1713
"RURAL SPORTS," "THE FAN," "THE WIFE OF BATH," ETC.
There has been preserved a letter written by Aaron Hill to Richard
Savage, June 23rd, 1766, which contains information concerning the
life of the poet during the next two years. "I would willingly satisfy
the curiosity of your friend, in relation to Mr. Gay, if it were not
easy to get much further information than I am able to give, from Mr.
Budgell or Mr. Pope; to the first of whom, the beginning of his life
was best known, and to the last, its afternoon and evening," Hill
wrote. "As to your question, whether Mr. Gay was ever a domestic of
the Duchess of Monmouth, I can answer it in the affirmative; he was
her secretary about the year 1713, and continued so, till he went over
to Hanover, in the beginning of the following year, with Lord
Clarendon, who was sent thither by Queen Anne. At his return, upon the
death of that Queen, all his hopes became withered, but Mr. Pope (who
you know, is an excellent planter) revived and invigorated his bays,
and indeed, very generously supported him, in some more _solid_
improvements; for remember a letter, wherein he invited him, with a
very impoetical warmth that, so long as he himself had a shilling, Mr.
Gay should be welcome to sixpence of it, nay, to eightpence, if he
could but contrive to live on a groat."[1]
It is now happily possible to elaborate the information given in this
letter. Owing to the kindly offices of one or other of his friends,
Gay had secured the appointment of domestic secretary to the Duchess
of Monmouth. Anne Scott, Duchess of Buccleuch in her own right, had
in 1663 married the Duke of Monmouth. He was executed for high treason
in 1683, and three years later his widow married Charles, third Baron
Cornwallis. Though she had not long mourned her first husband, she did
not forget that he was on his father's side of the blood royal, and to
the end of her days she preserved a regal state, which, however, did
not make her unpopular at Court. "The Princess," wrote Lady Cowper,
"loved her mightily, and certainly no woman of her years ever deserved
it so well. She had all the life and fire of youth, and it was
marvellous to see that the many afflictions she had suffered had not
touched her wit and good nature, but at upwards of three-score she had
both in their full perfection." Upon this appointment Dr. Johnson
commented: "By quitting a shop for such service Gay might gain
leisure, but he certainly advanced little on the boast of
independence." As has been seen, however, there was an interval of
several years between Gay's apprenticeship and his taking up this
position as the Duchess's amanuensis--for it is doubtful if he ever
attained to an office more responsible than this--he secured board and
lodging, a little pocket money, and no doubt ample leisure. It was
necessary for Gay to earn his livelihood, for he had spent his
patrimony, and the earnings of his pen were as yet negligible. Indeed,
the situation was almost ideal for an impecunious young man of
letters. Anyhow, Gay was delighted, and Pope not less so. "It has been
my good fortune within this month past to hear more things that have
pleased me than, I think, in all my time besides," Pope wrote to Gay,
December 24th, 1712; "but nothing, upon my word, has been so homefelt
a satisfaction as the news you tell me of yourself; and you are not in
the least mistaken when you congratulate me upon your own good
success, for I have more people out of whom to be happy, than any
ill-natured man can boast of." Pope, now well aware of Gay's natural
indolence, was careful in this same letter to urge him to devote
himself to literary labours in his leisure hours. "I shall see you
this winter with much greater pleasure than I could the last, and I
hope as much of your time as your Duchess will allow you to spare to
any friend will not be thought lost upon one who is as much so as any
man," he added. "I must also put you in mind, though you are now
secretary to this lady, you are likewise secretary to nine other
ladies, and are to write sometimes for them too. He who is forced to
live wholly upon those ladies' favours is indeed in as precarious a
condition as any who does what Chaucer says for subsistence; but they
are very agreeable companions, like other ladies, when a man only
passes a night or so with them at his leisure, and away."[2]
Gay, the most amiable of men, never resented advice, perhaps because
he so rarely followed it. In this case, however, he was surprisingly
amenable. During the short time he was in the service of the Duchess
of Monmouth, he drove his quill with some assiduity, and, indeed, at
this period of his life he, who was presently distinguished as the
laziest of men, worked diligently.
Before joining the household of the Duchess, he had written "Rural
Sports: A Georgic," and this was published on January 13th, 1713, by
Jacob Tonson, with an inscription to Pope:--
You, who the sweets of rural life have known,
Despise th' ungrateful hurry of the town;
In Windsor groves your easy hours employ,
And, undisturb'd, yourself and Muse enjoy.
