[Footnote 3: 'Seneffe:' lost by William to the French in 1674.

Claverhouse fought with him at this battle.]

[Footnote 4: The four last lines of the second and third stanzas were added by Mr Tate.]

[Footnote 5: 'Erida.n.u.s:' the Po.]

[Footnote 6: 'Such as of late.' See Macaulay's 'Essay on Addison,' and the 'Life' in this volume, for an account of this extraordinary tempest.]

[Footnote 7: 'Tallard,' or Tallart: an eminent French marshal, taken prisoner at Blenheim; he remained in England for seven years.]

[Footnote 8: A comedy written by Sir Richard Steel.]

[Footnote 9: A dramatic poem written by the Lord Lansdown.]

[Footnote 10: 'Smith:' Edmund, commonly called 'Rag;' see Johnson's 'Poets.']

[Footnote 11: 'Lyaeus:' Bacchus.]

[Footnote 12: 'Princess of Wales:' Willielinina Dorothea Carolina of Brandenburg-Ans.p.a.ch--afterwards Caroline, Queen of George II.; she figures in the 'Heart of Mid-Lothian.']

[Footnote 13: 'Gloriana:' Henrietta Maria, Queen of Charles I. See our edition of Waller.]

[Footnote 14: 'Sir G.o.dfrey Kneller:' born at Lubeck in 1648; became a painter of portraits; visited England; was knighted by William III.; died in 1723; lies in Westminster Abbey.]

[Footnote 15: This refers to a portrait of George I.]

[Footnote 16: 'R----:' Rich.]

[Footnote 17: Otherwise, 'Thy goodness I'll proclaim;'

And, 'Resume the glorious theme.' ]

THE LIFE OF JOHN GAY.

This ingenious poet and child-like man was born, in 1688, at Barnstable, in Devonshire. His family, who were of Norman origin, had long possessed the manor of Goldworthy, or Holdworthy, which came into their hands through Gilbert Le Gay. He obtained possession of this estate by intermarrying with the family of Curtoyse, and gave his name, too, to a place called Hampton Gay, in Northamptonshire. The author of the "Fables"

was brought up at the Free School of Barnstable--Pope says under one William Rayner, who had been educated at Westminster School, and who was the author of a volume of Latin and English verse, although Dr Johnson and others maintain that his master's name was Luck. On leaving school, Gay was bound apprentice to a mercer in London--a trade not the most propitious to poetry, and which he did not long continue to prosecute. In 1712, he published his "Rural Sports," and dedicated it to Pope, who was then rising toward the ascendant, having just published his brilliant tissue of centos, the "Essay on Criticism." Pope was pleased with the honour, and ever afterwards took a deep interest in Gay. In the same year Gay had been appointed domestic secretary to the d.u.c.h.ess of Monmouth.

This lady was Anne Scott, the daughter and heiress of the Duke of Buccleuch, and widow of the well-known and hapless Duke of Monmouth, who had been beheaded in 1685. She plays a prominent part in the "Lay of the Last Minstrel," and of her a far greater poet than her secretary thus sings:--

"The d.u.c.h.ess mark'd his weary pace, His timid mien, and reverend face, And bade her page the menials tell That they should tend the old man well:

For she had known adversity, Though born in such a high degree; In pride of power, in beauty's bloom, Had wept o'er Monmouth's b.l.o.o.d.y tomb."

Dr Johnson says of her, rather sarcastically, that she was "remarkable for her inflexible perseverance in her demand to be treated as a princess." One biographer of Gay a.s.serts--but on what authority we know not--that this secretaryship was rewarded with a handsome salary. With her, however, our poet did not long agree. She was scarcely so kind to him as to the "Last Minstrel" who sung to her at Newark. By June 8th, 1714, (see a letter of Arbuthnot's of that date,) she had "turned Gay off," having probably been provoked by his indolence of disposition and improvidence of conduct.

Ere this, however, he had been admitted to the intimacy of Pope, and was hired or flattered by him to engage in the famous "Battle of the Wits,"

springing from the publication of the "Pastorals" of Ambrose Philips.

