Life And Letters Of John Gay (1685-1732) Part 6

[Footnote 16: _Life of Pope_, p. 126.]

[Footnote 17: Cibber's _Apology_ (ed. Lowe).]

[Footnote 18: Pope: _Works_ (ed. Elwin and Courthope), VI, p. 244.]

[Footnote 19: Daughter of Lord Gerard, widow of the Duke of Hamilton, who in 1712 was killed in a duel with Lord Mohun.]

[Footnote 20: Pope: Works (ed. Elwin and Courthope) VII. p. 420.]

[Footnote 21: _B.M._, Add MSS., 22626, f. 22.]

CHAPTER VI

1720

"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.

Gay in 1720 was in his thirty-fifth year, and he had commenced author some twelve years before this date. During this period his output had been very small, and his success not conspicuous. As a dramatist he had been a complete failure--his first play, "The Wife of Bath," was still-born, and the others, "The What D'ye Call It" and "Three Hours After Marriage," had practically been hooted off the stage, and had brought him in their train a considerable degree of unpopularity. Of his poems, the only ones of any marked merit were "The Shepherd's Week," and "Trivia," and even these were unambitious, though not without merit. Gay now bethought him of collecting his poems, published and unpublished, and they were issued in two quarto volumes early in 1720, with the joint imprint of Jacob Tonson and his old publisher, Bernard Lintott, and with a frontispiece by William Kent.

The "Poems on Several Occasions," as the collection was styled, were issued by subscription. His friends supported him admirably. Lord Burlington and Lord Chandos each put down his name for fifty copies, Lord Bathurst for ten copies; in all Gay made more than 1,000 by the publication. To this success he alluded in his "Epistle to the Right Honourable Paul Methuen, Esq."[1]

Yet there are ways for authors to be great; Write ranc'rous libels to reform the State; Or if you choose more sun and readier ways, Spatter a minister with fulsome praise: Launch out with freedom, flatter him enough; Fear not, all men are dedication-proof.

Be bolder yet, you must go farther still, Dip deep in gall thy mercenary quill.

He who his pen in party quarrels draws, Lists an hired bravo to support the cause; He must indulge his patron's hate and spleen, And stab the fame of those he ne'er has seen.

Why then should authors mourn their desp'rate case?

Be brave, do this, and then demand a place.

Why art thou poor? exert the gifts to rise, And vanish tim'rous virtue from thy eyes.

All this seems modern preface, where we're told That wit is praised, but hungry lives and cold: Against th' ungrateful age these authors roar, And fancy learning starves because they're poor.

Yet why should learning hope success at Court?

Why should our patriots virtue's cause support?

Why to true merit should they have regard?

They know that virtue is its own reward.

Yet let me not of grievances complain.

Who (though the meanest of the Muse's train) Can boast subscriptions to my humble lays, And mingle profit with my little praise.

What to do with the thousand pounds--a sum certainly far larger than any of which he had ever been possessed--Gay had not the slightest idea. He had just enough wisdom to consult his friends. Erasmus Lewis, a prudent man of affairs, advised him to invest it in the Funds and live upon the interest; Arbuthnot advised him to put his faith in Providence and live upon the capital; Swift and Pope, who understood him best, advised him to purchase an annuity. Bewildered by these divergent counsels, he did none of these things. Just when he was confronted with the necessity of making up his mind, Pope's friend, James Craggs the younger, of whom he wrote in "Mr. Pope's Welcome from Greece":--

Bold, generous Craggs, whose heart was ne'er disguised,

made him a present of some stock of the South Sea Company, at the same time, no doubt, telling him that in all probability it would rise in value. Here was a chance, dear to the heart of this hunter after sinecures, of getting something for nothing--or next to nothing. With his thousand pounds he purchased more South Sea stock. At what price Gay bought it is impossible to say, but it is not unlikely that Craggs'

present was made in April, 1720, when the first money-subscription was issued at the price of 300 for each 100 stock. The poet's good fortune was at this moment in the ascendant. A mania for speculation burst over the town, and everybody bought and sold South Sea stock. In July it was quoted at 1,000. If Gay had then sold out he would have realised a sum in the neighbourhood of 20,000. His friends implored him to content himself with this handsome profit, but in vain. As Dr. Johnson put it, "he dreamed of dignity and splendour, and could not bear to obstruct his own fortune."[2] He who a few months ago had been practically penniless, could not now bring himself to be satisfied with an income of about a thousand a year. Realising that it was impossible entirely to overcome his obduracy, his friends then begged him at least to sell so much as would produce even a hundred a year in the Funds, "which," Fenton said to him, "will make you sure of a clean s.h.i.+rt and a shoulder of mutton every day." Gay was not to be moved from his resolve to become a great capitalist. Arguments were of no avail. The wilful man finally had his way. Almost from the moment he refused to yield to his friends'

entreaties the price of South Sea stock declined rapidly. The "Bubble"

burst, and in October South Sea stock was unsaleable at any price. Gay lost not only his profit but his capital, and was again reduced to penury.

Gay spoke his mind about the "Bubble" in "A Panegyrical Epistle to Mr.

Thomas Snow, Goldsmith, near Temple Bar: Occasioned by his Buying and Selling of the Third Subscriptions, taken in by the Directors of the South Sea Company, at a thousand per cent," which was published by Lintott in 1721:--

O thou, whose penetrative wisdom found The South-Sea rocks and shelves, where thousands drown'd, When credit sunk, and commerce gasping lay, Thou stood'st; nor sent one bill unpaid away.

