This lively comedy was so successful that Tonson, in a fit of liberality, gave the author fifteen pounds, and a supplementary half crown for the copyright. The money was welcome; for, between having married, or rather being married by, a woman who pretended she had a large fortune, when she really had only a large amount of love for Farquhar, who was more attracted by the pretence than the reality; between this, his commission sold, his patrons indifferent, his family cares increasing, and his health declining, poor George was in sorry need, yet buoyant spirits. Critics foretold that this play would live for ever; but unfortunately it has been found impossible to separate the wit and the lively action from the more objectionable parts, and we may not expect to see its revival. Farquhar has drawn on his own experiences in the construction, and all the amiable people in the piece were transcripts of good Shrewsbury folk, whose names have been preserved. Farquhar immortalised the virtues of his hosts, and did not, like Foote, watch them at the tables at which he was a guest, to subsequently expose them to public ridicule. "Santlow, famed for dance," first bounded on to the stage during this season, and the heart of Mr. Secretary Craggs bounded in unison. Miss Younger, too, first trod the boards, March 1706, when about seven years old, as the Princess Elizabeth, in "Virtue Betrayed;" but, perhaps, the most notable circumstance of the year was, that the chapel in Russell Court was then building;[86] but it was under difficulties, to extricate it from which the Drury Lane company played "Hamlet," and handed over the handsome proceeds to the building committee! Vanbrugh's two comedies, the "Confederacy" and the "Mistake" (the latter still acted under the title of "Lovers' Quarrels"), Rowe's "Ulysses," the "Faithful General," by an anonymous young lady, a forgotten tragedy, the "Revolution of Sweden," by Mrs. Trotter, an equally forgotten comedy, "Adventures in Madrid," by fat Mrs. Pix, tragic, comic, and extravaganza operas, by Lansdown, Durfey, and others,--all this novelty, a fair company of actors, troops of dancers, and a company of vocalists with Dick Leveridge and Mrs. Tofts at the head of them, failed to render the often broken but prolonged season of 1705-6, which begun in Lincoln's Inn Fields, and terminated at the house in the Haymarket, profitable.