University of Virginia Library

The Mystery of Farquhar's Stage-Coach Reconsidered
by
Shirley Strum Kenny

George Farquhar's only farce, The Stage-Coach, generally recognized as singularly important in the early development of the afterpiece, has commonly been dated as first performed shortly before 2 February 1704 at Lincoln's Inn Fields, attributed to a collaboration between Farquhar and Peter Anthony Motteux, and reprinted, when at all, from the London 1705 edition. In 1932 W. J. Lawrence proposed a different chronology and theatrical history for the play: according to Lawrence, The Stage-Coach was first acted considerably earlier, before March 1702, and quite possibly appeared as an afterpiece to Farquhar's Sir Harry Wildair at Drury Lane in April 1701. The prologue and epilogue by Samuel Philips or Phillips, which Lawrence found printed in the 1775 edition of the Works edited by "Thomas Wilkes," he attributed to "some later benefit performance" of the ballad opera made from the farce and first performed in Dublin and London in 1730.[1] In his Bibliography of the Restoration Drama (1934), Montague Summers listed The Stage-Coach as opening at Drury Lane in 1701 (p. 20); The Cambridge Bibliography of English Literature (II, 753) set the opening at Lincoln's Inn Fields, circa the same year. For the most part, however, more recent theatrical historians, unconvinced, have continued to date the premiere shortly before 2 February 1704.[2]

No one has tried to unravel the complex textual problems presented by three distinct and unrelated texts found in the Dublin edition of 1704, the London one of 1705, and the text printed in the Dramatick Works of 1736. Indeed, no one has ever acknowledged that the textual problems beyond the

first two editions exist. Charles A. Stonehill, in his edition of The Works of George Farquhar (1930, repr. 1967) printed the London 1705 text; he listed variants from the Dublin edition, but never considered the possibility of its authenticity.

The intricacy of the problems of dating, authorship, textual authority, and the Phillips pieces, added to the absence of some seemingly essential bits of evidence, might well discourage inquiry. Nevertheless, solutions to at least some of the mysteries of The Stage-Coach indeed exist, shrouded in the cobwebs of theatrical and bibliographical history. In this paper I will show that (1) the play opened at Lincoln's Inn Fields sometime between fall 1700 and late February 1702; (2) the Dublin 1704 edition is most likely Farquhar's text, the London 1705 edition is not his, and the London 1735 edition is most probably taken from the Drury Lane promptbook; (3) Motteux was Farquhar's collaborator, but his contribution beyond the "Stage-Coach Song" and perhaps the translation of the French source is uncertain; (4) the Phillips prologue and epilogue date from a revival in the 1704-1705 season, perhaps on 16 October 1704.

I. The Date

Recent scholars have agreed that The Stage-Coach opened shortly before 2 February 1704, the date of the earliest extant advertisement. The Daily Courant on that day advertised it as "the last new Farce"; although this wording would not suggest a premiere, Leo Hughes points out it would indicate "pretty clearly that the performance was recent" (p. 82, n. 20). So one would ordinarily believe. But in this instance, other details give pause. First of all, even the advertisement cautions one against accepting the formulaic phrasing as proof of a recent premiere: "At the New Theatre in Lincoln's Inn Fields, Wed. Feb. 2—The Country Wit with an Addition of the last new Farce, call'd The Stage Coach. And several Entertainments of Danceing." John Crowne's Country Wit was an old chestnut, first performed in 1675; Lincoln's Inn Fields had tried it in September 1703 for the first time in five years, adding at that time "the last new Epilogue. . ." as well as a dialogue between Heraclitus Ridens and the Observator by way of Prologue. Obviously both performances, in a year of virulent struggle between the two companies, were revivals of an old favorite, embellished with anything that could easily be attached. The fact that The Stage-Coach was not deemed enough to guarantee an audience, that "several Entertainments of Danceing" were also required, would suggest that the farce was not new.

And indeed it was not. Clearly it predates Mary Pix's The Different Widows (premiere date unknown, but probably November 1703; published 4 December 1703). The prologue to that piece laments the lack of current taste for tragedy—even Monimia, the heroine of Otway's The Orphan, has not found an audience. Military men feel they've had enough tragedy in Flanders; at home they want laughter:

The prologue incontrovertibly refers to The Stage-Coach, for Nicodemus can be no one but Squire Nicodemus Somebody, the country booby who was the favorite character of the farce, the role consistently advertised in playbills. "Our Teague," that is, our stage Irishman, probably is Macahone of the same farce since the author seems to speak of a single farce, but it may have referred also to the original Teague in Sir Robert Howard's The Committee.[4] "An Irish farce" links the play to Farquhar in a way his contemporaries would immediately have understood; indeed the most notably Irish element of the play is its author, for Macahone has a relatively small role. The Stage-Coach, then, played at Lincoln's Inn Fields long enough before The Different Widows opened late in 1703 that its lure had "grown stale" and had to be supplemented by epilogues or other cordials, a situation that calls to mind the bill for 2 February 1704.