When not a guinea c.h.i.n.k'd on Martin's boards, And Atwill's self was drain'd of all his h.o.a.rds, Thou stood'st (an Indian king in size and hue) Thy unexhausted shop was our Peru.

Why did 'Change-Alley waste thy precious hours, Among the fools who gaped for golden showers?

No wonder if we found some poets there, Who live on fancy, and can feed on air; No wonder they were caught by South-Sea schemes Who ne'er enjoy'd a guinea but in dreams; No wonder they their third subscription sold, For millions of imaginary gold: No wonder that their fancies wild can frame } Strange reasons, that a thing is still the same, } Tho' changed throughout in substance and in name. } But you (whose judgment scorns poetic flights) With contracts furnish boys for paper kites.

One of the immediate results of the disaster was Gay's inability to fulfil his obligations to one of the publishers of his "Poems on Several Occasions":--

JOHN GAY TO JACOB TONSON.

Friday morning [_circa_ October, 1720].

"Sir,--I received your letter with the accounts of the books you had delivered. I have not seen Mr. Lintott's account, but shall take the first opportunity to call on him. I cannot think your letter consists of the utmost civility, in five lines to press me twice to make up my account just at a time when it is impracticable to sell out of the stocks in which my fortune is engaged. Between Mr. Lintott and you the greatest part of the money is received, and I imagine you have a sufficient number of books in your hands for the security of the rest.

To go to the strictness of the matter, I own my note engages me to make the whole payment in the beginning of September. Had it been in my power, I had not given you occasion to send to me, for I can a.s.sure you I am as impatient and uneasy to pay the money I owe, as some men are to receive it, and it is no small mortification to refuse you so reasonable a request, which is that I may no longer be obliged to you."[3]

The loss of his fortune was, of course, a very severe blow to Gay, but as ever, his friends gathered round him. Instead of being angry with him for his folly--but no one of his friends was ever angry with him--they looked upon him, and treated him, just as a spoilt child who had disobediently tried to get over a hedge and had scratched himself in the endeavour. They put their heads together to find "something" for him.

Gay, of course, was not easy to deal with; it was difficult to make him listen to reason. He could not be brought to believe that it was not his due to receive something for nothing. He had been secretary to Lord Clarendon's brief Mission to Hanover; why had not diplomacy something to offer him? The Princess of Wales had asked for a copy of a set of his verses; was there no place for him at Court? He had praised members of the Royal Family in verse; was there somewhere--somehow--a sinecure in the Household for him? It seems that Gay really could not understand the position. Could not Mrs. Howard do something in his interest? Could not the friends of Pope do aught to secure that little post? Or Lord Burlington, or Lord Bathurst, or William Pulteney, or some one of the rest? He became petulant, and it is a tribute to his charm that not one of these persons was ever disgusted with him, but continued to feed him, keep him, and pet him, and made their friends and their friends' friends do likewise. In fact, this delightful, whimsical, helpless creature leant upon all who were stronger, and each one upon whom he leant loved him to his dying day.

Gay's health, which was never robust, gave way under his bitter disappointment, and in 1721 he went in the early autumn to Bath, where Mrs. Bradshaw wrote to Mrs. Howard, September 19th: "He is always with the d.u.c.h.ess of Queensberry." In the following year he was again ill, and went again to recuperate at the Somersets.h.i.+re watering place.

JOHN GAY TO DEAN SWIFT.

London, December 22nd, 1722.

"After every post-day, for these eight or nine years, I have been troubled with an uneasiness of spirit, and at last I have resolved to get rid of it and write to you. I do not deserve you should think so well of me as I really deserve, for I have not professed to you that I love you as much as ever I did; but you are the only person of my acquaintance, almost, that does not know it. Whomever I see that comes from Ireland, the first question I ask is after your health ... I think of you very often; n.o.body wishes you better, or longs more to see you ... I was there [at Bath] for near eleven weeks for a colic that I have been troubled with of late; but have not found all the benefit I expected ... I lodge at present at Burlington House, and have received many civilities from many great men, but very few real benefits. They wonder at each other for not providing for me, and I wonder at them all.

Experience has given me some knowledge of them, so that I can say, that it is not in their power to disappoint me."[4]

This was certainly ungrateful of Gay, but allowance may perhaps be made for him on the ground that he was, as c.o.xe has written, "of a sanguine disposition, was easily raised and as easily depressed. He mistook the usual civilities of persons of distinction for offers of a.s.sistance, and argued from the common promises of a Court certain preferment." He accordingly always suffered from mortification, about which he was p.r.o.ne to discourse. This was a foible well known to his friends, and even Pope could not refrain from gently chaffing him: "I wish you joy of the birth of the young Prince,[5] because he is the only prince we have from whom you have had no expectations and no disappointments."[6]

DEAN SWIFT TO JOHN GAY.

Dublin, January 8th, 1723.

"Although I care not to talk to you as a divine, yet I hope you have not been the author of your colic. Do you drink bad wine or keep bad company?... I am heartily sorry you have any dealings with that ugly distemper, and I believe our friend Arbuthnot will recommend you to temperance and exercise ...

"I am extremely glad he [Pope] is not in your case of needing great men's favour, and could heartily wish that you were in his.

"I have been considering why poets have such ill success in making their court, since they are allowed to be the greatest and best of all flatterers. The defect is, that they flatter only in print or in writing, but not by word of mouth; they will give things under their hand which they make a conscience of speaking. Besides, they are too libertine to haunt antechambers, too poor to bribe porters and footmen, and too proud to cringe to second-hand favourites in a great family.

"Tell me, are you not under original sin by the dedication of your Eclogues to Lord Bolingbroke?