[Illustration: JOHN GAY
_From a sketch by Sir Godfrey Kneller in the National Portrait Gallery.
Photo by Emery Walker Ltd._]
LIFE AND LETTERS OF
JOHN GAY(1685-1732)
AUTHOR OF "THE BEGGAR'S OPERA" BY LEWIS MELVILLE
PUBLISHED IN LONDON BY DANIEL O'CONNOR, NINETY GREAT RUSSELL STREET,
W.C.I: 1921
BY THE SAME AUTHOR.
THE LIFE OF WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY.
THE THACKERAY COUNTRY.
SOME ASPECTS OF THACKERAY.
VICTORIAN NOVELISTS.
THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF LAURENCE STERNE.
THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WILLIAM BECKFORD OF FONTHILL.
* * * * *
THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WILLIAM COBBETT.
THE BERRY PAPERS: Being the Life and Letters of Mary and Agnes Berry.
THE LIFE AND WRITINGS OF PHILIP DUKE OF WHARTON.
THE FIRST GEORGE.
"FARMER GEORGE."
"THE FIRST GENTLEMAN OF EUROPE."
AN INJURED QUEEN: CAROLINE OF BRUNSWICK.
THE BEAUX OF THE REGENCY.
SOME ECCENTRICS AND A WOMAN.
THE SOUTH SEA BUBBLE.
THE WINDHAM PAPERS. With an Introduction by the Earl of Rosebery, K.G.
THE WELLESLEY PAPERS.
BATH UNDER BEAU NASH.
BRIGHTON: ITS FOLLIES, ITS FASHIONS, AND ITS HISTORY.
ROYAL TUNBRIDGE WELLS.
To GEORGE MAIR
PREFACE
John Gay was a considerable figure in the literary and social circles
of his day. He was loved by Pope; Swift cared for him more than for
any other man, and the letter in which Pope conveyed to him the sad
tidings of Gay's death bears the endorsement: "On my dear friend Mr.
Gay's death. Received December 15th [1732], but not read till the
20th, by an impulse foreboding some misfortune." Gay was on intimate
terms with Arbuthnot and Lord Burlington, and Henrietta Howard, Lady
Suffolk, was devoted to him and consulted him in the matter of her
matrimonial troubles. He was the _protégé_ of the Duke and Duchess of
Queensberry. His "Fables" and "The Beggar's Opera" have become
classics; his play "Polly" made history. Though he persistently
regarded himself as neglected by the gods, it is nevertheless a fact
that the fates were unusually kind to him. A Cabinet Minister made him
a present of South Sea stock; Walpole appointed him a Commissioner of
Lotteries; he was granted an apartment in Whitehall; Queen Caroline
offered him a sinecure post in her Household. Because he thought Gay
ill-used, the greatest man of letters of the century quarrelled with
Lady Suffolk; for the same reason a Duchess insulted the King and
wiped the dust of the Court from her shoes, and a Duke threw up his
employment under the Crown. All his friends placed their purses and
their houses at Gay's disposal, and competed for the pleasure of his
company. Never was there a man of letters so petted and pampered.
It is somewhat strange that there should be no biography of a man so
well-known and so much beloved. It is true that no sooner was the
breath out of his body than Curll published a "Life." "Curll (who is
one of the new horrors of death) has been writing letters to everybody
for memoirs of his (Gay's) life," Arbuthnot wrote to Swift, January
13th, 1733: "I was for sending him some, which I am sure might have
been made entertaining, by which I should have attained two ends at
once, published truth and got a rascal whipped for it. I was
over-ruled in this."[1] Curll obtained no assistance from Gay's
friends, and his book, issued in 1733, is at once inadequate and
unreliable. Of Curll, at whose hands so many of Gay's friends had
suffered, the poet had written in the "Epistle to the Right Honourable
Paul Methuen, Esquire":--
Were Prior, Congreve, Swift, and Pope unknown,
Poor slander-selling Curll would be undone.
Of some slight biographical value is the "Account of the Life and
Writings of the Author," prefixed to the volume of "Plays Written by Mr.
Gay," published 1760; but there is little fresh information in the
"Brief Memoir" by the Rev. William (afterwards Archdeacon) Coxe, which
appeared in 1797. More valuable is the biographical sketch by Gay's
nephew, the Rev. Joseph Baller, prefixed to "Gay's Chair" (1820); but
the standard authorities on Gay's life are Mr. Austin Dobson
("Dictionary of National Biography," Vol. XXI., 1890) and Mr. John
Underwood ("Introductory Memoir" to the "Poems of John Gay" in the
"Muses' Library," 1893).
