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To the Editor of the Oxford Enter-Why all that soothes a heart from an

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guish free,

All that delights the happy-palls on me!

CONTENTMENT.

DOWN in the vale, a rural cot

Peeps thro' the oak-tree's foliage green;

Where Peace and Virtue grace the spot,

And Vice is never seen.
There dwells a happy simple swain,
There dwells his wife and offspring
dear;

Pride never gave their bosoms pain,
Nor guilty conscience fear.
Their simple meal no pomp displays,
Their manners too are plain and mild,
No costly suit the swain arrays,

Nor yet his wife or child.
Nature alone informs their hearts,
Untaught by books of good or ill?
Each trifling charm such joy imparts-
As virtue can instil.
Contented with their humble fare,
They pass their happy cheerful hours;
No wishes vain their peace ensnare-
Their path is strew'd with flow'rs.
Then blest is he who can resign
For peace like this his wealth and
fame;

Oh! prone to pity, gen'rous and sin

Whose eye ne'er yet refus'd the wretch a tear,

Whose heart the real claim of friendship knows,

Riches can canker peace of mind, The other's but a name!

Nor thinks a lover's are but fancied woes;

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See me, 'ere yet my destin'd course half done,

In answer to an enquiry, how a person had slept.

Cast forth, a wand'rer, on a world unknown!

See me neglected on the world's rude

coast,

Each dear companion of my voyage lost!

Nor ask why clouds of sorrow shade my brow,

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

BY A LADY.

'Tis not, O bed, thy downy throne,
The troubled mind composes-
'Tis vice that makes the bed of thorns,

And virtue that of roses.

TO CORRESPONDENTS. Numerous communications have

flow;

No. 5, Vol. I.---July 7, 1824.

will meet with early attention. [ 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.

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 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

mercer.

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 pastorals, in which the images are 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, and, as he thought, adapted it more to the public taste, he offered it again to the town; but, though he was flushed with the success of the Beggar's Opera, had the mortification to see it again rejected.

The Duchess of Monmouth, remarkable for inflexible perseverance 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 gave hopes of kindness from every

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

into reputation. Pope was pleased with the honour; and when

• Goldworthy does not appear in the Villare.

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 after reading it over, said, it would Hanover.

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 doexampled 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, and rejected; it being then carried to Rich, had the effect, as was ludicrously said, of making Gay rich and Rich gay.

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 :

Duke (besides his own good taste) has a particular knack, as any one now living, in discovering the taste of the public. He was 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,"

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 places to the thirtieth and fortieth time; at Bath and Bristol fifty, &c. It made its progress into Wales, Scotland, and Ireland, where it was performed twentyfour days successively. The ladies carried about with them the favourite songs of it in fans, and houses were furnished with it in screens. The fame of it was not confined

gar's Opera. He began on it; and when first he mentioned it to Swift, the doctor did not much like the project. As he carried it on, he showed what he wrote to both of us, and we now and then gave a correction, or a word or two of advice; butit was wholly of his own writing. -When it was done, neither of us thought it would succeed. We

to the author only. The person tion was so much favoured, that
who acted Polly, till then obscure, though the first part gained him
became all at once the favourite of four hundred pounds, near thrice
the town; her pictures were en- as much was the profit of the
graved, and sold in great numbers; second.
her life was written, books of let-
ters 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."

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 elegant diversion; nor is it possible for any one to imagine that he may rob with safety, because he sees Mackheath reprieved upon the stage.

old distemper, an habitual colic,
and languished, though with many
intervals of ease and cheerfulness,
till a violent fit at last seized him,
and carried him to the grave, as
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 let part under the name of Polly, it ter, which brought an account of was prohibited by the Lord his death to Swift, was laid by for Chamberlain: and he was forced some days unopened, because when to recompense his repulse by a he received it he was imprest subscription, which is said to with the preconception of some 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.

*Spence.

political than the former. His Whether this new drama was the opera of Achilles was acted, and product of judgment or luck, the the profits were given to two praise of it must be given to the widow sisters, who inherited what inventor; and there are many he left, as his lawful heirs; forhe writers read with more reverence died without a will, though he had to whom such merit or originality gathered + three thousand pounds. cannot be attributed. There have appeared likewise His Fables seem to have been a under his name a comedy called favourite work; for, having pubthe Distrest Wife, and the Re- lished one volume, he left another hearsal at Gotham, a piece of hu- behind him. Of this kind of Fables, the author does not appear

mour.

settled notion. Phædrus evident

The character given him by to have formed any distinct or Pope is this, that "he was a natural man, without design, who ly confounds them with Tales, spoke what he thought, and just and Gay both with Tales and as he thought it;" and that "he Allegorical Prosopopœias. was of a timid temper, and fearful Fable, or Apologue, such as is of giving offence to the great;" under consideration, seems to be, in its genuine state, a narrative in

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which caution, however, says which beings irrational and some

Pope, was of no avail.

As a poet, he cannot be rated high. He was, as I once heard a

times inanimate, abores loquuntur, non tatum feræ, are, for the feigned to act and speak with

female critic remark, "of a lower purpose of moral instruction, order." He had not in any great human interests and passions. To

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

this description the compositions of Gay do not always conform. For a Fable he gives now and then a Tale, or an abstracted

kind. We owe to Gay the ballad Allegory; and from some, by

whatever name they may be called, it will be difficult to extract any moral principle. They are, however, 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

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 au-
dience, that it is likely to keep
long possession of the stage. happy.

+ Spence.

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