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SIR GEORGE ETHEREDGE [or ETHEREGE] (c...

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Originally appearing in Volume V09, Page 807 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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SIR See also:GEORGE See also:ETHEREDGE [or ETHEREGE] (c. 1635-1691)  , See also:English dramatist, was See also:born about the See also:year 1635, and belonged to an See also:Oxfordshire See also:family . I-Ie is said to have been educated at See also:Cambridge, but See also:Dennis assures us that " to his certain knowledge he understood neither See also:Greek nor Latin." He travelled abroad See also:early, and seems to have resided in See also:France . It is possible that he witnessed in See also:Paris the performances of some of See also:Moliere's earliest comedies; and he seems, from an allusion in one of his plays, to have been personally acquainted with See also:Bussy Rabutin . On his return to See also:London he studied the See also:law at one of the Inns of See also:Court . His tastes were those of a See also:fine See also:gentleman, and he indulged freely in See also:pleasure . Sometime soon after the Restoration he composed his See also:comedy of The Comical Revenge or Love in a Tub, which introduced him to See also:Lord Buckhurst, afterwards the See also:earl of See also:Dorset . This was brought out at the See also:Duke's See also:theatre in 1664, and a few copies were printed in the same year . It is partly in rhymned heroic See also:verse, like the See also:stilted tragedies of the Howards and Killigrews, but it contains comic scenes that are exceedingly See also:bright and fresh . The sparring between See also:Sir See also:Frederick and the Widow introduced a See also:style of wit hitherto unknown upon the English See also:stage . The success of this See also:play was very See also:great, but See also:Etheredge waited four years before he repeated his experiment . Meanwhile he gained the highest reputation as a poetical beau, and moved in the circle of Sir See also:Charles See also:Sedley, Lord See also:Rochester and the other See also:noble wits of the See also:day . In 1668 he brought out She would if she could, a comedy in many respects admirable, full of See also:action, wit and spirit, although to the last degree frivolous and immoral .

But in this play Etheredge first shows himself a new See also:

power in literature; he has nothing of the rudeness of his predecessors or the grossness of his contemporaries . We move in an See also:airy and fantastic See also:world, where flirtation is the only serious business of See also:life . At this See also:time Etheredge was living a life no less frivolous and unprincipled than those of his Courtals and Freemans . He formed an See also:alliance with the famous actress Mrs See also:Elizabeth See also:Barry; she See also:bore him a daughter, on whom he settled £6000, but who, unhappily, died in her youth . His See also:wealth and wit, the distinction and See also:charm of his See also:manners, won Etheredge the See also:general See also:worship of society, and his temperament is best known by the names his contemporaries gave him, of " See also:gentle See also:George " and " easy Etheredge." Rochester up-braided him for inattention to literature; and at last, after a silence of eight years, he came forward with one more play, unfortunately his last . The See also:Man of Mode or Sir Fopling Flutter, indisputably the best comedy of intrigue written in See also:England before the days of See also:Congreve, was acted and printed in 1676, and enjoyed an unbounded success . Besides the merit of its See also:plot and wit, it. had the See also:personal charm of being supposed to satirize, or at least to paint, persons well known in London . Sir Fopling Flutter was a portrait of Beau Hewit, the reigning exquisite of the See also:hour; in Dorimant the poet See also:drew the earl of Rochester, and in Medley a portrait of himself; while even the drunken shoemaker was a real See also:character, who made his See also:fortune from being thus brought into public See also:notice . After this brilliant success Etheredge retired from literature; his gallantries and his gambling in a few years deprived him of his fortune, and he looked about for a See also:rich match . He was knighted before 168o, and gained the See also:hand and the See also:money of a rich widow . He was sent by Charles II. on a See also:mission to the See also:Hague, and in See also:March 1685 was appointed See also:resident See also:minister in the imperial See also:German court at See also:Regensburg . He was very uncomfortable in See also:Germany, and after three and a See also:half years' See also:residence See also:left for Paris .

He had collected a library at Regensburg, some volumes of which are in the theological See also:

college there . His MS. despatches are preserved in the See also:British Museum, where they were discovered and described by Mr See also:Gosse in 1881; they add very largely to our knowledge of Etheredge's career . He died in Paris, probably in 1691, for See also:Narcissus See also:Luttrell notes in See also:February 1692 that " Sir George Etherege, the See also:late See also:King See also:James' See also:ambassador to See also:Vienna, died lately in Paris." Etheredge deserves to hold a more distinguished See also:place in English literature than has generally been allotted to him . In a dull and heavy See also:age, he inaugurated a See also:period of genuine wit and sprightliness . He invented the comedy of intrigue, and led the way for the masterpieces of Congreve and See also:Sheridan . Before his time the manner of See also:Ben See also:Jonson had prevailed in comedy, and traditional " humours " and typical eccentricities, instead of real characters, had crowded the comic stage . Etheredge paints with a See also:light, faint hand, but it is from nature, and his portraits of fops and See also:beaux are simply unexcelled . No one knows better than he how to See also:present a See also:gay See also:young gentleman, a Dorimant, " an unconfinable rover after amorous adventures." His See also:genius is as light as See also:thistle-down; he is frivolous, without force of conviction, without principle; but his wit is very sparkling, and his style pure and singularly picturesque . No one approaches Etheredge in delicate touches of See also:dress, See also:furniture and See also:scene; he makes the fine airs of London gentlemen and ladies live before our eyes even more vividly than Congreve does; but he has less insight and less See also:energy than Congreve . Had he been poor or ambitious, he might have been to England almost what Moliere was to France, but he was a rich man living at his ease, and he disdained to excel in literature . Etheredge was " a See also:fair, slender, genteel man, but spoiled his countenance with drinking." His See also:con-temporaries all agree in acknowledging that he was the soul of affability and sprightly See also:good-nature . The life of Etheredge was first given in detail by See also:Edmund Gosse in Seventeenth See also:Century Studies (1883) .

His See also:

works were edited by A . W . Verity, in 1888 . (E .

End of Article: SIR GEORGE ETHEREDGE [or ETHEREGE] (c. 1635-1691)
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