During 1713 Gay wrote such trifles as papers on "Reproof and Flattery,"
and "Dress," which were printed in the _Guardian_ on March 24th and
September 21st respectively; and some verses, "Panthea," "Araminta," "A
Thought on Eternity," and "A Contemplation on Night," which appeared in
Steele's "Poetical Miscellany." A more ambitious work was "The Fan,"
which had occupied him during the earlier part of the year. He was
greatly interested in its composition, and corresponded with Pope while
it was being written. "I am very much recreated and refreshed with the
news of the advancement of 'The Fan,' which I doubt not will delight the
eye and sense of the fair, as long as that agreeable machine shall play
in the hands of posterity," Pope wrote to him, August 23rd, 1713: "I am
glad your Fan is mounted so soon, but I would have you varnish and glaze
it at your leisure, and polish the sticks as much as you can. You may
then cause it to be borne in the hands of both sexes, no less in Britain
than it is in China, where it is ordinary for a mandarin to fan himself
cool after a debate, and a statesman to hide his face with it when he
tells a grave lie."[3] Again, on October 23rd, Pope wrote: "I shall go
into the country about a month hence, and shall then desire to take
along with me your poem of 'The Fan.'" The most ambitious as yet of
Gay's writings, there are few to-day, however, who will question the
judgment of Mr. Austin Dobson, "one of his least successful efforts,
and, though touched by Pope, now unreadable."
Gay had thus early a leaning to the theatre, where presently he was to
score one of his greatest successes, and he wrote "The Wife of Bath,"
which was produced at Drury Lane on May 12th, 1713. Steele gave it a
"puff preliminary" in No. 50 of the _Guardian_ (May 8th).
Gay was now become known as a man of letters, and had made many friends.
Johnson says: "Gay was the general favourite of the whole association of
wits; but they regarded him as a playfellow rather than as a partner,
and treated him with more fondness than respect."[4] There is some truth
in this view, but of the affection he inspired there is no doubt. To
know him was to love him. Wherein exactly lay his charm it is not easy
now to say; but his gentle good-nature and his utter helplessness seems
to have appealed to those of sterner mould. The extracts already given
from Pope's correspondence show the affection with which he was inspired
for his brother of the pen. Pope took him so completely under his
massive wing that he remarked later, "they would call him one of my
_éleves_."[5] Pope accepted the position, and introduced him to his
circle. He made him known to Swift, and that great man loved him as he
loved no other man; and to Parnell, Arbuthnot, Ford--the "joyous Ford"
of "Mr. Pope's Welcome from Greece"--and Bolingbroke, in all of whom he
inspired an affection, which endured through life. Parnell and Pope
wrote jointly to him, and while in 1714 Pope was still addressing him as
"Dear Mr. Gay," Parnell had already thrown aside all formality and
greeted him as "Dear Gay." His old schoolfellow, William Fortescue,
cleaved to him, and they were in such constant communication that when
Pope wanted to see Fortescue, it was to Gay he appealed to arrange a
meeting. The terms on which Gay was with the set is shown in Pope's
letter to him, written from Binfield, May 4th, 1714: "Pray give, with
the utmost fidelity and esteem, my hearty service to the Dean, Dr.
Arbuthnot, Mr. Ford, and to Mr. Fortescue. Let them also know at
Button's that I am mindful of them."[6] Erasmus Lewis Gay knew now, and
Caryll too, and the rest of the small literary set, who, with gusto,
made him welcome among them. Indeed, when the "Memoirs of Scriblerus"
were in contemplation, and, indeed, begun in 1713, Gay, then
comparatively unknown, was invited to take a hand in the composition
with the greatest men of the day. "The design of the Memoirs of
Scriblerus was to have ridiculed all the false tastes in learning, under
a character of a man of capacity enough, that had dipped into every art
and science, but injudiciously in each," we have been told. "It was
begun by a club of some of the greatest wits of the age. Lord Oxford,
the Bishop of Rochester, Mr. Pope, Congreve, Arbuthnot, Swift, and
others. Gay often held the pen; and Addison liked it well enough, and
was not disinclined to come in to it."[7] It does not transpire whether
Gay had at this time met Swift, but that soon after they were in
correspondence, appears from a letter from Pope to Swift, June 18th,
1714: "I shall translate Homer by the by. Mr. Gay has acquainted you
with what progress I have made in it. I cannot name Mr. Gay without all
the acknowledgments which I shall owe you, on his account."[8]
[Footnote 1: Hill: _Works_ (ed. 1754), I, p. 325.]
[Footnote 2: Pope: _Works_ (ed. Elwin and Courthope), VII, p. 409.]
[Footnote 3: Pope: _Works_ (ed. Elwin and Courthope), VII, p. 412.]
[Footnote 4: Johnson: _Lives of the Poets_ (ed. Hill), III, p. 268.]
[Footnote 5: Spence: _Anecdotes_ (ed. Singer), p. 145.]
[Footnote 6: Pope: _Works_ (ed. Elwin and Courthope), VII, p. 415.]
[Footnote 7: Swift: _Works_ (ed. Scott), XVI, p. 123.]
[Footnote 8: Spence: _Anecdotes_ (ed. Singer), p. 10.]