The prologue demonstrates as accurately as any in the period the desperate competition of the theaters, the increasing sense of siege and strife, and the resultant frantic attempt to win audiences by embellishing the program with dancing, singing, farces, new prologues and epilogues, any gimmick to attract an audience. More important, it demonstrates the Lincoln's Inn Fields company's continuing frustration over George Farquhar's unprecedented success with The Constant Couple at Drury Lane, which broke all performance records in 1699-1700 and held the record until The Beggar's Opera set a new one in 1728—the reference to Sir Harry Wildair would have required

no explanation. The term "Irish farce" became a code word for Farquhar's play, "farce" derogating his comedy, and "Irish" its author. His literary reputation suffered the ire aroused by his success, for jealous playwrights and critics (many of whom were failed playwrights) felt his success unjustified and even insulting to their own stage efforts. With considerable relish, they condemned Farquhar as a new MacFlecknoe, an Irish fool, a writer of farce. The prologuist cannot quite admit to admiration or even mere approval for the piece of Irish farce which tempted audiences to attend Lincoln's Inn Fields. When one's own efforts faced such struggles, one must have relished animosity toward a twenty-five-year-old Irishman who breezily conquered the playhouse.

Willard Connely and Eric Rothstein both cite Pix's prologue as evidence that The Stage-Coach opened in the fall of 1703,[5] but the trail winds further back. Given the conclusive evidence of Pix's reference to Nicodemus, one realizes that in the spate of prologues in 1703 against Irish farce, lines which seem venomous attacks on The Constant Couple several years after its first run also embrace The Stage-Coach, denigrating the former by categorizing it with the latter. One such prologue preceded John Oldmixon's The Governour of Cyprus, which opened at Lincoln's Inn Fields probably in December 1702 or early January 1703 and was published 13 January 1703:

The passage seems, at first glance, general—"Farce and Fustian"—but in the context of the day-to-day events of the theaters, it is specifically a reference to the Lincoln's Inn Fields production of The Stage-Coach. The lines become comprehensible only if one understands that Lincoln's Inn Fields ("we") as well as Drury Lane ("others") could fill the house by importing "a few Loose Characters" (Nicodemus, Macahone, Dolly, etc.) and a "Lucky Name" (Farquhar). The final quoted couplet, like the rest of the passage, shows the contempt, even hatred, that Oldmixon consistently expressed for his successful fellow playwright Farquhar.[6] But Lincoln's Inn Fields had attracted the best-drawing playwright of Drury Lane, and that feat was worthy of note; Oldmixon had grudgingly to admit the success of the ploy, if not the play. The Stage-Coach buoyed Lincoln's Inn Fields at a time when the theater could barely stay afloat. Three points should be noted: (1) Oldmixon, like the author of the prologue for The Different Widows, seems to have considered the famous Farquhar, not Motteux, author of the farce; (2) the date of the first performance must be pushed back at least another year; (3) the play must have been performed at Lincoln's Inn Fields, as the title-pages of the first two editions state, not at Drury Lane as Lawrence and Summers surmised.

In fact, the date must, I believe, be set at least another year earlier, sometime before late February 1702. The final evidence appears in Farquhar's own works, the prologue and preface to The Inconstant, a letter in Love and Business, and internal evidence in The Stage-Coach.

The Inconstant probably opened in February 1702; it was published 5 March 1702. The printed prologue,[7] written by Motteux, who assisted in The Stage-Coach, compares the theatrical bill to a bill of fare, a not uncommon metaphor in the period:

In the context of the prologue, the "Stage-Coach Fare" must refer to performances of the farce. The poem abounds in specific references to theatrical events, blended into the central metaphor of the feast, often with the help of puns. The Wild Fowl, for example, refers to Mirabel in Fletcher's The Wild Goose, adapted by Farquhar in the current production, The Inconstant. The Squeaker or Italian Capon was Signior Clementine, the famous eunuch, servant to the Elector of Bavaria, who was hired by Drury Lane in spring of 1699 at a reported salary of £500 a year. "Stage-Coach Fare" is another play on words; it can only indicate the farce. It is "slender" in two ways—both slight in size and slight in value, but when no better theatrical nourishment is available, the audience can "dispense with" it, that is, put up with it and make do. The Inconstant of course opened at Drury Lane; there must have been something of the delight of an "in-joke" in the slightly denigrating

reference made by Motteux to the other house's farce, in which he had a hand.

