Life And Letters Of John Gay (1685-1732), Author of "The Beggar's Opera"

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.]