CHAPTER VIII

A Hare who in a civil way,

Complied with ev'ry thing, like Gay,

Was known by all the bestial train,

Who haunt the wood, or graze the plain.

Her care was never to offend.

And ev'ry creature was her friend.

On June 12th, 1727, George I. died, and Gay felt sure that at last the hour had struck when the "place" so long and diligently sought, would be bestowed on him. The new Queen did not, indeed, forget him; she did what in his eyes was far worse, she offered him the sinecure post of Gentleman Usher to the Princess Louisa,[15]then two years old, with a salary of £200 a year. Gay's disappointment was bitter, and for a person usually so placid, his indignation tremendous. What ground for hope he had had, he, as Dr. Johnson has said, "had doubtless magnified with all the wild expectation and vanity,"[16]"The Queen's family is at last settled," Gay wrote bitterly to Swift on October 22nd, "and in the list I was appointed Gentleman Usher to the Princess Louisa, the youngest Princess, which, upon account that I am so far advanced in life, I had declined accepting, and have endeavoured, in the best manner I could, to make my excuses by a letter to her Majesty. So now all my expectations are vanished and I have no[pg 71]prospect, but in depending wholly upon myself and my own conduct. As I am used to disappointments I can bear them, but as I can have no more hopes I can no more be disappointed, so that I am in a blessed condition."[17]Pope, than whom no man loved Gay better, could not bring himself to sympathise with his irate brother poet.

ALEXANDER POPE TO JOHN GAY.October 6th, 1727."I have many years ago magnified, in my own mind, and repeated to you, a ninth beatitude, added to the eight in the Scripture: "Blessed is he who expects nothing, for he shall never be disappointed. I could find in my heart to congratulate you on this happy dismission from all Court dependance. I dare say I shall find you the better and the honester man for it many years hence; very probably the healthfuller, and the cheerfuller into the bargain. You are happily rid of many cursed ceremonies, as well as of many ill and vicious habits, of which few or no men escape the infection, who are hackneyed and trammelled in the ways of a Court. Princes, indeed, and Peers (the lackies of Princes) and Ladies (the fools of Peers) will smile on you the less; but men of worth and real friends will look on you the better. There is a thing, the only thing which kings and queens cannot give you, for they have it not to give—liberty, which is worth all they have, and which as yet Englishmen need not ask from their hands. You will enjoy that, and your own integrity, and the satisfactory consciousness of having not merited such graces from Courts as are bestowed only on the mean, servile, flattering, interested and undeserving. The only steps to the favour of the great are such complacencies, such compliances, such distant decorums, as delude them in their vanities, or engage them in their passions. He is their greatest favourite who is the falsest; and when a man, by such vile graduations arrives at the height of[pg 72]grandeur and power, he is then at best but in a circumstance to be hated, and in a condition to be hanged for serving their ends. So many a Minister has found it.""I can only add a plain uncourtly speech," Pope wrote again to Gay ten days later. "While you are nobody's servant you may be anybody's friend, and, as such, I embrace you in all conditions of life. While I have a shilling you shall have sixpence, nay, eightpence, if I can contrive to live upon a groat." But if Pope took the matter calmly, Swift, on the other hand, completely lost his temper and wrote as if voluntary attendance at Court made it obligatory upon the Queen to provide for the courtier.DEAN SWIFT TO JOHN GAY.Dublin, November 27th, 1727."I entirely approve your refusal of that employment, and your writing to the Queen. I am perfectly confident you have a firm enemy in the Ministry. God forgive him, but not till he puts himself in a state to be forgiven. Upon reasoning with myself, I should hope they are gone too far to discard you quite, and that they will give you something; which, although much less than they ought, will be (as far as it is worth) better circumstantiated; and since you already just live, a middling help will make you just tolerable. Your lateness in life (as you so soon call it) might be improper to begin the world with, but almost the eldest men may hope to see changes in a Court. A Minister is always seventy; you are thirty years younger; and consider, Cromwell did not begin to appear till he was older than you."[18]

ALEXANDER POPE TO JOHN GAY.