Farquhar includes in the preface to the play an enigmatic reference to Lincoln's Inn Fields ignored by Stonehill in the explanatory notes to his edition. The passage reads:

What does it mean? The sixth night must refer to the author's second benefit for The Inconstant, which ran six days consecutively, according to the preface. But how was Lincoln's Inn Fields civil on that occasion? Did the company, perhaps, run The Stage-Coach against Drury Lane's Inconstant? The passage seems to suggest that Farquhar gave the play to the new house to be presented anonymously, that in the preface he spoke of it jestingly and enigmatically, perhaps playing upon speculations about the authorship, as Motteux did in the prologue added for publication. Surely Farquhar laments the acidity of the theatrical warfare between the two houses—he seems also to regret the need to offer his farce anonymously. Still one cannot incontrovertibly prove the meaning of the intentionally puzzling passage, "for, to be Friends, and reveng'd at the same time, I must give them a Play, that is—when I write another." Does he, in fact, refer to a play already given to the new house? The possibility is certainly strong.

Farquhar also refers to The Stage-Coach in a letter published in his miscellany Love and Business, published 28 February 1702.[8] In a letter to the mysterious woman addressed in the collection, he writes on "Tuesday Morning, one Stocking on, and t'other off," lamenting the pangs of authorship in a punning, metaphorical manner:

The Stage-Coach which encroached upon his liberty was, of course, the farce he struggled to adapt. The jolting and jogging of the stagecoach is cursed in the farce and celebrated in Motteux's comical song, which is full of "Jogging," "Jolting," tumbling and jumbling until "up Tails all." The "Hack," a pun on the coach for hire, also refers of course to hireling writers, like Motteux, like Jean de la Chapelle, whose farce Les Carrosses d'Orléans was adapted, and perhaps like Farquhar seemed to himself in his labors to anglicize the farce. The effort of the adaptation was "killing" him—The Stage-Coach would finish him, hence would serve as his hearse—with puns of this witty, jocular sort, Farquhar filled the correspondence.

The dating of the correspondence reinforces other evidence about the date of the farce. Love and Business was published by Bernard Lintot on 28 February 1702, that is, within days or weeks of the premiere of The Inconstant; but in Lintot's memorandum book of "Copies when published," he entered a payment of £3/4/6 for Farquhar's "Letters and Poems," i.e. Love and Business, on 3 July 1701.[9] The only fully dated letters in the collection came from Holland in August and October 1700. The only dated love letter, one later in the collection than the reference to The Stage-Coach, is marked simply "Hague, October the 23d. New Stile," that is, 23 October 1700, when he was in Holland. The sequence of love letters must have been written over a period of time, probably in 1700. There is some speculation that the "Penelope" of the collection is Anne Oldfield, whom Farquhar had "discovered" in 1699 (Connely, pp. 86-87), another reason to believe 1700 a likely date. He requested the return of the correspondence because he had "promis'd to equip a Friend with a few Letters to help out a Collection for the Press"[10] probably before 3 July 1701 when Lintot paid him. Therefore, it seems likely that the letters were written in 1700 and that the farce, which encroached on his liberty, was written during the same period.

The text of the play offers one final clue to dating. The Dublin edition of 1704 contains the line "Come out here, I Charge you in the Kings Name?" As I shall show, Farquhar was probably the source of copy-text for this edition. In the 1705 London edition, the line reads, "Come out here. I charge you to come out, I am an Officer, What—won't you come out, in the Queens name. . . ." King William died 8 March 1702; the Dublin manuscript obviously predated his death.

The most likely conclusion, then, is that The Stage-Coach first played at Lincoln's Inn Fields either in the 1700-1701 season or by February of the 1701-1702 season; a multitude of data indicate it could not have opened later. Who, then, first performed the piece, and why was it not published soon after it opened as most plays were? We have no incontrovertible answers— speculation becomes a temptation. Clearly the cast listed in the 1705 London edition was not the original cast, for they could only have been assembled in the season of 1703-1704.[11] The Dublin edition does not even list a cast.

The scantiest theatrical information for any season in the eighteenth

century obscures the season of 1701-1702 (Avery I, 15), and 1700-1701 is little better, so lack of information about the opening is not surprising. What is surprising is the seeming anonymity of the play that was probably the first farce used as an afterpiece, an anonymity even more astonishing when one considers the popularity of its author. Would Broadway mount a Neil Simon piece anonymously?

