Cast forth, a wand'rer, on a world un- 'Tis not, O bed, thy downy throne,
The troubled mind composes-
See me neglected on the world's rude 'Tis vice that makes the bed of thorns,
And virtue that of roses.

And, ready tears wait only leave to been received since our last, which

[ Printed and Published by F. Trash, Oxford›

Select Biography.

"No part of History is more instructive and delightful than the Lives of great and worthy Men."

BURNETT.

LIFE OF GAY.

he became acquainted with Gay, found such attractions in his manners and conversation, that he seems to have received him into his inmost confidence; and a friendship was formed which lasted to their separation by death, without any known abatement on either part. Gay was the general favourite of the whole association

of wits; but they regarded him as a play-fellow rather than a partner, and treated him with more fondness than respect.

Next year he published The Shepherd's Week, six English

JOHN GAY, descended from an old family that had been long in possession of the manor of Goldworthy, in Devonshire, was born in 1688, at or near Barnstaple, where he was educated by Mr. Luck, who taught the school of that town with good reputation, and, a little before he retired from pastorals, in which the images are it, published a volume of Latin and English verses. Under such a master he was likely to form a taste for poetry. Being born without prospect of hereditary riches, he was sent to London in his youth, and placed apprentice with a silk

drawn from real life, such as it appears among the rustics in parts of England remote from London.

In 1713 he brought a comedy called The Wife of Bath upon the stage, but it received no applause : he printed it, however; and seventeen years after, having altered it, The Duchess of Monmouth, reand, as he thought, adapted it markable for inflexible persevered it, again to the town; but, more to the public taste, he offer

mercer.

ance in her demand to be treated as a princess, in 1712, took Gay into her service as secretary: by quitting a shop for such service he might gain leisure, but he certainly advanced little in the boast of independence. Of his leisure he made so good use, that he published next year a poem on Rural Sports, and inscribed it to Mr. Pope, who was then rising fast into reputation. Pope was pleased with the honour; and when

Goldworthy does not appear in the Villare.

though he was flushed with the success of the Beggar's Opera, had the mortification to see it again rejected.

In the last year of Queen Anne's life, Gay was made secretary to the Earl of Clarendon, ambassador to the court of Hanover. This was a station that naturally gave hopes of kindness from every party; but the Queen's death put an end to her favours, and he had dedicated his Shepherd's Week to Bolingbroke, which Swift con

L

sidered as the crime that obstruct- showed it to Congreve; who,

ed all kindness from the House of Hanover.

after reading it over, said, it would either take greatly, or be damned All the pain which he suf- confoundedly. We were all, at the fered from neglect, or, as he first night of it, in great uncertainperhaps termed it the ingratitude ty of the event; till we were very of the court with respect to some much encouraged by overhearing of his pieces, may be supposed to the Duke of Argyle, who sat in the have been driven away by the un-next box to us, say, 'It will do— exampled success of the Beggar's it must do! I see it in the eyes of Opera. This play, written in them.' This was a good while ridicule of the musical Italian before the first act was over, and Drama, was first offered to Cibber so gave us ease soon; for that and his brethren at Drury Lane, Duke (besides his own good taste) and rejected; it being then car- has a particular knack, as any ried to Rich, had the effect, as one now living, in discovering the was ludicrously said, of making taste of the public. He was Gay rich and Rich gay. quite right in this, as usual; the good nature of the audience appeared stronger and stronger every act, and ended in a clamour of applause."

Of this lucky piece, as the reader cannot but wish to know the original and progress, we have inserted the relation which Spence gives in Pope's words:

Its reception is thus recorded “Dr. Swift had been observing in the notes to the Dunciad :— once to Mr. Gay, what an odd This piece was received with pretty sort of a thing a Newgate greater applause than was ever Pastoral might make. Gay was known. Besides being acted in inclined to try such a thing for London sixty-three days without some time; but afterwards thought interruption, and renewed the next it would be better to write a season with equal applause, it comedy on the same plan. This spread into all the great towns of was what gave rise to the Beg- England; was played in many gar's Opera. He began on it; places to the thirtieth and fortieth and when first he mentioned it to time; at Bath and Bristol fifty, Swift, the doctor did not much like &c. It made its progress into the project. As he carried it on, he Wales, Scotland, and Ireland, showed what he wrote to both of us, where it was performed twentyand we now and then gave a cor- four days successively. The ladies rection, or a word or two of advice; carried about with them the favourbut it was wholly of his own writing. ite songs of it in fans, and houses -When it was done, neither of us were furnished with it in screens. thought it would succeed. We The fame of it was not confined

to the author only. The person who acted Polly, till then obscure, became all at once the favourite of the town; her pictures were engraved, and sold in great numbers; her life was written, books of letters and verses to her published, and pamphlets made even of her sayings and jests. furthermore, it drove out of England (for that season) the Italian Opera, which had carried all before it for ten years."

