(1685-1732)
n the great society of the wits," said Thackeray, "John Gay deserves to be a favorite, and to have a good place." The wits loved him. Prior was his faithful ally; Pope wrote him frequent letters of affectionate good advice; Swift grew genial in his merry company; and when the jester lapsed into gloom, as jesters will, all his friends hurried to coddle and comfort him. His verse is not of the first order, but the list of "English classics" contains far poorer; it is entertaining enough to be a pleasure even to bright children of this generation, and each succeeding one reads it with an inherited fondness not by any means without help from its own merits. And the man who invented comic opera, one of the most enduring molds in which English humor has been cast, deserves the credit of all important literary pioneers.
John Gay
Kind, lazy, clever John Gay came of a good, impoverished Devonshire family, which seems to have done its best for the bright lad of twelve when it apprenticed him to a London silk mercer. The boy hated this employment, grew ill under its fret and confinement, went back to the country, studied, possibly wrote poor verses, and presently drifted back to London. The cleverest men of the time frequented the crowded taverns and coffee-houses, and the talk that he heard at Will's and Button's may have determined his profession. Thither came Pope and Addison, Swift and Steele, Congreve, St. John, Prior, Arbuthnot, Cibber, Hogarth, Walpole, and many a powerful patron who loved good company.
Perhaps through some kind acquaintance made in this informal circle, Gay obtained a private secretaryship, and began the flirtation with the Muse which became serious only after some years of coldness on that humorous lady's part. His first poem, 'Wine,' published when he was twenty-three, is not included in his collected works: perhaps because it is written in blank verse; perhaps because his maturer taste condemned it. Three years later, in 1711, when the success of the Spectator was yet new, and Pope had just completed his brilliant 'Art of Criticism,' and Swift was editing the Examiner and working on that defense of a French peace, 'The Conduct of the Allies,' which was to make him the talk of London,—Gay sent forth his second venture; a curious, unimportant pamphlet, 'The Present State of Wit.' Late in 1713 he is contributing to Dicky Steele's Guardian, and sending elegies to his 'Poetical Miscellanies'; and a little later, having become a favorite with the powerful Mr. Pope, he is made to bring up new reinforcements to the battle of that irascible gentleman with his ancient enemy Ambrose Phillips. This he does in 'The Shepherd's Week,' a sham pastoral, which is full of wit and easy versification, and shows very considerable talents as a parodist. This skit the luckless satirist dedicated to Bolingbroke, whose brilliant star was just passing into eclipse. Swift thought this harmless courtesy the real cause of the indifference of the Brunswick princes to the merits of the poet; and in an age when every spark of literary genius was so carefully nursed and utilized to sustain the weak dynasty, most likely he was right.
For this reason or another, indifferent they were; and in a time when court favor counted enormously, poor indolent luxury-loving Gay had to earn his loaf by hard work, or go without it. He produced a tragi-comi-pastoral farce called 'What D'ye Call It?' which was the lineal ancestor of 'Pinafore' and the 'Pirates of Penzance' in its method of treating farcical incidents in a grave manner. But the town did not see the fun of this expedient, and the play failed, though it contained, among other famous songs, ''Twas When the Seas Were Roaring.' In 1716 'Trivia, or the Art of Walking the Streets of London,' put some money into the poet's empty pocket, thanks to Pope's good offices. A year later a second comedy of his, 'Three Hours after Marriage,' met with well-deserved failure. And now, as always, when his spirits sank, his good friends showered kindnesses upon him. Mr. Secretary Pulteney carried him off to Aix. Lord Bathurst and Lord Burlington were his to command. Many fine gentlemen, and particularly many fine ladies, pressed him to make indefinite country visits. In 1720 his friends managed the publication of his poems in two quarto volumes, subscribing for ten, twenty, and even fifty copies apiece, some of them, and securing to the poet, it is said, £1,000. The younger Craggs, the bookseller, gave him some South-Sea stock which rose rapidly, and at one time the improvident little gentleman found himself in possession of £20,000. All his friends besought him to sell, but Alnaschar Gay had visions of a splendid ease and opulence. The bubble burst, and poor Alnaschar had not wherewithal to pay his broker.
