And Gay is not a whit less inefficient as a moralist. He is a kindly soul, and in his easygoing way he has learnt something of the tricks of the world and something of the hearts of men. He writes as an unsuccessful courtier; and in that capacity he has remarks to offer which are not always valueless, and in which there is sometimes a certain shrewdness. But the unsuccessful courtier is on the whole a creature of the past. Such interest as he has is rather historical than actual; and neither in the nursery nor in the schoolroom is he likely to create any excitement or be received with any enthusiasm. To the world he can only recommend himself as one anxious to
make it known on the smallest provocation and on any occasion or none that Queen Anne is dead. Open him where you will, and you find him full of this important news and determined on imparting it. Thus, in The Scold and the Parrot:
‘One slander must ten thousand get,
The world with int’rest pays the debt’;
that is to say, Queen Anne is dead. Thus, too, in The Persian, the Sun, and the Cloud:
‘The gale arose; the vapour tost
(The sport of winds) in air was lost;
The glorious orb the day refines.
Thus envy breaks, thus merit shines’;
in The Goat without a Beard:
‘Coxcombs distinguished from the rest
To all but coxcombs are a jest’;
in The Shepherd’s Dog and the Wolf:
‘An open foe may prove a curse,
But a pretended friend is worse’;
and so to the end of the chapter. The theme is not absorbing, and the variations are proper to the theme.