Her exqui- I site acting and lady-like carriage were the delight of her contemporaries, and her beauty, her vanity, and her gener osity found innumerable eulogists &quot; Engaging Oldfield, who, with grace and ease, Could join the arts to ruin and to please.&quot; 1 In 1702 Farquhar published a trifling volume of Miscel lanies poems, letters, and a discourse on comedy. The poems are below mediocrity, and the letters are written in that overstrained style of gallantry and smartness which was then fashionable and considered witty. In one letter he gives a lady a picture of himself &quot; drawn from the life.&quot; His mind, he says, was generally dressed, like his person, in black ; he was taken for an easy-natured man by his own sex, and an ill-natured clown by the ladies ; strangers had a worse opinion of him than he deserved, but this was recompensed by the opinion of his acquaintance, which was above his desert. Self-portraiture is seldom faithful, but we may conclude from Farquhar s outline, that the young dramatist was somewhat grave and reserved, and wanted address for general society. He was liveliest with the pen in his hand. The discourse on comedy is more worthy of the author than his poems or letters. In it he defends the English disregard of the dramatic unities. &quot; The rules of English comedy,&quot; he says, &quot; don t lie in the compass of Aristotle or his followers, but in the pit, box, and galleries.&quot; In 1703 Farquhar had another comedy on the stage The Inconstant, or the ivay to icin him the hint of which he says, he took from Fletcher s Wild Goose Chase, but was charged with spoiling the original. The poetry of Fletcher certainly evaporates when its scenes are transmuted into the prose dialogue of Farquhar. About this time the dramatist was betrayed into what was perhaps the greatest blunder of his life. A lady conceived a violent passion for him, and, though penni less like himself, contrived to circulate a report that she was possessed of a large fortune. Farquhar snapped at the gilded bait. He married the lady, and found too late that he had been deceived. It is related, however, that he had the magnanimity to pardon a deception which must 1 Pope Sober Advice from Horace. It was to this fascinating actress that the satirist alluded as the lady who detested being buried in woollen, and said to her attendant &quot; One would not sure be frightful when one s dead And Betty give this cheek a little red.&quot; She was only forty-seven when she died, leaving all the court and half the town in tears.
 * performed to admiration in this piece, but Mrs Oldfield