This agreeable but nearly forgotten writer published some pastorals, which Steele, with his usual rashness and fatal favouritism, commended in the "Guardian" as superior to all productions of the cla.s.s, (including Pope's,) except those of Theocritus, Virgil, and Spenser. Pope retorted in a style of inimitable irony, by a letter to the "Guardian," where he professedly gives the preference to Philips, but damages his claim by producing four specimens of his composition, and contrasting them with the better portions of his own. Not contented with this, he prevailed on Gay to satirise Philips in the "Shepherd's Week"--a poem which forms the _reductio ad absurdum_ of that writer's plan, and exhibits rural life in more than the vulgarity and grossness which the author of the "Pastorals"

had ascribed to it.

Gay shortly after wrote his "Fan," and his "Trivia, or the Art of Walking the Streets of London"--the former a mythological fiction, in three books, now entirely and deservedly neglected; the second still worthy of perusal on account of its fidelity to truth, in its pictures of the dirty London of 1713--a fidelity reminding you of Crabbe and of Swift; indeed, Gay is said to have been a.s.sisted in "Trivia" by the latter, who, we may not uncharitably suppose, supplied the filth of allusion and image which here and there taints the poem. In 1713, our author brought out on the stage a comedy, ent.i.tled the "Wife of Bath," which met with no success, and which, when reproduced seventeen years later, after the "Beggars'

Opera" had taken the town by storm, fell as flat as before.

Gay had now fairly found his way into the centre of that brilliant circle called the Wits of Queen Anne. That was certainly one of the most varied in intellect and attainment which the world has ever seen. Highest far among them--we refer to the Tory side--darkled the stern brow of the author of "Gulliver's Travels," who had a mind cast by nature in a form of naked force, like a gloomy crag without a particle of beauty or any vegetation, save what will grow on the most horrid rocks, and the condition of whose existence there, seems to be that it deepens the desolation--a mind unredeemed by virtue save in the shape of remorse--unvisited by weakness, until it came trans.m.u.ted into the tiger of madness--whose very sermons were satires on G.o.d and man--whose very prayers had a tw.a.n.g of blasphemy--whose loves were more loathsome than his hatreds, and yet over whose blasted might and most miserable and withered heart men mourn, while they shudder, blend tears with anathemas, and agree that the awful mystery of man itself is deepened by its relation to the mystery of the wickedness, remorse, and wretchedness of Jonathan Swift. Superior to him in outward show and splendour, but inferior in real intellect, and, if possible, in moral calibre, shone, although with lurid brilliance, the "fell genius" of St John or Henry Bolingbroke. In a former paper we said that Edmund Burke reminded us less of a man than of a tutelar Angel; and so we can sometimes think of the "ingrate and cankered Bolingbroke," with his subtle intellect, his showy, sophistical eloquence, his power of intrigue, his consummate falsehood, his vice and his infidelity as a "superior fiend"--a kind of human Belial--

"In act more graceful than humane: A fairer person lost not heaven: he seem'd

For dignity composed and high exploit; But all was false and hollow, though his tongue Dropt manna, and could make the worse appear The better reason, to perplex and dash Maturest counsels."

These two were the giants of the Tory confederacy of wits. But little inferior to them in brilliance, if vastly less in intellectual size, was Pope, with his epigrammatic style, his compact sense--like stimulating essence contained in small smelling bottles--his pungent personalities, his elegant glitter, and his splendid simulation of moral indignation and moral purpose. Less known, but more esteemed than any of them where he was known, was Dr Arbuthnot--a physician of skill, as some extant medical works prove--a man of science, and author of an "Essay on the Usefulness of Mathematical Learning"--a scholar, as evinced by his examination of Woodward's "Account of the Deluge," his treatise on "Ancient Coins and Medals," and that on the "Altercation or Scolding of the Ancients"--a wit, whose grave irony, keen perception of the ridiculous, and magical power of turning the lead of learning into the most fine gold of humour, exhibited in his "Martinus Scriblerus," his "Epitaph on the notorious Colonel Chartres," and his "History of John Bull," still extract shouts, screams, and tears of mirth from thousands who scarce know the author's name--a politician without malice or self-seeking--and, best of all, a man without guile, and a Christian without cant. He, although a physician, was in effect the chaplain of the corps, and had enough to do in keeping them within due bounds; nay, is said on his deathbed to have called Pope to him, and given him serious advice in reference to the direction of his talents, and the restraint of his muse. Prior, though inferior to these, was no common man; and to learning, wit, and tale-telling power, added skill and energy in the conduct of public affairs. And last, (for Parnell, though beloved by this circle, could hardly be said to belong to it,) there was Gay, whom the others agreed to love and laugh at, who stood in much the same relation to the wits of Anne as Goldsmith did to those of George III., being at once their fool and their fondling; who, like Goldsmith, was