II. The Texts

The unusual publication history of The Stage-Coach presents as many "mysteries" as its dating. The first quarto (Q1) was published in Dublin in 1704 with the imprint "Printed, and are to be Sold by the Booksellers," an imprint often used for unauthorized editions. The second quarto (Q2) was published in London by Benjamin Bragg on 3 or 4 May 1705.[12] Both stated the play was first acted at Lincoln's Inn Fields. Two editions appeared with the imprint "London, Printed in the Year 1709" (1709a, copy at the Folger Shakespeare Library, shelfmarked PR2823 1710b Sh. Col.; 1709b, copy at Harvard, shelfmarked EC75. Sh668. 750eb), in the year of a successful revival at Drury Lane, the theater noted on both title-pages. From 1709 Drury Lane was the theater noted on title-pages in London editions. Of these four early editions, only Q1 lists Farquhar as the author.

Curll published the farce in 1718 (1718) with the Phillips prologue and epilogue. Two Dublin editions appeared in 1719 (Du 1719) and 1728 (Du 1728), S. Powell for George Risk. In 1735 the farce was twice published in nearly identical printings for W. Feales (1735a, 1735b); at least one of these, perhaps copies of both, were included in the Dramatick Works of 1736. Unquestionably 1735b (copy in the British Library, shelfmarked 1507/424) was a second printing with 1735a as copy text.[13] Four more London editions were published within the century, in 1766, Lowndes (1766); 1772, Lowndes (1772), included in the tenth edition of the Works; 1775, Oxlade (1775); and 1778, Wenman (1778). In Dublin it appeared in the "operatic" version, that is, with

songs, issued by Wilson, Exshaw, and Bradley in 1761 (Du 1761), included in the "eighth" Dublin edition of the Works; and by Ewing in 1775 (Du 1775).

The most surprising single fact about the publication is that three distinct manuscripts underlay the printed editions, one used as printer's copy for Q1, one for Q2, and one for 1735a. None of these three texts derives from either of the others. Although Stonehill, the only modern editor to reprint the farce, collated only Q1 and Q2 and used Q2 as copy text without even discussing the reasons for his choice, each of these three editions must be studied to decide which should be considered authoritative or if, perhaps, all have some separate kind of authority. All other editions of intervening and later years were derived from these three important texts; none of the other editions is textually significant.

The relationship of the three underlying manuscripts to each other and to Farquhar and Motteux can be determined through a combination of biographical and bibliographical evidence. The biographical evidence indicates that Farquhar was in Dublin when Q1 appeared there as well as when Q2 was issued in London. Traditionally biographers have assumed that Farquhar took the manuscript of The Stage-Coach to his brother, a Dublin bookseller, on a visit in 1704 (Lawrence, p. 394; Connely, pp. 226-228). The story originates with Wilkes's biography in the Dublin Works of 1775:

In his recent study of "George Farquhar's Military Career," Robert John Jordan shows that Farquhar was indeed in Dublin, not "to see his friends" but on military duty, some time after 20 October 1704 when his regiment began arriving in Ireland and certainly after 23 March 1705 by which time the last seven companies of the regiment had come to Dublin.[14] Jordan estimates that the benefit performance of The Constant Couple, attended by the Duke of Ormonde, occurred between 15 November and 25 March; this period would have been the only time in 1704 in which the benefit could have taken place. It seems likely that Q1 was published during the same period late in 1704, that is, only a few months before Q2 was published in London on 3 or 4 May 1705. Farquhar's established presence in Dublin in 1704 and 1705, the fact that his brother was a bookseller in Dublin at the time, and his anonymity as author in the London edition render strikingly credible the possibility that he may have been the source of the Dublin edition rather than the London one; the usual skepticism about Dublin editions, particularly those issued "by the Booksellers" rather than under a specific imprint, seems inappropriate in this instance.

The biographical evidence which argues for authenticity of the Dublin manuscript also argues against Farquhar's involvement in the London publication, for he must have continued in Dublin at least until the end of July 1705. Although as Jordan points out "absenteeism among officers was a notorious feature of Queen Anne's army," there is no reason to believe Farquhar returned to London before 3-4 May, when Q2 appeared. His regiment stayed in Ireland throughout 1705 and took part in the annual encampment in late June and early July, the camp being a duty which officers did not risk missing. After that, Farquhar sat in judgment on a trooper on 27 July 1705 in Dublin Castle (Jordan, pp. 259-260). Since there is no evidence of his having come to London between the two verifiable stints in Dublin, one must conclude he was away during the time Q2 was in press. Furthermore, Farquhar was by this time consistently publishing with Lintot, probably the biggest dramatext entrepreneur of his day in London. Love and Business (28 February 1702), The Inconstant (Knapton, Strahan, and Lintot, 12 March 1702), The Twin Rivals (29 December 1702), The Recruiting Officer (25 April 1706), and The Beaux Stratagem (27 March 1707) were all issued under Lintot's imprint; Farquhar contracted with no other bookseller to publish plays during these years.[15] Again biography suggests skepticism about any connection between Farquhar and Q2.

