The bridegroom in the play is called Fossile, and there was no mistaking the intention. Dr. Woodward had many friends, and these made known their disgust in the most unmistakable manner when "Three Hours After Marriage" was produced on January 16th, 1717, at Drury Lane Theatre. It ran for seven nights. "It had the fate which such outrages deserved," Dr. Johnson has written; "the scene in which Woodward was directly and apparently ridiculed by the introduction of a mummy and a crocodile, disgusted the audience, and the performance was driven off the stage with general condemnation."[[9]] The farce was not only dull, it was vulgar. And the geologist (played by Johnson) was not the only person introduced for the purpose of ridicule. Dennis was brought in as Sir Tremendous, and it was believed that Phoebe Clinket (played by Mrs. Bicknell) was intended for Anne Finch, Countess of Winchelsea, who, says Mr. Austin Dobson, "was alleged to have spoken contemptuously of Gay." Of this farce, Mr. Dobson writes: "It is perhaps fairer to say that he bore the blame, than that he is justly charged with its errors of taste"; and it is very probable that, while Gay generously accepted responsibility, Pope and Arbuthnot were equally culpable. "Too late I see, and confess myself mistaken in relation to the comedy; yet I do not think had I followed your advice and only introduced the mummy, that the absence of the crocodile had saved it," Gay wrote to Pope. "I cannot help laughing myself (though the vulgar do not consider it was designed to look ridiculous) to think how the poor monster and mummy were dashed at their reception; and when the [pg 43]cry was loudest I thought that if the thing had been written by another I should have deemed the town in some measure mistaken; and, as to your apprehension that this may do us future injury, do not think it; the Doctor [Arbuthnot] has a more valuable name than can be hurt by anything of this nature, and yours is doubly safe. I will, if any shame there be, take it all to myself, as indeed I ought, the notion being first mine, and never heartily approved of by you.... I beg of you not to suffer this, or anything else, to hurt your health. As I have publicly said that I was assisted by two friends, I shall still continue in the same story, professing obstinate silence about Dr. Arbuthnot and yourself."[[10]]
The publication in book form of "Three Hours After Marriage" by Lintott, who paid £16 2s. 6d. for the copyright, a few days after the production, did nothing to arrest the torrent of abuse. "Gay's play, among the rest, has cost much time and long suffering to stem a tide of malice and party, that certain authors have raised against it," Pope wrote to Parnell. Amongst those foremost among the attackers was Addison, who perhaps had not forgotten or forgiven the parody of some of the lines in his play "Cato," which was introduced by Gay in "The What D'ye Call It." Gay, the most easy-going of men, was always stirred by criticism, and in this case he, with unusual energy, sat down to reply to his detractors. "Mr. Addison and his friends had exclaimed so much against Gay's 'Three Hours After Marriage' for obscenities, that it provoked him to write 'A Letter from a Lady in the City to a Lady in the Country' on that subject," so runs a passage in Spence's Anecdotes of Pope. "In it he quoted the passages which had been most exclaimed against, and opposed other passages to them from Addison's and Steele's plays. These were aggravated in the same manner that they served his, and appeared worse. Had it been published it would have made Addison appear ridiculous, [pg 44]which he could bear as little as any man. I therefore prevailed upon Gay not to print it, and have the manuscript now by me."[[11]] In Spence's Anecdotes there is another passage bearing on the same matter: "A fortnight before Addison's death, [[12]] Lord Warwick [[13]] came to Gay and pressed him in a very particular manner 'to go and see Mr. Addison,' which he had not done for a great while. Gay went, and found Addison in a very weak way. He received him in the kindest manner and told him, 'that he had desired this visit to beg his pardon, that he had injured him greatly, but that if he lived he should find that he would make it up to him.' Gay, on his going to Hanover, had great reason to hope for some good preferment; but all his views came to nothing. It is not impossible but that Mr. Addison might prevent them, from his thinking Gay too well with some of the great men of the former Ministry. He did not at all explain himself, in which he had injured him, and Gay could not guess at anything else in which he could have injured him so considerably."[[14]] It seems, however, more probable that Addison really had in mind the part he had taken in connection with "Three Hours After Marriage." Two critical publications, "A Complete Key to 'Three Hours After Marriage,'" and "A Letter to John Gay, Concerning his late Farce, entitled a Comedy," annoyed Gay; while Pope, too, and, in a minor degree, Arbuthnot, were attacked for their share in the farce. John Durand Breval, writing over the signature of Joseph Gay, published in 1717 "The Confederates: A Farce," in which he introduced a humorous caricature print of Pope, Gay and Arbuthnot, so that, says Professor Courthope, "Pope, at the height of his fame, found himself credited, though he seems to have had little to do with it, with the past paternity of a condemned play."[[15]] Another incident, [pg 45]recorded by Professor Courthope, further angered Pope: "While he was still sore at the mishap, Colley Cibber, playing in 'The Rehearsal,' happened to make an impromptu allusion to the unlucky farce, saying that he had intended to introduce the two kings of Brentford, 'one of them in the shape of a mummy, and t'other in that of a crocodile.' The audience laughed, but Pope, who was in the house, appeared (according to Cibber's account) behind the scenes and abused the actor in unmeasured terms for his impertinence. Cibber's only reply was to assure the enraged poet that, so long as the play was acted, he should never fail to repeat the same words. He kept his promise, thus committing the first of that series of offences which, in the poet's vindictive memory, marked him down for elevation to the throne of Dulness which was rendered vacant by the deposition of King Tibbald."[[16]] There is a rumour that Gay, in revenge for Cibber's banter of "Three Hours After Marriage," personally chastised the actor-dramatist,[[17]] but there is nothing definitely known about this. Anyhow, Gay was so irritated by the failure of this play that he did not produce anything at a theatre during the next seven years.