Among Gay's correspondents were Pope, Swift, Lady Suffolk, Arbuthnot,
the Duchess of Queensberry, Oxford, Congreve, Parnell, Cleland, Caryll
and Jacob Tonson, the publisher. Unpublished letters to Caryll and
Tonson, and to and from Lady Suffolk, are in the British Museum; letters
which have appeared in print are to be found in the correspondence of
Pope, Swift, and Lady Suffolk, in Nichols' "Literary Anecdotes of the
Eighteenth Century," and in the Historical Commission's Report on the
MSS. of the Marquis of Bath. Biographical information is also to be
found, as well as in the works mentioned above, in Gribble's "Memorials
of Barnstaple," Mrs. Delany's "Autobiography," Hervey's "Memoirs,"
Colley Cibber's "Apology," and Spence's "Anecdotes"; in the works and
biographies of Pope, Swift, Steele, Addison, and Aaron Hill; in
contemporary publications such as "A Key to 'The What D'ye Call It,'" "A
Complete Key to the New Farce 'Three Hours After Marriage,'" Joseph
Gay's "The Confederates"; and in numerous works dealing with dramatic
productions and dramatic literature. A bibliography is printed in the
"Cambridge History of English Literature" (Vol. IX., pp. 480-481; 1912);
and a more detailed bibliography is being compiled by Mr. Ernest L. Gay,
Boston, Mass., U.S.A., who has informed the present writer that he "has
collected about five hundred editions of Gay's works, and also over five
hundred playbills of his plays, running from the middle of the
eighteenth century to the middle of the nineteenth century." The most
valuable criticisms of Gay as a man of letters are by Johnson in the
"Lives of the Poets" and Thackeray in the "English Humourists of the
Eighteenth Century." An interesting article on Gay by Mr. H.M. Paull
appeared in the _Fortnightly Review_, June, 1912.
I am much indebted for assistance given to me during the preparation of
this work by Sydney Harper, Esq., of Barnstaple, the happy possessor of
Gay's chair; Professor J. Douglas Brude, of the University of Tennessee;
C.J. Stammers, Esq.; and Ernest L. Gay, Esq., of Boston, Mass., U.S.A. I
am especially grateful to W.H. Grattan Flood, Esq., Mus.D., who has
generously sent me his notes on the sources of the tunes in "The
Beggar's Opera," which are printed in the Appendix to this volume. The
extracts from Gay's poetical works in this volume have been taken, by
permission of the publishers, Messrs. George Routledge and Sons, Ltd.,
from the "Poems of John Gay," edited by Mr. John Underwood, in "The
Muses' Library." Mr. John Murray has kindly allowed me to quote
correspondence to and from Gay printed in the standard edition of Pope's
works, edited by the late Rev. Whitwell Elwin and Professor Courthope,
and published by him.
LEWIS MELVILLE. LONDON, _April_, 1921.
[Footnote 1: Swift: _Works_ (ed. Scott), XVIII, p. 65.]
CONTENTS
CHAP. PAGE
PREFACE vii
I.--EARLY YEARS 1
II.--GAY COMMENCES AUTHOR 7
III.--"RURAL SPORTS"--"THE FAN"--"THE WIFE OF
BATH"--ETC. 18
IV.--"THE SHEPHERD'S WEEK"--"A LETTER TO A LADY" 24
V.--"THE WHAT D'YE CALL IT"--"AN EPISTLE TO THE
RIGHT HONOURABLE THE EARL OF BURLINGTON"--"TRIVIA,
OR, THE ART OF WALKING THE STREETS OF
LONDON"--"THREE HOURS AFTER MARRIAGE" 36
VI.--"POEMS ON SEVERAL OCCASIONS"--GAY INVESTS
HIS EARNINGS IN THE SOUTH SEA COMPANY--THE
SOUTH SEA "BUBBLE" BREAKS, AND GAY LOSES ALL
HIS MONEY--APPOINTED A COMMISSIONER OF THE
STATE LOTTERY--LORD LINCOLN GIVES HIM AN
APARTMENT IN WHITEHALL--AT TUNBRIDGE
WELLS--CORRESPONDENCE WITH MRS. HOWARD 50
VII.--"THE CAPTIVES"--THE FIRST SERIES OF
"FABLES"--GAY AND THE COURT--POPE, SWIFT AND
MRS. HOWARD 65
VIII.--"THE BEGGAR'S OPERA" 78
IX.--"POLLY" 92
X.--CORRESPONDENCE (1729) 105
XI.--CORRESPONDENCE (1730) 115
XII.--CORRESPONDENCE (1731) 126
XIII.--DEATH 133
APPENDIX:--
I.--NOTES ON THE SOURCES OF THE TONES OF
"THE BEGGAR'S OPERA," by W.H. GRATTAN
FLOOD, Mus.D. 150
II.--A CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF THE CORRESPONDENCE
OF JOHN GAY 156
III.--PROGRAMME OF THE REVIVAL OF "THE BEGGAR'S
OPERA," LYRIC THEATRE; HAMMERSMITH,
JUNE 7th, 1920 162
INDEX 163
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 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 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 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 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 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.
[Footnote 1: Risdon: _Survey of Devon_ (1811), p. 243.]
[Footnote 2: Gribble: _Memorials of Devonshire_.]
[Footnote 3: _Gay's Chair_, p. 12.]
[Footnote 4: _Gay's Chair_, p. 13.]
[Footnote 5: _Notes and Queries_, N.S. VI, 488, December 16th, 1882,
from the _North Devon Herald_ of December 7th.]
[Footnote 6: Aaron Hill (1685-1750), dramatist and journalist.]
[Footnote 7: 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.]
[Footnote 8: Ayre: _Pope_, pp. 11, 97.]
[Footnote 9: _Gay's Chair_, p. 13.]
[Footnote 10: _Gay's Chair_, p. 5.]