The edition itself is sufficiently odd to cast doubts on its authenticity. First of all, although Q1 attributed the farce to Farquhar on the title-page, there is no byline in Q2, and yet Farquhar's name would certainly have drawn business. The edition appeared without any link to recent performances; the most recent one noted in The London Stage had occurred on 16 October 1704. It lists a cast that could only have appeared during the ten performances[16] in 1703-1704, that is, the previous season, because the actors were not all in the company in 1704-1705 or indeed in any other season. The piece is labelled a "Comedy" rather than a "Farce." It is elaborately divided into three acts. The sixteen pages of text in Q1 swell to thirty-nine pages in Q2, with large type and huge margins inflating the small four-penny farce into an acceptably long shilling comedy.[17]

Farquhar was in Dublin serving his Queen. The outdated cast list, neither the first nor the most recent performers of the farce, suggests the lack of a playhouse source for the manuscript. One is led, then, to suspect either coauthor Motteux or an interloper as the person who brought the manuscript, distinctly different from that followed in Q1, to Bragg for publication. Although the possibility of an unknown purveyor cannot be rejected entirely, circumstantial evidence, if not enough to convict Motteux, certainly makes

that "thrifty Cit" (Prologue, The Different Widows), a likely suspect. Three months earlier, in the Diverting Post for 20-27 January 1705, Bragg printed the "Mountebank Song" from Motteux's play Farewel Folly; or, the Younger the Wiser. On 6 February, he published The Amorous Miser: or, the Younger the Wiser anonymously. The play is considered an early draft or piracy of Farewel Folly, which played at Drury Lane 18 January 1705 but did not appear in print until 1707.[18] The similarity of circumstances, the song plus two "anonymous" plays, all connected with Motteux, printed within about three months for Bragg, leads one to strong suspicions that Motteux had a hand in bringing them into print.

Another reason to suspect the Frenchman is that although the two editions vary in ways that preclude any form of derivation from the same manuscript, some of the variants are either foolish compositorial misreadings of the manuscript or bad stabs at English colloquialisms. Although I have no information on the state of Motteux's familiarity with colloquialisms and perhaps give him less than his due, some Q2 expressions have a foreign flavor. For example, the phrase "Club this Matter" in Q1, meaning divide the bill of expenses, becomes "Curry this Club" in Q2, a reading that makes no sense. "But this is a rare time to quit Scores with him," that is, get even with him, in Q1 becomes in Q2 "but this is a rare time to kill Horses with him," an inexplicable line in the context. Such errors could derive from a misreading of a manuscript—"quit Scores" might well look like "kill Horses" in some hands. They could not, of course, derive from a printed version.

The dedication and epilogue further argue against Farquhar's hand in the publication, but they argue neither for nor against Motteux as Bragg's source. No prologue, epilogue, or dedication appears in Q1; all three items appear in Q2. The prologue borrows in part from Farquhar's epilogue to John Oldmixon's The Grove (1700), a plagiarism of which Farquhar as well as Motteux would have been capable. Farquhar did on occasion borrow from himself, although most of the borrowings are less conspicuous than this. Since he was not, I believe, given to plagiarizing other writers' works, someone else was probably responsible for borrowing the epilogue, almost verbatim, from the prologue to Thomas Goffe's The Careless Shepherdess, published in 1656. The lines of the epilogue at first reading seem deliciously rich in clues:

But the clues melt when one learns that the epilogue was a plagiarism and that these lines refer to a theatrical incident more than forty-five years earlier. Accidentals of the epilogue mirror the prologue in the 1656 edition of Goffe's play so closely that it is evident someone carefully copied the earlier text when the material was "stolen bodily," as Lawrence says (p. 392). Considering the frequency with which both Farquhar and Motteux scribbled prologues and epilogues for their own plays and others', one would expect neither to resort to plagiarism in this case.

The unsigned dedication to Samuel Bagshaw in Q2 is completely uncharacteristic of Farquhar, who never inclines toward the fulsome. Robert Newton Cunningham, however, finds it lacks "the extravagant flattery" characteristic of Motteux (p. 143). Lawrence points out that Farquhar signs his dedications and suggests it might be a publisher's dedication (pp. 394-395). Motteux also signs his, but no one signed this one. Statements in the Epistle Dedicatory are meaningless in terms of Farquhar:

Stonehill (II, 431) believes the passage fits The Twin Rivals, but it does not, for the author obviously refers to a specific attack not a play. And although Farquhar was indeed constantly "assaulted with the Ignorance of partial and prejudicial Readers" and critics, he was never one to complain about it. Furthermore, no one, myself included, has ever found evidence of the existence of a Samuel Bagshaw; he was surely no figure of importance. Finally, the dedication never reappears in any edition. The internal evidence then, like the biographical evidence, suggests that either Motteux provided Bragg with the manuscripts for The Stage-Coach and The Amorous Miser or Bragg managed to acquire them in some underhanded way. In any event, a manuscript, probably a rather messy one, was printer's copy, and Farquhar was not its source.