"In wit a man--simplicity a child;"

and who though he could not stab and sneer, and create new worlds more laughable than even this, like Swift, nor declaim and sap faith, like Bolingbroke, nor rhyme and glitter like Pope, nor discourse on medals and write comical "Pilgrims' Progresses" like Arbuthnot, nor pour out floods of learning like Prior in "Alma," could do things which they in their turn never equalled, (even as in Emerson's poem, "The Mountain and the Squirrel," the latter wisely remarks to the former--

"I cannot carry forests on my back, But neither can you crack a nut,")

could give a fabulous excellence to the construction and management of the "Fable;" extract interest from street crossings and scavengers, and let fly into the literary atmosphere an immortal Opera, the "Beggars',"

which, though feathered by the moultings of the very basest night-birds, has pursued a career of triumph ever since.

To recur to the life of our poet. Losing his situation under the d.u.c.h.ess of Monmouth, he was patronised by the Earls of Oxford and Bolingbroke, and through them was appointed secretary to the Earl of Clarendon, who was going to Hanover as amba.s.sador to that court. He was at this time so poor that, in order to equip himself with necessaries, such as shoes, stockings, and linen for the journey, he had to receive an advance of 100 from the treasury at Hanover. The Electoral Princess, afterwards Queen Caroline--wife of George II.--took some notice of Gay, and asked for a volume of his "Poems," when, as Arbuthnot remarks, "like a true poet," he was compelled to own that he had no copy in his possession. We suspect few poets, whether true or pretended, in our age would in this point resemble Gay.

Lord Clarendon's emba.s.sy lasted precisely fifteen days--Queen Anne having died in the meantime--and the Tory Government being consequently dismissed in disgrace. Poor Gay, who had offended the Whigs by dedicating his "Shepherd's Week" to Bolingbroke, came home in a worse plight than before. He had left England in a state of poverty--he returned to it in a state of proscription--although he perhaps felt comforted by an epistle of welcome from Pope, which did not, it is likely, affect him as it does us with the notion that its tricksy author was laughing in his sleeve.

Arbuthnot, who was a wiser friend, advised Gay to write an "Epistle on the Arrival of the Princess of Wales," which he did, and she and her lord were so far conciliated as to attend a play he now produced, ent.i.tled "What d'ye call it?"--a kind of hybrid between a farce and a tragedy--which, by the well-managed equivoque of its purpose, hit the house between wind and water; and not knowing "what" properly to "call it," and whether it should be applauded or d.a.m.ned, they gave the benefit of their doubts to the author. To its success, doubtless too, the presence and praise of the Prince and the Princess contributed. Gay now tried for a while the trade of a courtier--sooth to say, with little success. He was for this at once too sanguine and too simple. Pope said, with his usual civil sneer, in a letter to Swift, "the Doctor (Arbuthnot) goes to cards--Gay to court; the one loses money, the other time."

It added to his chagrin, that having, in conjunction with Pope and Arbuthnot, produced, in 1717, a comedy, ent.i.tled "Three Months after Marriage," to satirise Dr Woodward, then famous as a fossilist; the piece, being personal and indecent, was not only hissed but hooted off the stage. The chief offence was taken at the introduction of a mummy and a crocodile on the stage. To divert his grief, he, at the suggestion of Lord Burlington, who paid his expenses, rambled into Devonshire, went next with Pultney to Aix, in France, and when afterwards on a visit to Lord Harcourt's seat, witnessed the incident of the two country lovers killed by lightning in each other's arms, to which Pope alludes in one of his letters, and Goldsmith in his "Vicar of Wakefield."