"I have many years ago magnified, in my own mind, and repeated to you, a ninth beatitude, added to the eight in the Scripture: "Blessed is he who expects nothing, for he shall never be disappointed. I could find in my heart to congratulate you on this happy dismission from all Court dependance. I dare say I shall find you the better and the honester man for it many years hence; very probably the healthfuller, and the cheerfuller into the bargain. You are happily rid of many cursed ceremonies, as well as of many ill and vicious habits, of which few or no men escape the infection, who are hackneyed and trammelled in the ways of a Court. Princes, indeed, and Peers (the lackies of Princes) and Ladies (the fools of Peers) will smile on you the less; but men of worth and real friends will look on you the better. There is a thing, the only thing which kings and queens cannot give you, for they have it not to give—liberty, which is worth all they have, and which as yet Englishmen need not ask from their hands. You will enjoy that, and your own integrity, and the satisfactory consciousness of having not merited such graces from Courts as are bestowed only on the mean, servile, flattering, interested and undeserving. The only steps to the favour of the great are such complacencies, such compliances, such distant decorums, as delude them in their vanities, or engage them in their passions. He is their greatest favourite who is the falsest; and when a man, by such vile graduations arrives at the height of[pg 72]grandeur and power, he is then at best but in a circumstance to be hated, and in a condition to be hanged for serving their ends. So many a Minister has found it."

"I can only add a plain uncourtly speech," Pope wrote again to Gay ten days later. "While you are nobody's servant you may be anybody's friend, and, as such, I embrace you in all conditions of life. While I have a shilling you shall have sixpence, nay, eightpence, if I can contrive to live upon a groat." But if Pope took the matter calmly, Swift, on the other hand, completely lost his temper and wrote as if voluntary attendance at Court made it obligatory upon the Queen to provide for the courtier.

DEAN SWIFT TO JOHN GAY.

"I entirely approve your refusal of that employment, and your writing to the Queen. I am perfectly confident you have a firm enemy in the Ministry. God forgive him, but not till he puts himself in a state to be forgiven. Upon reasoning with myself, I should hope they are gone too far to discard you quite, and that they will give you something; which, although much less than they ought, will be (as far as it is worth) better circumstantiated; and since you already just live, a middling help will make you just tolerable. Your lateness in life (as you so soon call it) might be improper to begin the world with, but almost the eldest men may hope to see changes in a Court. A Minister is always seventy; you are thirty years younger; and consider, Cromwell did not begin to appear till he was older than you."[18]

Swift could not forgive the Court for the offer, Mrs. Howard for not exerting her influence to get a better post for her protégé. "I desire my humble service to Lord Oxford, Lord Bathurst, and particularly to Miss Blount, but to no lady at Court. God bless you for being[pg 73]a greater dupe than I. I love that character too myself, but I want your charity," he wrote to Pope, August 11th, 1729; but Pope replying on October 9th said: "The Court lady[19]I have a good opinion of. Yet I have treated her more negligently than you would do, because you will like to see the inside of a Court, which I do not ... after all, that lady means to do good and does no harm, which is a vast deal for a courtier."

More than once Swift took up his pen to avenge his friend for the slight that he considered had been passed upon him. In "A Libel on the Rev. Mr. Delany and His Excellency Lord Cartaret," he wrote in 1729:—

Thus Gay, the hare with many friends.

Twice seven long years the Court attends;

Who, under tales conveying truth,

To virtue form'd a princely youth;

Who paid his courtship with the crowd,

As far as modest pride allow'd;

Rejects a servile usher's place,

And leaves St. James's in disgrace.

Two years later he returned to the attack in "An Epistle to Mr. Gay ":—

How could you, Gay, disgrace the Muse's train,

To serve a tasteless Court twelve years in vain!

Fain would I think our female friend sincere,

Till Bob,[20]the poet's foe, possess'd her ear.

Did female virtue e'er so high ascend,

To lose an inch of favour for a friend?

Say, had the Court no better place to choose

For thee, than make a dry-nurse of thy Muse?

How cheaply had thy liberty been sold,

To squire a royal girl of two years old:

In leading strings her infant steps to guide,

Or with her go-cart amble side by side!

