Life And Letters Of John Gay (1685-1732) Part 5

"Trivia" was published on January 26th, 1716, and was the one outstanding feature in the year in the biography of Gay. In the following March 26th there appeared a volume of "Court Poems,"

published by J. Roberts, who advertised them as from the pen of Pope, though the preface makes the authorship doubtful between Pope, Gay, and a Lady of quality, who was Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. To the volume Lady Mary Wortley Montagu contributed "The Drawing Room," Pope "The Ba.s.set Table," and Gay "The Toilet." This last has been attributed to Lady Mary, and it has actually been printed among her poems; but, according to Pope, it is "almost wholly Gay's," there being "only five or six lines in it by that lady."

In 1716 Gay paid a second visit to Devonshire, and during the year he composed the "sober eclogue," "The Espousal," which probably arose out of a suggestion of Swift. "There is an ingenious Quaker[7] in this town, who writes verses to his mistress, not very correct, but in a strain purely what a poetical Quaker should do, commending her looks and habit, etc." Swift wrote to Pope on August 30th, 1716: "It gave me a hint that a set of Quaker pastorals might succeed if our friend Gay could fancy it, and I think it a fruitful subject. Pray hear what he says. I believe farther, the pastoral ridicule is not exhausted, and that a porter, footman, or chairman's pastoral might do well; or what think you of a Newgate pastoral, among the wh.o.r.es and thieves there?"[8] This letter is of especial importance in the biography of Gay, as it may well have sown in his mind the seed of "The Beggar's Opera."

About this time Gay was labouring on another play, "Three Hours After Marriage," which he wrote in collaboration with Pope and Arbuthnot. It is a sorry piece of work, and unworthy of any one, much less of the three distinguished men a.s.sociated in the authorship. In the Epilogue it is written:--

Join then your voices, be the play excused For once, though no one living is abused;

but as a matter of fact one purpose of the play was, as Dr. Johnson said, "to bring into contempt Dr. Woodward, the fossilist, a man not really or justly contemptible." Woodward was the author of a "History of Fossils," and his name survives in the Woodwardian Professorship of Geology at Cambridge. He was introduced as Dr. Cornelius in "Martin Scriblerus":--

Who nature's treasures would explore, Her mysteries and arcana know.

Must high as lofty Newton soar, Must stoop as delving Woodward low.

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 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 a.s.sisted 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 pa.s.sage in Spence's Anecdotes of Pope. "In it he quoted the pa.s.sages which had been most exclaimed against, and opposed other pa.s.sages 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, which he could bear as little as any man. I therefore prevailed upon Gay not to print it, and have the ma.n.u.script now by me."[11] In Spence's Anecdotes there is another pa.s.sage 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, ent.i.tled 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, 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 a.s.sure 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 woman, Anne Maria Gumley, daughter of a wealthy gla.s.s 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 d.u.c.h.ess [of Hamilton],[19] Lord Warwick, Lord Stanhope, Mrs. b.e.l.l.e.n.den, 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 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 a.s.sist her when she was conducting an elaborate and stilted epistolatory flirtation with Lord Peterborough. It was most probably she who introduced him to Mrs. b.e.l.l.e.n.den, 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.

The sweet-tongued Murray near her side attends: Now to my heart the glance of Howard flies; Now Hervey, fair of face, I mark full well With thee, youth's youngest daughter, sweet Lepell.

I see two lovely sisters hand in hand, The fair-hair'd Martha and Teresa brown; Madge b.e.l.l.e.n.den, the tallest of the land; And smiling Mary, soft and fair as down.

Yonder I see the cheerful d.u.c.h.ess stand, For friendship, zeal, and blithesome humours known: Whence that loud shout in such a hearty strain?

Why all the Hamiltons are in her train.

See next the decent Scudamore advance With Winchelsea, still meditating song, With her perhaps Miss Howe came there by chance.

Nor knows with whom, nor why she comes along.

Gay was now on intimate terms with Lord Harcourt, whom he presently introduced into "Mr. Pope's Welcome from Greece":--

Harcourt I see, for eloquence renown'd, The mouth of justice, oracle of law!

