D'Urfey.

D'Urfey. THOMAS, dramatist and song-writer, was born at Exeter in 1653. Of Huguenot descent he was boisterous in his Protestantism all his life. Shackerley Marmion was his remote kinsman; a nearer one was Honoré d'Urfé (1568-1625), author of the famous romance of Astrée. He early became a busy playwright, his comedies especially being popular. Among these were The Fond Husband, or the Plotting Sisters (1676); Madame Fickle, or the Witty False One (1677); and Sir Burnaby Whig, or No Wit like a Woman's (1681). In 1683 he brought out his New Collection of Songs and Poems, which was followed by a long series of songs in volumes and sheets, which were finally in 1719 collected into an edition in five volumes, as Wit and Mirth, or Pills to Purge Melancholy, supplemented by a sixth volume in 1720 (repr. 1872). Meanwhile D'Urfey had been busy with a long series of plays, for the morals of which he suffered like the rest from the heavy hand of Jeremy Collier. He never married; and though he was not particularly profligate, his fortunes had declined as his comedies ceased to please. Charles II. had done him the honour to lean upon his shoulder, but does not seem to have put anything in his pocket; the good Queen Anne had paid him fifty guineas for his singing to her at supper. Tom D'Urfey, as he was called by everybody, was very popular with his contemporaries, and seems to have been a cheerful, kindly, and fairly worthy fellow, convivial but not dissipated in his habits, loving and dutiful to his mother, if the evidence of pious verses may be believed. Benefits in his behalf were promoted by Addison and Steele, and the former thus pleaded in his behalf: 'He has made the world merry, and I hope they will make him easy, as long as he stays among us. This I will take upon me to say, they cannot do a kindness to a more diverting companion, or a more cheerful, honest, good-natured man.' D'Urfey died 26th February 1723. See Mr Ebsworth's admirable article in volume xvi. (1888) of Leslie Stephen's Dictionary of National Biography.