The Duchess of Queensborough (Prior's "Kitty, beautiful and young") had already annexed the charmer, and now carried him off to Petersham. "I wish you had a little villakin in Mr. Pope's neighborhood," scolds Swift to him; "but you are yet too volatile, and any lady with a coach and six horses might carry you to Japan;" and again:—"I know your arts of patching up a journey between stagecoaches and friend's coaches—for you are as arrant a cockney as any hosier in Cheapside. I have often had it in my head to put it into yours, that you ought to have some great work in scheme which may take up seven years to finish, besides two or three under ones that may add another thousand pounds to your stock; and then I shall be in less pain about you. I know you can find dinners, but you love twelvepenny coaches too well, without considering that the interest of a whole thousand pounds brings you but half a crown a day." Gay went to Bath with the Queensberrys, and to Oxford. Swift complained to Pope:—"I suppose Mr. Gay will return from Bath with twenty pounds more flesh, and two hundred pounds less money. Providence never designed him to be above two-and-twenty, by his thoughtlessness and gullibility. He has as little foresight of age, sickness, poverty, or loss of admirers as a girl of fifteen." And his dear Mrs. Howard, afterwards Lady Suffolk, took him affectionately to task:—"Your head is your best friend: it would clothe, lodge, and feed you; but you neglect it, and follow that false friend your heart, which is such a foolish, tender thing that it makes others despise your head, that have not half so good a one on their own shoulders. In short, John, you may be a snail, or a silkworm; but by my consent you shall never be a hare again."
He lived under other great roofs, if not contentedly, at least gracefully and agreeably. If his dependent state irked him, his hosts did not perceive it. To Swift he wrote, indeed, "They wonder at each other for not providing for me, and I wonder at them all." Yet, for the nine years from 1722 to 1731 he had a small official salary, on which a thriftier or more industrious mortal would have managed to live respectably even in that expensive age; and for at least a part of the time he had official lodgings at Whitehall.
In 1725 was published the first edition of his famous 'Fables,' which had been written for the moral behoof of Prince William, afterward Duke of Cumberland, of unblessed memory. The book did not make his fortune with the court, as he had hoped, and in 1728 he produced his best known work, 'The Beggar's Opera.' Nobody had much faith in this "Newgate Pastoral," least of all Swift, who had first suggested it. But it took the town by storm, running for sixty-three consecutive nights. As the heroine, Polly Peachum, the lovely Lavinia Fenton captured a duchess's coronet. The songs were heard alike in West End drawing-rooms and East End slums. Swift praised it for its morality, and the Archbishop of Canterbury scored it for its condonation of vice. The breath of praise and blame filled equally its prosperous sails, blew it all over the kingdom wherever a theatre could be found, and finally wafted it to Minorca. So well did the opera pay him that Gay wrote a sequel called 'Polly,' which, being prohibited through some notion of Walpole's, sold enormously by subscription and earned Gay £1,200.
After this the hospitable Queensberrys seem to have adopted him. He produced a musical drama, 'Acis and Galatea,' written long before and set to Handel's music; a few more 'Fables'; a thin opera called 'Achilles'; and then his work was done. He died in London of a swift fever, in December 1732, before his kind Kitty and her husband could reach him, or his other great friend, the Countess of Suffolk. Arbuthnot watched over him; Pope was with him to the last; Swift indorsed on the letter that brought him the tidings, "On my dear friend Mr. Gay's death; received on December 15th, but not read till the 20th, by an impulse foreboding some misfortune." So faithfully did the "giants," as Thackeray calls them, cherish this gentle, friendly, affectionate, humorous comrade. He seems indeed to have been almost the only companion with whom Swift did not at some time fall out, and of his steadfastness the gloomy great man in his 'Verses on my Own Death' could write:—
"Poor Pope will grieve a month, and Gay
A week, and Arbuthnot a day."
The 'Trivia' and the 'Shepherd's Week,' the 'Acis and Galatea' and even the 'Beggar's Opera,' gradually faded into the realm of "old, forgotten, far-off things"; while the 'Fables' passed through many editions, found their place in school reading-books, were committed to memory by three generations of admiring pupils, and included in the most orthodox libraries. Yet criticism now reverts to the earlier standard; approves the songs, and the minute observation, the nice phrasing, and the humorous swing of the pastorals and operas, and finds the fables dull, commonplace, and monotonous. Pope said in his affectionate epitaph that the poet had been laid in Westminster Abbey, not for ambition, but—
"That the worthy and the good shall say,
Striking their pensive bosoms, 'Here lies Gay.'"
If to-day the worthy and the good do not know even where he lies, not the less is he to be gratefully remembered whom the best and greatest of his own time so much admired, and of whom Pope and Johnson and Thackeray and Dobson have written with the warmth of friendship.
THE HARE AND MANY FRIENDS
From the 'Fables'
Friendship, like love, is but a name,
Unless to one you stint the flame.
The child whom many fathers share
Hath seldom known a father's care.
'Tis thus in friendships: who depend
On many, rarely find a friend.
