O strange return! grew black, and gasped, and died! How looked our hermit when the fact was done! "Thy prayer, thy praise, thy life to vice unknown, In sweet memorial rise before the throne: These charms success in our bright region find, 'Tis thus, withdrawn in state from human eye. What strange events can strike with more surprise, And still he welcomes, but with less of cost. Ne'er moved in pity to the wandering poor; But now the child half-weaned his heart from God- To what excesses had his dotage run! On sounding pinions here the youth withdrew, JOHN GAY. The Italian opera and English pastorals-both sources of fashionable and poetical affectation-were driven out of the field at this time by the easy, indolent, good-humoured JOHN GAY (1688-1732), who seems to have been the most artless and the best-beloved of all the Pope and Swift circle of wits and poets. Gay was born in Devonshire, the second son of John Gay, Esq., of Frithelstock, near Great Torrington. The family was reduced in circumstances, and both parents dying when the poet was about six years of age, he was, after receiving his education in the town of Barnstaple, put apprentice to a silk-mercer in the Strand, London. He disliked this employment, and at length obtained his discharge from his master. In 1708, he published a poem in blank verse, entitled Wine;' and in 1713 appeared his Rural Sports,' a descriptive poem, dedicated to Pope, in which we may trace his joy at being emancipated from the drudgery of a shop: But I, who ne'er was blessed by Fortune's hand, And soothed my harassed mind with sweet repose, The same year, Gay obtained the appointment of domestic secretary to the Duchess of Monmouth. He also brought out a comedy, 'The Wife of Bath,' which was not successful. In 1714, he published his 'Shepherd's Week, in six Pastorals,' written to throw ridicule on those of Ambrose Philips; but containing so much genuine comic humour, and entertaining pictures of country-life, that they became popular, not as satires, but on account of their intrinsic merits, as affording a prospect of his own country.' In an address to the 'courteous reader,' Gay says: Thou wilt not find my shepherdesses idly piping on oaten reeds, but milking the kine, tying up the sheaves; or if the hogs are astray, driving them to their sties. My shepherd gathereth none other nosegays but what are the growth of our fields; he sleepeth not under myrtle shades, but under a hedge; nor doth he vigilantly defend his flock from wolves, because there are none.' This matter-of-fact view of rural life has been admirably followed by Crabbe, with a moral aim and effect to which Gay never aspired. His next attempt was dramatic. In February 1714-15 appeared 'What d'ye Call It? a tragi-comic pastoral farce, which the audience had not wit enough to take;' and next year he produced his Trivia, or the Art of Walking the Streets of London,' and The Fan,' a poem in three books. The former of these is in the mock-heroic style, in which he was assisted by Swift, and gives a graphic account of the dangers and impediments then encountered in traversing the narrow, crowded, ill-lighted, and vice-infested thoroughfares of the metropolis. His paintings of city-life are in the Dutch style, low and familiar, but correctly and forcibly drawn. The following sketch of the frequenters of book-stalls in the streets may still be verified: Volumes on sheltered stalls expanded lie, And various science lures the learned eye; The bending shelves with ponderous scholiasts groan, Collects the various odours of the spring, Walkers at leisure learning's flowers may spoil, Nor watch the wasting of the midnight oil; May morals snatch from Plutarch's tattered page, A mildewed Bacon, or Stagyra's sage: Here sauntering 'prentices o'er Otway weep, O'er Congreve smile, or over D'Urfey sleep; Pleased sempstresses the Lock's famed Rape unfold; The poet gives a lively and picturesque account of the great frest in London, in 1716, when a fair was held on the river Thames: O roving Muse! recall that wondrous year Squirt is the name of an apothecary's boy in Garth's Dispensary. When hoary Thames, with frosted osiers crowned, And the loud dice resound through all the field. Gay was always sighing for public employment, for which he was eminently unfit, and in 1714 he had obtained a short glimpse of this fancied happiness. He wrote with joy to Pope: 'Since you went out of the town, my Lord Clarendon was appointed envoy-extraordinary to Hanover, in the room of Lord Paget; and by making use of those friends which I entirely owe to you, he has accepted me for his secretary. The poet accordingly quitted his situation in the Monmouth family, and accompanied Lord Clarendon on his embassy. He seems, however, to