It is a little difficult at this time of day to understand Swift's indignation. Gay was already in the enjoyment[pg 74]of a sinecure of £150 a year; he was offered another of £200 a year—for the post of Gentleman-Usher involved no duties save occasional attendance at Court, and to this the poet had shown himself by no means averse. A total gift of £350 a year for nothing really seems rather alluring to a man of letters, and it is difficult to understand why Gay refused the offer, unless it was, as the editors of the standard edition of Pope's Correspondence suggest: "The affluent friends who recommended Gay to reject the provisions were strangers to want, and with unconscious selfishness they thought less of his necessities than of venturing their spleen against the Court."

Swift, unable effectively to vent his anger on Caroline, chose to regard Mrs. Howard as the cause of the mortification of his friend. Mrs. Howard, however, not only had nothing to do with the offer of the place of Gentleman-Usher to Gay, the patronage being directly in the Queen's hands, but, as has been indicated, was unable to secure for him, or anyone else, a place at Court of any description. Certainly she was in blissful ignorance of having given offence, for as Gay wrote to the Dean so late as February 15th, 1728: "Mrs. Howard frequently asks after you and desires her compliments to you."

All the matters affected not a whit the relations between Mrs. Howard and Gay; against her he had no ill-feeling, and their correspondence continued on the same lines of intimacy as before.

THE HON. MRS. HOWARD TO JOHN GAY.October, 1727."I hear you expect, and have a mind to have, a letter from me, and though I have little to say, I find I don't care that you should be either disappointed or displeased. Tell her Grace of Queensberry I don't think she looked kindly upon me when I saw her last; she ought to have looked and thought very kindly, for I am much more her[pg 75]humble servant than those who tell her so every day. Don't let her cheat you in the pencils; she designs to give you nothing but her old ones. I suppose she always uses those worst who love her best, Mrs. Herbert excepted; but I hear she has done handsomely by her. I cannot help doing the woman this justice, that she can now and then distinguish merit."So much for her Grace; now for yourself, John. I desire you will mind the main chance, and be in town in time enough to let the opera[21]have play enough for its life, and for your pockets. Your head is your best friend; it could clothe, lodge and wash you, but you neglect it, and follow that false friend, your heart, which is such a foolish, tender thing that it makes others despise your head that have not half so good a one upon their own shoulders. In short, John, you may be a snail or a silk-worm, but by my consent you shall never be ahareagain."We go to town next week. Try your interest and bring the duchess up by the birthday. I did not think to have named her any more in this letter. I find I am a little foolish about her; don't you be a great deal so, for ifshewill not come, do you come without her."

THE HON. MRS. HOWARD TO JOHN GAY.

"I hear you expect, and have a mind to have, a letter from me, and though I have little to say, I find I don't care that you should be either disappointed or displeased. Tell her Grace of Queensberry I don't think she looked kindly upon me when I saw her last; she ought to have looked and thought very kindly, for I am much more her[pg 75]humble servant than those who tell her so every day. Don't let her cheat you in the pencils; she designs to give you nothing but her old ones. I suppose she always uses those worst who love her best, Mrs. Herbert excepted; but I hear she has done handsomely by her. I cannot help doing the woman this justice, that she can now and then distinguish merit.

"So much for her Grace; now for yourself, John. I desire you will mind the main chance, and be in town in time enough to let the opera[21]have play enough for its life, and for your pockets. Your head is your best friend; it could clothe, lodge and wash you, but you neglect it, and follow that false friend, your heart, which is such a foolish, tender thing that it makes others despise your head that have not half so good a one upon their own shoulders. In short, John, you may be a snail or a silk-worm, but by my consent you shall never be ahareagain.

"We go to town next week. Try your interest and bring the duchess up by the birthday. I did not think to have named her any more in this letter. I find I am a little foolish about her; don't you be a great deal so, for ifshewill not come, do you come without her."

Gay was not the man to keep his feelings of disappointment to himself, and his feelings were so widely known that at the time the following copy of verses was handed about in manuscript[22]:—

A mother who vast pleasure finds,

In forming of the children's minds;

In midst of whom with vast delight,

She passes many a winter's night;

Mingles in every play to find,

What bias nature gives her mind;

Resolving there to take her aim.