A Hare, who in a civil way
Complied with everything, like Gay,
Was known by all the bestial train
Who haunt the wood or graze the plain.
Her care was, never to offend,
And ev'ry creature was her friend.
As forth she went at early dawn
To taste the dew-besprinkled lawn,
Behind she hears the hunters' cries,
And from the deep-mouthed thunder flies.
She starts, she stops, she pants for breath;
She hears the near advance of death;
She doubles to mislead the hound,
And measures back her mazy round;
Till fainting in the public way,
Half dead with fear, she gasping lay.
What transport in her bosom grew,
When first the horse appeared in view!
"Let me," says she, "your back ascend,
And owe my safety to a friend.
You know my feet betray my flight;
To friendship every burden's light."
The Horse replied:—"Poor honest Puss,
It grieves my heart to see thee thus:
Be comforted, relief is near;
For all your friends are in the rear."
She next the stately Bull implored;
And thus replied the mighty lord:—
"Since every beast alive can tell
That I sincerely wish you well,
I may, without offense, pretend
To take the freedom of a friend.
Love calls me hence; a favorite cow
Expects me near yon barley-mow:
And when a lady's in the case,
You know all other things give place.
To leave you thus might seem unkind;
But see, the Goat is just behind."
The Goat remarked her pulse was high,
Her languid head, her heavy eye;
"My back," says he, "may do you harm:
The Sheep's at hand, and wool is warm."
The Sheep was feeble, and complained
His sides a load of wool sustained:
Said he was slow, confessed his fears;
For hounds eat Sheep, as well as Hares!
She now the trotting Calf addressed,
To save from death a friend distressed.
"Shall I," says he, "of tender age,
In this important care engage?
Older and abler passed you by;
How strong are those! how weak am I!
Should I presume to bear you hence,
Those friends of mine may take offense.
Excuse me then. You know my heart:
But dearest friends, alas! must part.
How shall we all lament! Adieu!
For see, the hounds are just in view."
THE SICK MAN AND THE ANGEL
From the 'Fables'
Is there no hope? the Sick Man said.
The silent doctor shook his head,
And took his leave with signs of sorrow,
Despairing of his fee to-morrow.
When thus the Man with gasping breath:—
I feel the chilling wound of death;
Since I must bid the world adieu,
Let me my former life review.
I grant, my bargains well were made,
But all men overreach in trade;
'Tis self-defense in each profession;
Sure, self-defense is no transgression.
The little portion in my hands,
By good security on lands,
Is well increased. If unawares,
My justice to myself and heirs
Hath let my debtor rot in jail,
For want of good sufficient bail;
If I by writ, or bond, or deed,
Reduced a family to need,—
My will hath made the world amends;
My hope on charity depends.
When I am numbered with the dead,
And all my pious gifts are read,
By heaven and earth 'twill then be known,
My charities were amply shown.
An Angel came. Ah, friend! he cried,
No more in flattering hope confide.
Can thy good deeds in former times
Outweigh the balance of thy crimes?
What widow or what orphan prays
To crown thy life with length of days?
A pious action's in thy power;
Embrace with joy the happy hour.
Now, while you draw the vital air,
Prove your intention is sincere:
This instant give a hundred pound;
Your neighbors want, and you abound.
But why such haste? the Sick Man whines:
Who knows as yet what Heaven designs?
Perhaps I may recover still;
That sum and more are in my will.
Fool, says the Vision, now 'tis plain,
Your life, your soul, your heaven was gain;
From every side, with all your might,
You scraped, and scraped beyond your right;
And after death would fain atone,
By giving what is not your own.
Where there is life there's hope, he cried;
Then why such haste?—so groaned and died.
THE JUGGLER.
Photogravure from a Painting by L. Knaus.
THE JUGGLER
From the 'Fables'
A juggler long through all the town
Had raised his fortune and renown;
You'd think (so far his art transcends)
The Devil at his fingers' ends.
Vice heard his fame; she read his bill;
Convinced of his inferior skill,
She sought his booth, and from the crowd
Defied the man of art aloud.
Is this, then, he so famed for sleight?
Can this slow bungler cheat your sight?
Dares he with me dispute the prize?
I leave it to impartial eyes.
Provoked, the Juggler cried, 'Tis done.
In science I submit to none.
Thus said, the cups and balls he played;
By turns, this here, that there, conveyed.
The cards, obedient to his words,
Are by a fillip turned to birds.
His little boxes change the grain;
Trick after trick deludes the train.
He shakes his bag, he shows all fair;
His fingers spreads,—and nothing there;
Then bids it rain with showers of gold,
And now his ivory eggs are told.