In 1720 he published his "Poems" by subscription. The general kindness felt for Gay, notwithstanding his faults and feebleness, now found a vent. The Prince and Princess of Wales not only subscribed, but gave him a liberal present, and some of the n.o.bility, who regarded him as an agreeable plaything and lapdog of genius, took a number of copies. The result was that he gained a thousand pounds. He asked the advice of his friends how to dispose of this sum, and, as usual, took his own. Lewis, steward to Lord Oxford, advised him to entrust it to the funds, and live on the interest; Arbuthnot, to live upon the princ.i.p.al; Pope and Swift, to buy an annuity. Gay preferred to sink it in the South-Sea Bubble, then in all its glory. At first he imagined himself master of 20,000, and when advised to sell out and purchase as much as his wise friend Elijah Fenton said would "procure him a clean shirt and a shoulder of mutton every day," rejected the counsel, and in fine lost every farthing, and nearly lost next, through vexation, either his life or his reason.

Pope, who occasionally laughed at him, was now very kind, and partly through his a.s.siduous attention, Gay recovered his health, spirits, and the use of his pen. He wrote a tragedy called the "Captives," and was invited to read it before the Princess of Wales. The sight of her and her a.s.sembled ladies frightened him, and in advancing he stumbled over a stool and overthrew a heavy j.a.pan screen. How he fared afterwards in the reading we are not informed; but as we are told that the Princess started and her ladies screamed, we fear it had been poorly. On this story Hawkesworth has founded an amusing story in the "Adventurer," and it was also, we think, in the eye of the author of the humorous tale, ent.i.tled "The Bashful Man." This unlucky play was afterwards acted seven nights, the author's third night being under the special patronage of her Royal Highness.

At the request of the same ill.u.s.trious lady, he, in 1726, undertook to write a volume of "Fables" for the young Duke of c.u.mberland, afterwards of Culloden notoriety, and when at last, in 1727, the Prince became George II., and the Princess Queen Caroline, Gay's hopes of promotion boiled as high as his hopes of gain had during the South-Sea scheme.

But here, too, he was deceived; and having only received the paltry appointment (as he deemed it, though the salary was 200,) of gentleman-usher to the Princess Louisa, a girl of two years old, he thought himself insulted. He first sent a message to the Queen that he was too old for the place,--an excuse which he made for himself, but which, being only thirty-nine, he would not have borne any other to make for him. He next condescended to court Mrs Howard, the mistress of George II., and that "good Howard" commemorated in the "Heart of Mid-Lothian;"

but this too was in vain, and then he retired from the attempt, growling out probably (if we can imagine him in fable, not as Queen Caroline called him the "Hare," but a Bear) the words, "Put not your faith in princes." He was the more excusable, as, two years before, Sir Robert Walpole had, for his surmised Toryism, turned him out of the office of "Commissioner of the Lottery," which had brought him in 150 a-year.

But now for once Gay catches Fortune on the wheel. There is a lucky hour in almost all lives, provided it be waited for with patience, and with prudence improved. Swift had some years before observed to Gay, what an odd pretty sort of thing a Newgate pastoral would make. On this hint Gay acted, preferring, however, to expand it into a comedy. Hence came the "Beggars' Opera," a hit in literature second to none that ever occurred in that fluctuating region. It was first performed in 1728, although much of it had been written before, and only a few satirical strokes, founded on his disappointment at court, attested their recent origin. Swift and Pope watched its progress with interest, but without hope. Congreve p.r.o.nounced that it would "either take greatly, or be d.a.m.ned confoundedly." Gibber at Drury Lane refused it; it was accepted by his rival Rich, and soon the _on dit_ ran that it had made Gay Rich, and Rich Gay. On its first night there was a brilliant a.s.semblage. What painter shall give their heads and faces on that anxious evening--Swift's lowering front--Pope's bright eyes contrasting with the blind orbs of Congreve (if _he_ indeed were there)--Addison's quiet, thoughtful physiognomy, as of one retired into some "Vision of Mirza"--the Duke of Argyle, with his star and stately form and animated countenance--and poor Gay himself perhaps, like some other play-wrights in the same predicament, perspiring with trepidation, as if again about to recite the "Captives!" At first uncertainty prevails among the patron-critics, and strange looks are exchanged between Swift and Pope, till, by and by, the latter hears Argyle exclaim, "It will do, it must do! I see it in the eyes of 'em;" and then the critics breathe freely, and the applauses become incontrollable, and the curtain closes at last amidst thunders of applause; and Gay goes home triumphant, amidst a circle of friends, who do not know whether more to wonder at his success or at their own previous apprehensions. For sixty-three nights continuously the piece is acted in London; then it spreads through England, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland. Ladies sing its favourite songs, or carry them in their fans.

