CHAPTER I
1685-1706
EARLY YEARS
The Gays were an old family, who settled in Devonshire when Gilbert le Gay, through his marriage with the daughter and heiress of Curtoyse, came into possession of the manor of Goldsworthy, in Parkham. This they held until 1630, when it passed out of their hands to the Coffins.[[1]] Subsequently they were associated with the parish of Frittelstock, near Great Torrington. In the Parish Registers of Barnstaple the name appears from time to time: in 1544 is recorded the death of Richard Gaye, and later of John Gaye, "gentill man," and Johans Gay. From other sources it is known that Richard Gay was Mayor of the town in 1533, and Anthony Gay in 1638.[[2]] The records of the family have not been preserved, but at some time early in the seventeenth century there was at Frittelstock one John Gay, whose second son, William, was the father of the poet.
William Gay resided at Barnstaple, and since he lived in a large house, called the Red Cross, at the corner of Joy Street, facing Holland Street, it is reasonable to assume that he was in easy circumstances. He married a daughter of Jonathan Hanmer, the leading Nonconformist divine of the town, and by her had five children. The first-born was a girl, who died in 1685; then came Katherine, born [pg 2]in 1676, who married Anthony Baller, whose son Joseph issued in 1820 the slim volume bearing the title of "Gay's Chair";[[3]]in 1778, Jonathan; and three years later, Joanna, who married John Fortescue—possibly a relation of William Fortescue, afterwards Master of the Rolls, who is still remembered as a friend of Pope. The youngest child was John, the subject of this memoir, stated by his earlier biographers to have been born in 1688, but now known, from an entry in the Barnstaple Parish Register, to have been baptised in the Old Church on September 16th, 1685.
Mrs. Gay died in 1694, her husband a year later; and the custody of the four surviving orphaned children devolved upon their uncles. William Gay's brothers were John and Richard, who resided at Frittelstock; James, Rector of Meeth; and Thomas, who lived at Barnstaple. Mrs. Gay's only brother was John Hanmer, who succeeded to his father's pastoral office among the Congregational or Independent Dissenters at Barnstaple. Jonathan, the elder son of William Gay, who inherited the family property, was intended for the Church, but "severe studies not well suiting his natural genius, he betook himself to military pursuits,"[[4]] and, probably about the time of his father's death, entered the army. Who took charge of the two girls is not known; but it is on record that John, after his father's death, and then in his tenth year, went to live at Barnstaple with his paternal uncle, Thomas Gay. It is interesting to note that in 1882, "among the pieces of timber carted away from the Barnstaple Parish Church [which was then undergoing restoration] has been found a portion of a pew, with the name 'John Gay,' and the date, 1695, cut upon it.... No other John Gay appears in the Parish Register."[[5]]
Gay attended the Free Grammar School at Barnstaple, and among his schoolfellows there with whom he cemented [pg 3]an enduring friendship, were William Fortescue, to whom reference has been made above, and Aaron Hill.[[6]] William Raynor was the headmaster when Gay first went to the Grammar School, but soon he removed to Tiverton, and was succeeded by the Rev. Robert Luck. Luck subsequently claimed that Gay's dramatic instincts were developed by taking part in the amateur theatricals promoted by him, and when in April, 1736, he published a volume of verse, he wrote, in his dedication to the Duke of Queensberry.[[7]] Gay's patron and friend:—
"O Queensberry! could happy Gay
This offering to thee bring,
''Tis he, my Lord' (he'd smiling say),
'Who taught your Gay to sing.'"
These lines suggest that an intimacy between Gay and Luck existed long after their relations as pupil and master had ceased, but it is doubtful if this was the case. It is certainly improbable that the lad saw much of the pedagogue when he returned to Barnstaple for a while as the guest of the Rev. John Hanmer, since Luck was a bitter opponent of the Dissenters and in open antagonism to John Hanmer.
How long Gay remained at the Grammar School is not known. There are, indeed, no records upon which to base a narrative of his early years. It is, however, generally accepted that, on leaving school, he was apprenticed to a silk-mercer in London. This was not so unaccountable a proceeding then as appears to-day, for we know from Gibbon's "Memoirs" that "our most respectable families have not disdained the counting-house, or even the shop;... and in England, as well as in the Italian commonwealths, heralds have been compelled to declare that gentility is not degraded by the exercise of trade": for example, the historian's great grandfather, son of a [pg 4]country gentleman, became a linen-draper in Leadenhall Street.