But when from thence the hen he draws,
Amazed spectators hum applause.
Vice now stept forth, and took the place
With all the forms of his grimace.
This magic looking-glass, she cries
(There, hand it round), will charm your eyes.
Each eager eye the sight desired,
And ev'ry man himself admired.
Next to a senator addressing:
See this bank-note; observe the blessing,
Breathe on the bill. Heigh, pass! 'Tis gone;
Upon his lips a padlock shone.
A second puff the magic broke,
The padlock vanished, and he spoke.
Twelve bottles ranged upon the board,
All full, with heady liquor stored,
By clean conveyance disappear,
And now two bloody swords are there.
A purse she to a thief exposed,
At once his ready fingers closed:
He opes his fist, the treasure's fled:
He sees a halter in its stead.
She bids ambition hold a wand;
He grasps a hatchet in his hand.
A box of charity she shows:
Blow here; and a churchwarden blows.
'Tis vanished with conveyance neat,
And on the table smokes a treat.
She shakes the dice, the board she knocks,
And from her pockets fills her box.
A counter in a miser's hand
Grew twenty guineas at command.
She bids his heir the sum retain,
And 'tis a counter now again.
A guinea with her touch you see
Take ev'ry shape but Charity;
And not one thing you saw, or drew,
But changed from what was first in view.
The Juggler now, in grief of heart,
With this submission owned her art.
Can I such matchless sleight withstand?
How practice hath improved your hand!
But now and then I cheat the throng;
You every day, and all day long.
SWEET WILLIAM'S FAREWELL TO BLACK-EYED SUSAN
A Ballad
All in the Downs the fleet was moored,
The streamers waving in the wind,
When black-eyed Susan came aboard:
Oh, where shall I my true love find!
Tell me, ye jovial sailors, tell me true,
If my sweet William sails among the crew.
William, who high upon the yard
Rocked with the billow to and fro,
Soon as her well-known voice he heard,
He sighed and cast his eyes below;
The cord slides swiftly through his glowing hands,
And quick as lightning on the deck he stands.
So the sweet lark, high poised in air,
Shuts close his pinions to his breast
(If, chance, his mate's shrill call he hear),
And drops at once into her nest.
The noblest captain in the British fleet
Might envy William's lip those kisses sweet.
O Susan, Susan, lovely dear,
My vows shall ever true remain;
Let me kiss off that falling tear;
We only part to meet again.
Change, as ye list, ye winds; my heart shall be
The faithful compass that still points to thee.
Believe not what the landmen say,
Who tempt with doubts thy constant mind:
They'll tell thee, sailors when away
In every port a mistress find.
Yes, yes, believe them when they tell thee so,
For thou art present wheresoe'er I go.
If to far India's coast we sail,
Thy eyes are seen in diamonds bright;
Thy breath is Afric's spicy gale,
Thy skin is ivory so white.
Thus every beauteous object that I view,
Wakes in my soul some charm of lovely Sue.
Though battle call me from thy arms,
Let not my pretty Susan mourn;
Though cannons roar, yet safe from harms,
William shall to his dear return.
Love turns aside the balls that round me fly,
Lest precious tears should drop from Susan's eye.
The boatswain gave the dreadful word;
The sails their swelling bosom spread;
No longer must she stay aboard:
They kissed, she sighed, he hung his head:
Her lessening boat unwilling rows to land:
Adieu! she cries; and waved her lily hand.
FROM 'WHAT D'YE CALL IT?'
A Ballad
T'was when the seas were roaring
With hollow blasts of wind,
A damsel lay deploring,
All on a rock reclined.
Wide o'er the foaming billows
She cast a wistful look;
Her head was crowned with willows,
That tremble o'er the brook.
"Twelve months are gone and over,
And nine long tedious days;
Why didst thou, venturous lover,
Why didst thou trust the seas?
Cease, cease, thou cruel ocean,
And let my lover rest:
Ah! what's thy troubled motion
To that within my breast?
"The merchant robbed of pleasure
Sees tempests in despair;
But what's the loss of treasure,
To losing of my dear?
Should you some coast be laid on,
Where gold and diamonds grow,
You'll find a richer maiden,
But none that loves you so.
"How can they say that nature
Has nothing made in vain;
Why then, beneath the water,
Should hideous rocks remain?
No eyes the rocks discover
That lurk beneath the deep,
To wreck the wandering lover,
And leave the maid to weep."
All melancholy lying,
Thus wailed she for her dear!
Repaid each blast with sighing,
Each billow with a tear.
When o'er the white wave stooping,
His floating corpse she spied,—
Then, like a lily drooping,
She bowed her head and died.