Of the two reprints in London in 1709, the first, 1709a, is a reprint of Q2, but the title-page says "As it was Acted at the Theatre-Royal in Drury Lane," and the cast list matches that of the playbill for 17 May 1709, the first recorded performance at Drury Lane. The second, 1709b, is a reprint of 1709a. Curll's London 1718 edition lists the same cast and theater, but it is a reprint of Q1, as are the Dublin editions of 1719 and 1728. It is, then, a surprise to discover in 1735a a third distinct text, the copy for which was neither Q1 nor Q2. This edition and 1735b, which derives from it and introduces a few variants, list no actors although the title-page notes "As it is Acted at the Theatre-Royal in Drury-Lane." They contain "Some Memoirs of Mr. George Farquhar," which had been published in the sixth edition of the works in 1728; however, no London edition of the Works or the Comedies before 1735 had included The Stage-Coach. One would expect in 1735a a reprint of an earlier edition of the farce, but such is not the case; 1735a agrees with Q1 in some readings, Q2 in others; but in still other variants it agrees with neither. For

instance, a stage direction in Q1 reads "Peeps in the Empty Purse and throws it down." Q2 substitutes "the Pot," for "the Empty Purse and"; 1735a reads "the empty Pot, and". Again, Q1 reads "see what your Uncle will say to you"; Q2, "odd you'll make a rare Wife, if you"; and 1735a "See what your Uncle will say to you! You'll make a rare Wife, faith, if you. . . ." Q1 reads "Whimbled", Q2 "dwindled", 1735a, probably accurately, "whindled". Q1 reads "I Charge you in the Kings Name?", Q2 "I charge you to come out, I am an Officer, What—won't you come out, in the Queens name,"; and 1735a "I charge ye come out: I'm an Officer, won't you come out in the King's Name?" The list could be extended at great length.

The notion of authorial or editorial revisions so long after Farquhar and Motteux died lacks credibility. Another manuscript was printer's copy. The most logical explanation is a playhouse copy, that of Drury Lane. The farce had played there fifty-five times by 1735, and it had first played there with some of the original cast. Between 1704 and 1735 it played only eight times at Lincoln's Inn Fields, according to available records, and the last of those performances was in 1720.

There is, of course, no absolute proof that the playhouse copy was the source for 1735a, but no other explanation makes any sense. Furthermore, the copy must have been a manuscript used at Drury Lane, for it was neither Q1 nor Q2. The possibility of a playhouse copy seems extremely probable also because editions of plays in the early 1730's under Feales's imprint seem to have had a close relationship to the theater. Others of Farquhar's plays were revised for the Dramatick Works of 1736 or other editions of the same period (1728-1735) according to the promptbook—the best example, perhaps, is the exclusion of a scene in The Beaux Stratagem, probably cut during or immediately after the first season. Professor Leo Hughes has told me that he has found Feales's editions of this period anticipating Bell's later editions. It is extremely likely, then, that 1735a reflects what played at Drury Lane, probably from the earliest performances there in 1709 (although the text reads "King's Name" again, not "Queens name"). The text must be considered of far more importance than one would usually give a text published twenty-eight years after the author's death. Farquhar had died in 1707, but his relationship with Drury Lane and particularly with actor Robert Wilks was so close that one suspects the manuscript probably came from him or his widow.

Why did the farce not appear in the earlier editions of the Comedies and Works? Doubtless for the simple reason that neither Lintot nor his associates in the collected editions owned the copyright. The first edition of the Comedies appeared 27 March 1708,[19] after Farquhar's death. Lintot made appropriate arrangements for all seven full-length comedies (he owned the rights on four of them). Whether it was possible to buy rights to The Stage-Coach or whether Lintot even knew it was part of the canon we cannot know. Its copyright, however, expired 10 April 1731 according to the Copyright Act

of 1710. When the Dramatick Works of 1736 appeared, The Stage-Coach was included for the first time, its copyright now expired.

No later editions are textually significant. Curll's edition of 1718 and all the Dublin editions derive from Q1; the two editions of 1709 derive from Q2; and the other London editions (1735b, 1766, 1772, 1775, 1778) from 1735a. The play was called a farce in Q1 and the London editions of 1735, 1766, 1772, and 1775; a comedy in Q2 and 1709a, 1709b, 1718, Du 1719, and Du 1728; and an opera in Du 1761 and Du 1775. Three sets of memoirs appear with the farce: (1) one which begins "Mr. George Farquhar was a Gentleman by Birth. . . ." and does not discuss The Stage-Coach, in 1718, Du 1719, and Du 1728; (2) one which begins "'Tis observ'd that the World. . . ." and says Farquhar assisted Motteux in The Stage-Coach, in 1735 as well as the sixth edition of the Works in 1728 and several subsequent editions of the Works; (3) one that begins "Mr. Farquhar, an ingenious Writer and Poet, . . ." and says he was "jointly concerned with another" in composition of The Stage-Coach, in 1766 and 1775.

