A greater dramatist than he died this season in a blaze of triumph from the stage, under the dull cloud of poverty at home--George Farquhar. His joyous "Beaux' Stratagem," first played on the 8th of March 1707, was written in six painful weeks. Tonson gave him £30 for the right of printing, and this, with what he received from the managers, solaced the last weeks of the life of the ex-captain, who had sold his commission, and had been deluded by a patron who had promised to obtain preferment for him. Farquhar had lost everything, but sense of pain and flow of spirits. He died in April 1707, while the public were being enchanted by his comedy, so rich in delineation of character and in variety of incident. It was thus cast: Aimwell, Mills; Archer, Wilks; Scrub, Norris; Foigard, Bowen (then newly come from Ireland);[89] Boniface, Bullock; Sullen, Verbruggen (his last original character; the stage was thoughtful of his orphan children as it was of those of Farquhar); Gibbet, Cibber; Count Bellair, Bowman; Sir Charles Freeman, Keen; Lady Bountiful, Mrs. Powell; Mrs. Sullen, Mrs. Oldfield; Cherry, Mrs. Bicknell; Dorinda, Mrs. Bradshaw. This piece was the great glory of the Haymarket season, 1706-7. The season of 1707-8 was the last for a time of the two opposing houses, and it requires but a brief notice. Powell at Drury Lane was weak as leading tragedian against Betterton at the Haymarket, and Rich, the manager, produced no new piece. At the rival house the only novelties were Cibber's adaptations of two or three forgotten plays, the bricks with which he built up his, at first "hounded," but ultimately successful, "Double Gallant," in which he played Atall; the same author's "Lady's Last Stake," a heavy comedy; and Rowe's "Royal Convert," a heavier tragedy of the times of Hengist and Horsa. In this play, the courtly author bade for the bays (which were not to encircle his brows till the accession of George I.), by introducing a complimentary prophecy alluding to Queen Anne and the then much-canvassed Union of England and Scotland. This was, perhaps, not worse than the references made by the savage Saxon Rodogune to Venus, and to the Eagle that bore Jove's thunder! There are, nevertheless, some stately scenes in this play. Of its failure, Rowe did not complain, he simply, on printing it, quoted the words, "Laudatur et alget," on the title-page. Critics have thought that the story was of too religious a texture to please. It was too obscure to excite interest.