ABSTRACT
The source for the main facts of Thomas Durfey's life as told in the standard authorities such as the Dictionary of National Biography seems to be Richard Steele's essay in The Lover of 27 May 1714, so we may as well begin with Steele.1 He quotes at length from an English translation of the French writer Charles Perrault's account of the D'Urfey family in France in order to raise Durfey's reputation - or, as Steele puts it, to show any reader who might feel disposed to 'Cavil at my Friend's [i.e. Durfey's] Writings' that 'his Ancestors made a greater Figure in the World, nay in the Learned World, than their own'.2 Steele tacks on to the flattering Perrault passage an additional note by John Ozell, Perrault's English translator, containing details of the Durfeys' settling in England. He concludes by hoping 'that the ignorant of Mr. d'Urfey's Quality may know how to receive him, when on the seventh of next Month he shall appear (as he designs) in Honour of the Ladies, to speak an Oration by way of Prologue to the Richmond Heiress9.