Miss Fenton, who acted Polly, becomes a universal favourite, nay, a _furor_. Her pictures are engraved, her life written, and her sayings and jests published, and in fine, the Italian Opera, which the piece was intended to ridicule, is extinguished for a season. Notwithstanding this unparalleled success of the "Beggars' Opera," Gay gained only 400 by it, although by "Polly," the second part, (where Gay transports his characters to the colonies,) which the Lord Chamberlain suppressed, on account of its supposed immoral tendency, and which the author published in self-defence, he cleared nearly 1200.

Altogether now worth above 3000, having been admitted by the Duke of Queensberry into his house, who generously undertook the care alike of the helpless being's purse and person, and still in the prime of life, Gay might have looked forward, humanly speaking, to long years of comfort, social happiness, and increased fame. _Dis aliter visum est_. He had been delicate for some time, and on the 4th December 1732, at the age of 44, and in the course of a three days' attack of inflammation of the bowels, this irresolute but amiable and gifted person breathed his last, and was buried in Westminster Abbey. The last work he was occupied on was a second volume of "Fables," which was published after his death. He had become very popular, not merely for his powers, but for his presumed political principles, a "little Sacheverel," as Arbuthnot, his faithful friend and kind physician, calls him, and yet his modesty and simplicity of character remained entire, and he died while planning schemes of self-reformation, economy, and steady literary work. It is curious that Swift, when the letter arrived with the news of Gay's death, was so impressed with a presentiment of some coming evil, that he allowed it to lie five days unopened on his table. And when the Duke and d.u.c.h.ess of Queensberry erected a monument to his memory, Pope supplied an epitaph, familiar to most readers of poetry, and which is creditable to both. Two widow sisters survived Gay, amongst whom the profits of a posthumous opera, ent.i.tled "Achilles," as well as the small fortune which he left, were divided.

Gay's works lie in narrow compa.s.s, and hardly require minute criticism.

His "Beggars' Opera" has the charm of daring singularity of plan, of great liveliness of song, and has some touches of light hurrying sarcasm, worthy of any pen. Burke used to deny its merit, but he was probably trying it b too lofty and ideal a standard. Hazlitt, on the other hand, has praised it overmuch, and perhaps "monstered" some of its "nothings."

That it has power is proved by its effects on literature. It did not, we believe, create many robbers, but it created a large robber school in the drama and the novel; for instance, Schiller's "Robbers," Ainsworth's "Rookwood," and "Jack Shepherd," and Bulwer's "Paul Clifford," and "Eugene Aram," not to speak of the innumerable French tales and plays of a similar kind. The intention of these generally is not, perhaps, after all, to make an apology, far less an apotheosis of crime, but to teach us how there is a "soul of goodness" in all things. And has not Shakspeare long taught and been commended for teaching a similar lesson, although we cannot say of Gay and his brethren that they have "bettered the instruction?" Of "Trivia," we have spoken incidentally before; of "Rural Sports," and the "Shepherd's Week," it is unnecessary to say more than that the first is juvenile, and the second odd, graphic, and amusing.

None of them is equal to the "Fables," and therefore we have decided on omitting them from our edition. In the "Fables," Gay is happy in proportion to the innocence and simplicity of his nature. He understands animals, because he has more than an ordinary share of the animal in his own const.i.tution. aesop, so far as we know, though an astute, was an uneducated and simple-minded man. Phaedrus was a myth, and we cannot, therefore, adduce him in point. But Fontaine was called the "Fable-tree,"

and Gay is just the Fable-tree transplanted from France to England. In so doing we do not question our poet's originality, but merely indicate a certain resemblance in spirit between two originals. An original in Fable-writing Gay certainly was. He has copied, neither in story, spirit, nor moral, any previous writer. His "Fables" are always graceful in literary execution, often interesting in story; their versification is ever smooth and flowing; and sometimes, as in the "Court of Death," their moral darkens into sublimity. On the whole, these "Fables," along with the "Beggars' Opera," and the delectable songs of "'Twas when the Seas were Roaring," and "Black-eyed Susan," shall long preserve the memory of their author. We have appended these two songs because of their rare excellence.