"A garden mild of savours sweet,
Where Art and Skill and Wisdom meet;
Rich in its vast variety
Of forms and hues of ev'ry dye."
S. W. SINGER.
THE REV. MR. GAY.
The very interesting notices which you have often given us of the truly great and inestimable Locke, induce me to trouble you with an inquiry relative to a philosophical writer, who followed in his school, I mean the Rev. Mr. Gay, the author of the Dissertation prefixed to Bishop Law's translation of King's Origin of Evil. It is sufficient evidence of the importance of that Dissertation, that it put Hartley upon considering and developing the principle of association, into which principle he conceived, and endeavoured to prove, that all the phenomena of reasoning and affection might be resolved, and of which Laplace observes, that it constitutes the whole of what has yet been done in the philosophy of the human mind; "la partie réelle de la métaphysique" (Essai Philosophique sur les Probabilités, p. 224. ed. 1825).
Of this Mr. Gay, I have not yet been able to learn more than that he was a clergyman in the West of England; but of what place, of what family, where educated, of what manner of life, or what habits of study, biographical or topographical reading has hitherto furnished me with any information. I should feel greatly indebted to any of your readers who would give the clue to what is known or can be known about him. It is probably within easy reach, though I have missed it. The ordinary biographical dictionaries make no mention of him.
EDWARD TAGART.
North End, Hampstead, May 19. 1851.