To guide them to the realms of fame;

And wisely make those realms their way,

[pg 76]

To those of everlasting day;

Each boist'rous passion she'd control,

And early humanise the soul,

The noblest notions would inspire,

As they were sitting by the fire;

Her offspring, conscious of her care,

Transported hung around her chair.

Of Scripture heroes would she tell,

Whose names they'd lisp, ere they could spell;

Then the delighted mother smiles,

And shews the story in the tiles.

At other times her themes would be,

The sages of antiquity;

Who left a glorious name behind,

By being blessings to their kind:

Again she'd take a nobler scope,

And tell of Addison and Pope.

This happy mother met one day,

A book of fables writ by Gay;

And told her children, here's treasure,

A fund of wisdom, and of pleasure.

Such decency! such elegance!

Such morals! such exalted sense!

Well has the poet found the art,

To raise the mind, and mend the heart.

Her favourite boy the author seiz'd,

And as he read, seem'd highly pleas'd;

Made such reflections every page,

The mother thought above his age:

Delighted read, but scarce was able,

To finish the concluding fable.

"What ails my child?" the mother cries,

"Whose sorrows now have fill'd your eyes?"

"Oh, dear Mamma, can he want friends

Who writes for such exalted ends?

Oh, base, degenerate human kind!

Had I a fortune to my mind,

Should Gay complain; but now, alas!

Through what a world am I to pass;

Where friendship's but an empty name,

And merit's scarcely paid in fame."

Resolv'd to lull his woes to rest.

She told him he should hope the best;

That who instruct the royal race.

Can't fail of some distinguished place.

"Mamma, if you were queen," says he,

"And such a book was writ for me;

I know 'tis so much to your taste,

That Gay would keep his coach at least."

"My child, what you suppose is true,

I see its excellence in you;

[pg 77]

Poets whose writing mend the mind,

A noble recompense should find:

But I am barr'd by fortune's frowns.

From the best privilege of crowns;

The glorious godlike power to bless,

And raise up merit in distress."

"But, dear Mamma, I long to know.

Were that the case, what you'd bestow?"

"What I'd bestow," says she, "My dear,

At least five hundred pounds a year."

Footnotes:

[1]

Johnson:Lives of the Poets(ed. Hill), III, p. 274.

[2]

Letter to Broome, January 30th, 1724 (Pope:Works(ed. Elwin and Courthope, VIII, p. 75.))

[3]

Swift:Works(ed. Scott), XVII, p. 6.

[4]

Ibid., XVII, p. 8.

[5]

William Augustus (1721-1765), third son of George III; created Duke of Cumberland, 1726.

[6]

Ambrose Philips, the poet.

[7]

Swift:Works(ed. Scott), XVI, 389.

[8]

Ibid., XIX. p. 283.

[9]

Ibid., XVII, p. 99.

[10]

Swift:Works(ed. Scott), XVII, p. 94.

[11]

To Amesbury, the principal seat of the Duke of Queensberry.

[12]

Swift:Works(ed. Scott), XVII, p. 66.

[13]

Ibid., XVII, p. 81.

[14]

Ibid., XVII, p. 96.

[15]

Louisa (1724-1751), the youngest of George II's children. She married in 1743, Frederick, Prince (afterwards King) of Denmark,

[16]

Johnson:Lives of the Poets(ed. Hill), III, p. 274.

[17]

Swift:Works(ed. Scott), XVIII, p. 42.

[18]

Swift:Works(ed. Scott), XVII, p. 161.

[19]

Mrs. Howard.

[20]

Sir Robert Walpole.

[21]

An allusion to "The Beggar's Opera," which Gay was then writing.

[22]

Printed for the first and only time in "An Account of the Life and Writings of the Author," inPlays Written by Mr. John Gay, 1760.