Gay had no taste for trade, and did not long remain in this employment. According to one authority, "he grew so fond of reading and study that he frequently neglected to exert himself in putting oft silks and velvets to the ladies";[[8]] while his nephew, the Rev. Joseph Bailer, says: "Young Gay, not being able to bear the confinement of a shop, soon felt a remarkable depression of spirits, and consequent decline of health; he was, therefore, obliged to quit that situation, and retire to Barnstaple, in the hope of receiving benefit from his native air."[[9]] No doubt the mercer was willing enough to cancel the indentures of an apprentice so unsatisfactory as Gay probably was. Anyhow, Gay returned to Barnstaple, and stayed awhile with his maternal uncle, the Rev. John Hanmer.
It has been said that it was during this visit to Barnstaple that Gay began to write verses; and as most men who take to poetry began to dabble in ink in their youth, this statement may well be accepted. Only, so far no bibliographer has traced any of these early writings. Some poems, said to have been written by him in these days have been printed in the volume to which reference has already been made, "Gay's Chair: Poems never before printed, written by John Gay.... With a Sketch of his Life from the MSS. of the Rev. Joseph Bailer, his nephew. Edited by Henry Lee ... 1820," but the authenticity of these cannot definitely be accepted. A chair, said to have been the property of Gay at Barnstaple, was sold early in the nineteenth century to Henry Lee, who sent it to be repaired. "On taking out the drawer in front, which was somewhat broken," so runs the story, "I found at the back part of the chair a concealed drawer, ingeniously fastened with a small wooden bolt;... it was full of manuscript papers, some of which appeared to have [pg 5]slipped over, as I found them stuck to the bottom or seat of the chair."[[10]] The poems in question are: "The Ladies' Petition to the Honorable the House of Commons," the longest and most ambitious of the pieces; "To Miss Jane Scott," "Prediction," "Comparisons," "Absence," "Fable," "Congratulation to a Newly-married Pair," "A Devonshire Hill," "Letter to a Young Lady," and "To My Chair." Of this small collection, Mr. John Underhill, who includes it in his admirable edition of Gay's poems in the "Muses' Library," writes: "The evidence in support of their authenticity is (1) the fact that they were found in a chair which was always spoken of by Gay's 'immediate descendants' as 'having been the property of the poet, and which, as his favourite easy chair, he highly valued'; and (2) that 'The Ladies' Petition' was printed nearly verbatim from a manuscript in the handwriting of the poet ... If really Gay's, they [the verses] may, we think, a great many of them, be safely regarded as the production of his youth, written, perhaps, during the somewhat extended visit to Devonshire which preceded his introduction to the literary world of Pope. The least doubtful piece, 'The Ladies' Petition' was probably 'thrown off' upon the occasion of his visit to Exeter in 1715."
If the verses are genuine, they have such biographical interest as is afforded by an allusion to a youthful love-affair. There are lines "To Miss Jane Scott":—
The Welsh girl is pretty.
The English girl fair,
The Irish deem'd witty,
The French débonnaire;
Though all may invite me,
I'd value them not;
The charms that delight me
I find in a SCOT.
It is presumedly to the same young lady he was referring [pg 6]in the verses written probably shortly after he returned to London after his visit to Devonshire:—
ABSENCE.
Augustus, frowning, gave command.
And Ovid left his native land;
From Julia, as an exile sent.
He long with barb'rous Goths was pent.
So fortune frown'd on me, and I was driven
From friends, from home, from Jane, and happy Devon!
And Jane, sore grieved when from me torn away;—
loved her sorrow, though I wish'd her—GAY.
That another girl there was may be gathered from the "Letter to a Young Lady," who was not so devoted as Jane Scott, for the poet writes:
Begging you will not mock his sighing.
And keep him thus whole years a-dying!
"Whole years!"—Excuse my freely speaking.
Such tortures, why a month—a week in?
Caress, or kill him quite in one day,
Obliging thus your servant, JOHN GAY.
Footnotes:
Risdon: Survey of Devon (1811), p. 243.
Gribble: Memorials of Devonshire.
Gay's Chair, p. 12.
Gay's Chair, p. 13.
Notes and Queries, N.S. VI, 488, December 16th, 1882, from the North Devon Herald of December 7th.
Aaron Hill (1685-1750), dramatist and journalist.
Charles Douglas, third Duke of Queensbury and second Duke of Dover (1698-1777), married Catherine, second daughter of Henry Hyde, Earl of Clarendon and Rochester.
Ayre: Pope, pp. 11, 97.
Gay's Chair, p. 13.
Gay's Chair, p. 5.