DUrfey

D'Urfey, Thomas (162S-1723.), poet and dramatist, was born at Exeter from a family of French refugees. He prepared for the bar, but turned aside to literature and wrote sonnets, ballads, odes, and about thirty pieces for the stage which were popular and were tainted by the licentiousness of the age. He was a friend of Addison and Steele, and satirised Charles II., Anne, and William III. In 1683 he published a New Collection of Songs and Poems, and in 1719-20 II it and Mirth, or Pills to Purge Melancholy.