tion was so much favoured, that though the first part gained him four hundred pounds, near thrice as much was the profit of the second.

He received yet another recompense for this supposed hardship, in the affectionate attention of the Duke and Duchess of Queensberry, into whose house he was taken, and with whom he passed the remainder of his life. The * Duke, considering his want of The play, like many others, was economy, undertook the manageplainly written only to divert, ment of his money, and gave it to without any moral purpose, and him as he wanted it. But it is is therefore not likely to do good; supposed that the discountenance nor can it be conceived, without of the court sunk deep into his more speculation than life requires heart, and gave him more disor admits, to be productive of content than the applauses or much evil. Highwaymen and tenderness of his friends could housebreakers seldom frequent the overpower. He soon fell into his play-house, or mingle in any ele-old distemper, an habitual colic, gant diversion; nor is it possible and languished, though with many for any one to imagine that he intervals of ease and cheerfulness, may rob with safety, because he till a violent fit at last seized him, sees Mackheath reprieved upon and carried him to the grave, as the stage. Arbuthnot reported, with more

This objection, however, or precipitance than he had ever some other rather political than known. He died on the 4th of moral, obtained such prevalence, December, 1732, and was buried that when Gay produced a second in Westminster Abbey. The letpart under the name of Polly, it was prohibited by the Lord Chamberlain and he was forced to recompense his repulse by a subscription, which is said to have been so liberally bestowed, misfortune. that what he called oppression After his death was published ended in profit. The publica- a second volume of Fables, more

:

• Spence.

ter, which brought an account of his death to Swift, was laid by for some days unopened, because when he received it he was imprest with the preconception of some

* Spence.

political than the former. His Whether this new drama was the

product of judgment or luck, the praise of it must be given to the inventor; and there are many writers read with more reverence to whom such merit or originality cannot be attributed.

opera of Achilles was acted, and the profits were given to two widow sisters, who inherited what he left, as his lawful heirs; for he died without a will, though he had gathered three thousand pounds. There have appeared likewise under his name a comedy called the Distrest Wife, and the Re-lished one volume, he left another hearsal at Gotham, a piece of hu

mour.

The character given him by Pope is this, that "he was a natural man, without design, who spoke what he thought, and just

as he thought it ;" and that "he
was of a timid temper, and fearful
of giving offence to the great ;"
which caution, however,
Pope, was of no avail.

His Fables seem to have been a favourite work; for, having pub

behind him. Of this kind of Fables, the author does not appear to have formed any distinct or settled notion. Phædrus evidently confounds them with Tales, and Gay both with Tales and Allegorical Prosopopcias. A Fable, or Apologue, such as is under consideration, seems to be, in its genuine state, a narrative in says which beings irrational and sometimes inanimate, abores loquuntur, non tatum feræ, are, for the purpose of moral instruction, feigned to act and speak with human interests and passions. To this description the compositions of Gay do not always conform. For a Fable he gives now and then a Tale, or an abstracted Allegory; and from some, by whatever name they may be called, it will be difficult to extract any moral principle. They are, how

As a poet, he cannot be rated high. He was, as I once heard a female critic remark, "of a lower

order." He had not in any great degree the mens divinior, the dignity of genius. Much, however, must be allowed to the author of a new species of composition, though it be not of the highest kind. We owe to Gay the ballad opera, a mode of comedy which at first was supposed to delight only by its novelty, but has now by the experience of half a century been

found so well accommodated to the disposition of a popular audience, that it is likely to keep long possession of the stage.

ever, told with

liveliness; the

versification is smooth; and the diction, though now and then a little constrained by the measure or the rhyme, is generally happy.

+ Spence.