[Footnote 3: Memoirs ubi supra.]

[Footnote 4: A noted boxer.]

[Footnote 5: A Turk, famous for his performances on a wire, after the
manner of rope-dancers.]

* * * * *


Sir GEORGE ETHEREGE,

A Celebrated wit in the reign of Charles and James II. He is said to
have been descended of an ancient family of Oxfordshire, and born about
the year 1636; it is thought he had some part of his education at the
university of Cambridge, but in his younger years he travelled into
France, and consequently made no long stay at the university. Upon his
return, he, for some time, studied the Municipal Law at one of the Inns
of Court, in which, it seems, he made but little progress, and like
other men of sprightly genius, abandoned it for pleasure, and the gayer
accomplishments.

In the year 1664 the town was obliged with his first performance for
the stage, entitled the Comical Revenge, or Love in a Tub, the writing
whereof brought him acquainted, as he himself informed us, with the earl
of Dorset, to whom it is by the author dedicated. The fame of this play,
together with his easy, unreserved conversation, and happy address,
rendered him a favourite with the leading wits, such as the duke of
Buckingham, Sir Charles Sedley, the earl of Rochester, Sir Car Scroop.