III. Authorship

Scholars have generally believed The Stage-Coach was a collaborative effort between Farquhar and Motteux, although they have usually attributed most of the work to Farquhar. Although three editions of the farce were published without Farquhar's byline (Q2, 1709a, 1709b), Motteux's name never appeared in an edition. The first reference to Motteux as collaborator appeared in a memoir published with the sixth edition of Farquhar's works in London in 1728 and reprinted in the next three editions of the Works (1736, 1742, 1760) and the sixth Dublin edition of the Poems, Letters, and Essays. This memoir claims Farquhar "assisted Mr. Motteux" in the composition. Thomas Whincop says Farquhar wrote "a great Part" of it, Motteux the rest.[20] The Biographia Dramatica says he was assisted in it by Motteux.[21] The first reference to the collaboration, then, occurred more than a quarter of a century after the premiere, twenty-one years after Farquhar died, and ten years after Motteux was murdered.

Barring reliable contemporary evidence of collaboration, one must look toward internal evidence and bibliographical clues of a collaborative effort. Some scholars have suggested that Motteux was responsible for the original translation from La Chapelle's Les Carrosses d'Orléans; Rothstein points out that he was a Frenchman noted for his talents at translation, and he was living in France in 1681 when La Chapelle's farce opened.[22] A translation by Motteux seems a likely possibility although Farquhar probably would not

have needed a translator, and he did not follow the original very closely anyway. The finished product owed relatively little to Les Carrosses d'Orléans other than the concept of farce via stage-coach travel plus the usual love triangle. Even the passengers are different, and, from the first, lines are loosely translated, double entendre supplied, etc. Both plot and dialogue are very far from La Chapelle's original; the play is an English farce, not merely a translation.

The "Stage-Coach Song" provides stronger grounds for tapping Motteux as a collaborator: the song's short lines, jingling rhythms, and feminine rhymes are entirely consistent with his style in other songs:

For example, the "Mountebank Song" is similar in form: Farquhar never wrote songs of this sort; "The Trifle" is instead witty and satirical, and he also wrote love songs and a few humorous ones such as drinking songs. But such jogging tunes were a kind of trademark of the indefatigable Frenchman.

Other details characteristic of Motteux also suggest he may well have participated. For example, at the bottom of the page of Dramatis Personae is noted "the Time of Action the same with that of Representation." Notations of the duration of a play's action occur in none of Farquhar's other plays, and they are not usual practice. However, they occur in the same place in five of Motteux's plays and operas.[23] Q2 has the flavor of the French scenic structure: nineteen of the twenty-five entrances begin a new page of the text, as the French divide plays into scenes according to entrances, even though the placement makes for oddly sized pages and no continuity in foremat, as a result. For example, page 10, with seven lines of dialogue, is followed by page 11, with twenty-three; page 32, with twenty-four lines of dialogue, is followed by page 33 with fifteen.

These mechanical peculiarities, like the biographical facts and publication

history, strongly suggest that Motteux was involved, but except for the song, nothing in the play suggests to which author it should be attributed. Farquhar's humorous suffering in Love and Business ("now I'm a dead Man, and the Stage-Coach may most properly be call'd my Herse, . . . .") suggests he was the major author. Rothstein's belief that Motteux was translator and songwriter is altogether plausible, but the exact nature and extent of the collaboration remains a mystery.

IV. The Phillips Prologue and Epilogue

The prologue and epilogue written by Samuel Phillips or Philips has been a source of great confusion. Stonehill discovered the prologue and epilogue in Du 1775 and dubbed it a "mystery." Lawrence believed he had solved the mystery when he realized "Thomas Wilkes," the editor of the 1775 Dublin edition, had printed the text of the ballad opera made from the farce by "John Chetwood" (probably William Rufus Chetwood, the prompter) in 1730 and acted at Drury Lane for his benefit. Phillips' prologue and epilogue, Lawrence concluded, were written for this occasion and benefitted Chetwood rather than Farquhar.

In fact, the new prologue and epilogue were printed long before 1775; they appeared in 1718, Du 1719, Du 1728, and Du 1761. The new prologue was, as the text says, "Spoken upon the Revival of this Comedy, at the Theatre in Lincolns-Inn-Fields, some Years since, when acted for the Benefit of the Author," not in 1730 but probably in 1704.