How Gay managed to exist through the three years after the production of "Three Hours After Marriage" is one of the stumbling blocks for the biographer. Of literary achievement during this period his life was barren. It is true that when he was abroad or in the country he was a guest, but even with this his expenses must have amounted to something. As he earned nothing by his pen, unless his friends provided him with money as well as giving him hospitality, it looks as if some relative must have died and left him a small sum. "As for Gay," Pope wrote to Caryll, June 7th, 1717, "he is just on the wing for Aix-la-Chapelle, with Mr. Pulteney, the late Secretary (at War)."[[18]] Pulteney who had resigned office when there was a split in the Ministry, had in December, 1714, married a very beautiful [pg 46]woman, Anne Maria Gumley, daughter of a wealthy glass manufacturer. With them Gay went abroad for some months, and perhaps the solution of the problem above stated, is that while he went nominally as their guest, he was actually paid a salary as companion or secretary.
It is evident from Gay's "Epistle to the Right Honourable William Pulteney, Esq." (published in 1717) that the party stayed some while at Paris, for therein is an account of that city, an account in which the author betrays a sad insularity; and he was certainly at Aix in November. "I should not forget to acknowledge your letter sent from Aix. You told me that writing was not good with the waters, and I find since, you are of my opinion, that it is as bad without the waters. But, I fancy, it is not writing, but thinking, that is so bad with the waters; and then you might write without any manner of prejudice if you write like our brother poets of these days." Pope wrote to him on November 8th: "... That Duchess [of Hamilton],[[19]] Lord Warwick, Lord Stanhope, Mrs. Bellenden, Mrs. Lepell, and I cannot tell who else, had your letters ... I would send my services to Mr. Pulteney, but that he is out at Court, and make some compliment to Mrs. Pulteney, if she was not a Whig."[[20]]
From this letter it is evident that Gay was becoming well known in fashionable circles, and it is also clear that he had friends in the Court circle. "Gay is well at Court, and more than ever in the way of being served than ever.... Gay dines daily with the Maids of Honour," Pope had written to Martha Blount in December, 1716; and Gay, who would rather have had a place in the Household with nothing to do and no responsibility than anything else in the world, was not the man to refrain from endeavouring to improve the occasion. Mrs. Howard he had first met at Hanover, and in London contrived to turn the acquaintanceship into friendship. Knowing Gay's [pg 47]character and his ambition, it is probably doing him no injustice to say that he was first drawn to the lady by the belief that she might further his aims. However, it is only fair to say that he soon came to like her for herself, and long after he was convinced that she could be of no service to him he remained a very loyal and intimate friend. He was taken entirely into her confidence, as will presently be seen, and she even called him in to assist her when she was conducting an elaborate and stilted epistolatory flirtation with Lord Peterborough. It was most probably she who introduced him to Mrs. Bellenden, Mrs. Lepell, and the other ladies of the Court. Of Mrs. Howard and Gay, Dr. Johnson wrote: "Diligent court was paid to Mrs. Howard, afterwards Countess of Suffolk, who was much beloved by the King and Queen, to engage her interest for his promotion; but solicitations, verses, and flatteries were thrown away; the lady heard them and did nothing." This, however, is manifestly unfair, for it is now known that Mrs. Howard's influence was negligible.
To the ladies of the Court and others of Pope's friends, Gay paid tribute in "Mr. Pope's Welcome from Greece":—
What lady's that to whom he gently bends?
Who knows her not? Ah, those are Wortley's eyes.
How art thou honour'd, number'd with her friends;
For she distinguishes the good and wise.