have held it only for about two months; for on the 23d of September of the same year, Pope welcomes him to his native soil, and counsels him, now that the queen was dead, to write something on the king, or prince, or princess. Gay was an anxious expectant of court favor, and he complied with Pope's request. He wrote a poem on the princess, and the royal family went to see his play of What d'ye Call It?' Gay was stimulated to another drama'ic attempt (1717), and produced a piece entitled Three Hours After Marriage. Some personal satire and indecent dialogue, together with the improbability of the plot, sealed its fate with the public. It soon fell into disgrace; and its author, being afraid that Pope and Arbuthnot would suffer injury from their supposed connection with it, took all the shame on himself. The trio of wits, however, were attacked in two pamphlets, and Pope's quarrel with Cibber originated in this unfortunate drama. Gay was silent and dejected for some time; but in 1720 he published his poems by subscription, and realised a sum of $1000. He received, also, a present of South Sea stock, and was supposed to be worth £20,000, all of which he lost by the explosion of that famous delusion. This serious calamity, to one fond of finery in dress and of luxurious liv ing, almost overwhelmed him, but his friends were zealous, and he was prompted to further literary exertion. In 1724, Gay brought out another drama, The Captives,' which was acted with moderate success; and in 1726 he wrote a volume of. Fables,' designed for the special improvement of the Duke of Cumberland, who certainly did not learn mercy or humanity from them. The accession of the prince and princess to the throne seemed to augur well for the fortunes of Gay; but he was only offered the situation of gentleman-usher to one of the young princesses, and considering this an insult, he rejected it. In 1726, Swift came to England, and resided two months with Pope at Twickenham. Among other plans, the Dean of St. Patrick suggested to Gay the idea of a Newgate pastoral, in which the characters should be thieves and highwaymen; and the Beggars' Opera' was the result. When finished, the two friends were doubtful of the success of the piece; but it was received with unbounded applause. The songs and music aided greatly its popularity, and there was also the recommendation of political satire; for the quarrel between Peachum and Lockit was an allusion to a personal collision between Walpole and his colleague, Lord Townshend. The spirit and variety of the piece, in which song and sentiment are so happily intermixed with vice and roguery, still render the Beggars' Opera' a favourite with the public; but as Gay has succeeded in making highwaymen agreeable, and even attractive, it cannot be commended for its moral tendency. Of this, we suspect, the Epicurean author thought little. The opera had a run of sixty-two nights, and became the rage of town and country. Its success had also the effect of giving rise to the English opera, a species of light comedy enlivened by songs and music, which for a time supplanted the Italian opera, with all its exotic and elaborate graces. By this successful opera, Gay, as appears from the manager's account book, cleared £693,13s. 6d. besides what he derived from its publication. He tried a sequel to the Beggars' Opera,' under the title of 'Polly' but as it was supposed to contain sarcasms on the court, the lord chamberlain prohibited its representation. The poet had recourse to publication; and such was the zeal of his friends, and the effect of party-spirit, that 'Polly' produced a profit of £1100 or £1200. The Duchess of Marlborough gave £100 as her subscription for a copy. Gay had now amassed £3000 by his writings, which he resolved to keep entire and sacred.' He was at the same time received into the house of his kind patrons the Duke and Duchess of Queensberry, with whom he spent the remainder of his life. His only literary occupa tion was composing additional fables, and corresponding occasionally with Pope and Swift. A sudden attack of inflammatory fever hurried him out of life in three days. He died on the 4th of December 1782, aged 44. Pope's letter to Swift announcing the event was endorsed: On my dear friend Mr. Gay's death. Received, December 15th, but not read till the 20th, by an impulse foreboding some misfortune.' The friendship of these eminent men seems to have been sincere and tender; and nothing in the life of Swift is more touching or honourable to his memory than those passages in his letters where the recollection of Gay melted his haughty stoicism, and awakened his deep though unavailing sorrow. Pope was equally grieved by the loss of him whom he has characterised as · |