[pg 78]

The opera to which allusion is made in Mrs. Howard's letter of October, 1727, was "The Beggar's Opera," upon which Gay had been actively engaged for some time past, and which was then nearing completion. "You remember," Gay wrote to Swift, October 22nd, 1727, "you were advising me to go into Newgate to finish my scenes the more correctly. I now think I shall, for I have no attendance to hinder me; but my opera is already finished."[1]To which Swift replied from Dublin on November 27th: "I am very glad your opera is finished, and hope your friends will join the readers to make it succeed, because you are ill-used by others."[2]

It was natural that Swift should be especially interested in "The Beggar's Opera," because the first suggestion of it had come from Swift in a letter to Pope, written as far back as August 30th, 1716[3]"Dr. Swift had been observing once to Mr. Gay, what an odd pretty sort of thing a Newgate Pastoral might make," Pope once remarked. "Gay was inclined to try at such a thing for some time,[pg 79]but afterwards thought it would be better to write a comedy on the same plan. This was what gave rise to 'The Beggar's Opera.' He began on it, and when first he mentioned it to Swift, the Doctor did not much like the project. As he carried it on, he showed what he wrote to both of us; and we now and then gave a correction, or a word or two of advice; but it was wholly of his own writing. When it was done neither of us thought it would succeed. We showed it to Congreve, who, after reading it over, said: 'It would either take greatly or be damned confoundedly."[4]

Dilatory as Gay always was, he contrived to finish his opera by about the end of the year. "John Gay's opera is just on the point of delivery," Pope wrote to Swift in January, 1728. "It may be called, considering its subject, a jail-delivery. Mr. Congreve, with whom I have commemorated you, is anxious as to its success, and so am I. Whether it succeeds or not, it will make a great noise, but whether of claps or hisses I know not. At worst, it is in its own nature a thing which he can lose no reputation by, as he lays none upon it."[5]Not only Swift, Pope, and Congreve were doubtful as to the opera's chance of success. Colley Cibber refused it for Drury Lane Theatre, and even when it was accepted by John Rich for his theatre in Lincoln's Inn Fields, Quin had such a poor opinion of it, that he refused the part of Captain Macheath. Very sound was the judgment of Rich, immortalised by Pope in "The Dunciad" (Book III, lines 261-264):—

Immortal Rich! how calm he sits at ease,

'Midst snows of paper, and fierie tale of pease;

And proud his Mistress's orders to perform,

Rides in the whirlwind, and directs the storm;

and the opera, to repeat a well-knownmotof the day, "made Gay rich and Rich gay."

"[pg 80]The Beggar's Opera" was produced on January 29th, 1728, with the following cast:—

Peachum... ... ... ... ... MR. HIPPISLEYLockit... ... ... ... ... MR. HALLMacheath... ... ... ... ... MR. WALKERFilch... ... ... ... ... MR. CLARKJemmy Twitcher... ... ... ... MR. H. BULLOCKMrs. Peachum... ... ... ... MRS. MARTINPolly Peachum... ... ... ... Miss FENTONLucy Lockit... ... ... ... MRS. EGLETONDiana Trapes... ... ... ... MRS. MARTIN

At the first performance the fate of the opera hung for some time in the balance. Quin is recorded as having said that there was a disposition to damn it, and that it was saved by the song, "O ponder well! be not severe!" the audience being much affected by the innocent looks of Polly, when she came to those two lines which exhibit at once a painful and ridiculous image—

O ponder well! be not severe!

For on the Rope that hangs my Dear

Depends poor Polly's Life.[6]

Pope, too, and the rest of Gay's friends were present. "We were all at the first night of it, in great uncertainty of the event; till we were very much encouraged by hearing the Duke of Argyll, who sat in the next box to us, say: "It will do—it must do!—I see it in the eyes of them," he said. "This was a good while before the first act was over, and so gave us ease soon; for the Duke (besides his own good taste) has a more particular knack than any one now living, in discovering the taste of the public. He was quite right in this, as usual, the good nature of the audience appeared stronger and stronger every set, and ended in a clamour of applause."[7]

The success of the opera was due to many causes. Some liked it for its barely veiled allusions on politicians. "Robin[pg 81]of Bagshot,aliasGorgon,aliasBluff Bob,aliasCarbuncle,aliasBob Booty," was very obviously intended for Walpole and his "dear charmers" for his wife and Molly Skerrett. It may well be believed that the song, "How happy could I be with either" brought down the house; and the highwayman must have evoked a hearty laugh with—

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