Samuel Phillips, a few years Farquhar's junior, probably came to London in 1704. He had matriculated at St. John's College, Oxford, on 30 June 1703, at the age of eighteen; within a year, he had managed to get himself expelled from his fellowship and his university.[24] He must have returned to London very soon thereafter. It seems likely, in fact, that he is the Phillips who briefly turned actor in the summer of 1704. On 7 July Drury Lane gave a performance of The Orphan, "The men's roles by young Gentlemen for their Diversion." A Phillips played Chamont "amongst the Oxford gentlemen" in that production and on 16 August played Bellamour in The Miser. The latter was a benefit for this Phillips from Oxford, who also spoke a new prologue to the town (Avery, I, 70, 72). By January 1705 Phillips had become a regular contributor to the Diverting Post,[25] Bragg's periodical. Phillips also

contributed to the Poetical Courant, as did Farquhar, in 1706, and he published Miscellanea Sacra, advertised in January and February 1706 in the Diverting Post but published with the date 1705. There are few recorded performances of The Stage-Coach in these years although it must have played frequently; 2 February 1704 and 16 October 1704 are the only ones at Lincoln's Inn Fields, which still did not advertise regularly. The play was also performed at the Queen's Theatre 16 November 1705, 14 April 1707, and 26 May 1707. The references in the prologue to the condition of the "once-lov'd stage" indicates a performance at Lincoln's Inn Fields: Phillips' discussion of the theater as "some abandon'd mistress of the town, | By long enjoyment stale and nauseous grown," echoes many prologues spoken in 1700-1704 at Lincoln's Inn Fields. The reference to Monimia repeats the sentiment in the prologue to The Different Widows in November 1703 and may refer to the same neglected performance of Otway's The Orphan at Lincoln's Inn Fields. (The performance in which Phillips played was at Drury Lane.) Phillips says Lincoln's Inn Fields "ransack'd the whole globe to find out new" entertainment for the fickle audiences; in 1702-1703 the company had imported Signora Margarita de l'Epine, the famous singer, as well as Signora Maria Margarita Gallia, and L'Abbe to dance. By 1704-1705 the desperate haranguing of audiences at Lincoln's Inn Fields began to subside, as the plans for the new Queen's Theatre in the Haymarket were being realized. Phillips' prologue, therefore, would necessarily have predated the opening of the Queen's Theatre on 9 April 1705, for when the company moved there, the sentiments he expressed became obsolete.

The conjunction of facts would suggest that Phillips arrived in London in the summer of 1704, performed Chamont at Drury Lane that summer, and wrote the prologue for Lincoln's Inn Fields perhaps for 16 October 1704 or for an unrecorded performance. Although the prologue is captioned "Spoken upon the Revival of this Comedy, at the Theatre in Lincolns-Inn-Fields some Years since, when acted for the Benefit of the Author," there is no evidence in The London Stage that Farquhar received a benefit on 16 October or any other night; however, his military chronology allows for the fact that he may well have been in London on that date. It is possible, on the other hand, that when the prologue was published fourteen years later, the printer assumed it was a benefit because Phillips asked the audience to "spare | The halfstarv'd poet, tho' you damn the player."

This paper is entitled "The Mystery of Farquhar's Stage-Coach Reconsidered" rather than "Solved" because the solution of old mysteries in fact introduces new ones that will probably never be solved. The most intriguing of the new enigmas is why the production and publication of the farce in London was anonymous, hints strewn hither and yon but no open admissions of authorship anywhere. There is no evidence that Farquhar or anyone else had a contract to write for a single house; why then should Lincoln's Inn Fields and Bragg not have taken full advantage of their popular author? Why did Farquhar fail to give the farce to Lintot? Another puzzle is how Curll

acquired Phillips' prologue and epilogue for his edition. The cast list he published is that of Drury Lane in 1716-1717 or 1717-1718,[26] and yet he has a copy of the prologue and epilogue at the other house twelve or thirteen years earlier. What is the connection of 1718 with Du 1719 and the Dublin editions that followed? The text links 1718 to Q1 as well as the other Dublin editions, yet the prologue and epilogue apparently originated in 1718, not a Dublin edition as one would expect (unless a Dublin edition was printed between 1704 and 1719), so that Du 1719 seems to have derived from 1718 rather than Q1. What was the relationship and division of duties between Motteux and Farquhar? Did Motteux write more than is apparent, and if so, why did Farquhar complain in his correspondence about so light a writing task? And what exactly were the relationships between the authors and booksellers that collaborated on the publication of plays and periodicals at the time The Stage-Coach was printed? What was the connection of Curll and Feales with Drury Lane later? If the new enigmas are as fascinating as the old ones, they are less capable of proof. Editions, theatrical history, and biographical details will only render facts, not motivations or even unrecorded business and personal relations.

Notes