Another Simon is beside him found, Another Simon like as straw to straw;

and early in 1718 he visited him, first at c.o.c.kthorpe and then at Stanton Harcourt, at which latter seat Pope was staying, working on the fifth volume of the "Iliad." In the following year Gay again crossed the Channel, possibly for the second time with the Pulteneys, but the only record of this trip is to be found in the following letter:--

JOHN GAY TO THE HON. MRS. HOWARD.

Dijon, September 8th, 1719.

"If it be absolutely necessary that I make an apology for my not writing, I must give you an account of very bad physicians, and a fever which I had at Spa, that confined me for a month; but I do not see that I need make the least excuse, or that I can find any reason for writing to you at all; for can you believe that I would wish to converse with you if it were not for the pleasure to hear you talk again? Then why should I write to you when there is no possibility of receiving an answer? I have been looking everywhere since I came into France to find out some object that might take you from my thoughts, that my journey might seem less tedious; but since nothing could ever do it in England I can much less expect it in France.

"I am rambling from place to place. In about a month I hope to be at Paris, and in the next month to be in England, and the next minute to see you. I am now at Dijon in Burgundy, where last night, at an ordinary, I was surprised by a question from an English gentleman whom I had never seen before; hearing my name, he asked me if I had any relation or acquaintance with _myself_, and when I told him I knew no such person, he a.s.sured me that he was an intimate acquaintance of Mr.

Gay's of London. There was a Scotch gentleman, who all supper time was teaching some French gentlemen the force and propriety of the English language; and, what is seen very commonly, a young English gentleman with a Jacobite governor. A French marquis drove an Abbe from the table by railing against the vast riches of the Church, and another marquis, who squinted, endeavoured to explain transubstantiation: 'That a thing might not be what it really appeared to be, my eyes,' says he, 'may convince you. I _seem_ at present to be looking on you; but, on the contrary, I see quite on the other side of the table.' I do not believe that this argument converted one of the heretics present, for all that I learned by him was, that to believe transubstantiation it is necessary not to see the thing you seem to look at.

"So much I have observed on the conversation and manners of the _people_. As for the _animals_ of the country, it abounds with bugs, which are exceedingly familiar with strangers; and as for _plants_, garlick seems to be the favourite production of the country, though for my own part I think the vine preferable to it. When I publish my travels at large I shall be more particular; in order to which, to-morrow I set out for Lyons, from thence to Montpelier, and so to Paris; and soon after I shall pray that the winds may be favourable, I mean, to bring you from Richmond to London, or me from London to Richmond; so prays, etc., JOHN GAY.

"I beg you, madam, to a.s.sure Miss Lepell and Miss b.e.l.l.e.n.den, that I am their humble servant."[21]

[Footnote 1: Pope: _Works_ (ed. Elwin and Courthope), IV, p. 412.]

[Footnote 2: Pope: _Works_ (ed. Elwin and Courthope), VI, p. 223.]

[Footnote 3: _Ibid_., VII, p. 455.]

[Footnote 4: _Ibid_., VI, p. 227.]

[Footnote 5: Pope: _Works_ (ed. Elwin and Courthope), VI, p. 237.]

[Footnote 6: Pope: _Works_ (ed. Elwin and Courthope), VII, p. 460.]

[Footnote 7: George Rooke, a Dublin linendraper.]

[Footnote 8: Swift: _Works_ (ed. Scott), XVI, p. 251.]

[Footnote 9: Johnson: _Works_ (ed. Hill), II, p. 271.]

[Footnote 10: Pope: _Works_ (ed. Elwin and Courthope), VII, p. 418.]

[Footnote 11: Spence: _Anecdotes_ (ed. Singer), p. 202.]

[Footnote 12: Addison died on June 17th, 1719.]

[Footnote 13: Stepson of Addison.]

[Footnote 14: Spence: _Anecdotes_ (ed. Singer), p. 149.]

[Footnote 15: _Life of Pope_, p. 126.]