Thomas Jevon was an English playwright, and one of the first English Harlequin

Harlequin

Harlequin or Arlecchino in Italian, Arlequin in French, and Arlequín in Spanish is the most popularly known of the zanni or comic servant characters from the Italian Commedia dell'arte and its descendant, the Harlequinade.-Origins:...

s. He began his career as a dancing master, but worked his way onto the stage, and played leading low-comedy parts in London between 1673 and 1688. His brother-in-law was the English playwright and poet laureate Thomas Shadwell

Thomas Shadwell

Thomas Shadwell was an English poet and playwright who was appointed poet laureate in 1689.-Life:Shadwell was born at Stanton Hall, Norfolk, and educated at Bury St Edmunds School, and at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, which he entered in 1656. He left the university without a degree, and...

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His only published play, the farce The Devil of a Wife, or, a Comical Transformation (with a plot borrowed from a Philip Sidney

Philip Sidney

Sir Philip Sidney was an English poet, courtier and soldier, and is remembered as one of the most prominent figures of the Elizabethan Age...

 story, and possibly some assistance from Shadwell), was performed in 1686 at Dorset Garden, where Jevon usually acted. Jevon and George Powell played the two leading roles, and the piece achieved great success. Various versions with added music appeared later, and Charles Coffey

Charles Coffey

Charles Coffey was an Irish playwright and composer.His best known opera is probably The Beggar’s Wedding , which capitalizes on the success of John Gay's The Beggar's Opera...

used it as the basis of his opera The Devil to Pay in 1731.