26 though he had gathered three thousand pounds. There have appeared likewise under his name a comedy called The Distrest Wife, and The Rehearsal at Gotham, a piece of humour 3. The character given him by Pope is this, that 'he was a natural man, without design, who spoke what he thought, and just as he thought it'; and that 'he was of a timid temper, and fearful of giving offence to the great,' which caution, however, says Pope, was of no avail 5. 27 As a poet he cannot be rated very high. He was, as I once 6 heard a female critick remark, 'of a lower order.' He had not in any great degree the mens divinior', the dignity of genius. Much, however, must be allowed to the author of a new species of composition, though it be not of the highest kind. We owe to Gay the Ballad Opera; a mode of comedy which at first was supposed to delight only by its novelty, but has now by the experience of half a century been found so well accommodated audience.' Gent. Mag. 1733, p. 85. See also ib. p. 78. On March 31 Swift wrote to Pope:'I heartily wish his Grace had entirely stifled that comedy.' Pope's Works (Elwin and Courthope), vii. 300. On May I he wrote: I had rather the two sisters were hanged than see his works swelled by any loss of credit to his memory.' Ib. p. 309. The comedy was Achilles, and not, as stated in a note, The Distressed Wife. 'It was brought out at Covent Garden on Feb. 10, 1733, and ran for eighteen nights. Biog. Dram. ii. 3; Genest's Hist. of the Stage, iii. 391. I Spence's Anec. p. 215. 'The amount was £6,000.' Cunningham's Lives of the Poets, ii. 295. 2 The Duchess wrote to Swift on March 4, 1733-4 :-To-morrow will be acted a new play of our friend Mr. Gay's.' Swift's Works, xviii. 180. It was brought out at Covent Garden on March 5, 1734. Genest's Hist. of the Stage, iii. 428. cording to Nichols:-'It met with indifferent success.' Swift's Works, 1803, xix. 72 n. It was published in 1743. 'Altered from Gay it was acted in 1772 at Covent Garden.' Biog. Dram. ii. 168. Ac 3 It is a satire on Walpole, his colleagues, and the managers of Drury Lane for the suppression of 46 5 He was remarkable for an unwillingness to offend the great by any of his writings; he had an uncommon timidity upon him in relation to any thing of that sort. And yet you see what ill luck he had that way, after all his care not to offend.' Ib. p. 160. His friends spoke of him as 'Johnny Gay.' 'Johnny is a good-natured, inoffensive man,' wrote Broome. Pope's Works (Elwin and Courthope), viii. 147. (See also ib. p. 144.) Broome adds:-'I doubt not but those lines [in The Beggar's Opera] against Courts and ministers are drawn, at least aggravated, by Mr. Pope.' In the original MS. of The Dunciad Pope drew him in 'a poet's phantom':'With laughing eyes that twinkled in his head, Well-looked, well-turned, well-natured, and well-fed.' Pope's Works (E. & C.), iv. 279. See also Swift's Works, xviii. 87, 95. 6 Johnson's wife, according to Mrs. Piozzi. John. Misc. i. 258. 'Gay was a good-natured man, and a little poet.' LADY M. W. MONTAGU, Spence's Anec. p. 234. 7 HORACE, Sat. i. 4. 43. to the disposition of a popular audience that it is likely to keep long possession of the stage'. Whether this new drama was the product of judgement or of luck the praise of it must be given to the inventor; and there are many writers read with more reverence to whom such merit of originality cannot be attributed. His first performance, The Rural Sports', is such as was 28 easily planned and executed: it is never contemptible, nor ever excellent. The Fan3 is one of those mythological fictions which antiquity delivers ready to the hand; but which, like other things that lie open to every one's use, are of little value. The attention naturally retires from a new tale of Venus, Diana, and Minerva *. His Fables seem to have been a favourite work, for, having 29 published one volume, he left another behind him. Of this kind of Fables the authors do not appear to have formed any distinct or settled notion. Phædrus evidently confounds them with Tales, and Gay both with Tales and Allegorical Prosopopœias. A Fable or Apologue, such as is now under consideration, seems to be in its genuine state a narrative in which beings irrational, and sometimes inanimate, arbores loquuntur, non tantum feræ, are for the purpose of moral instruction feigned to act and speak with human interests and passions. To this description the compositions of Gay do not always conform. For a Fable he gives now and then a Tale or an abstracted Allegory; and from some, by whatever name they may be called, it will be difficult to extract any moral principle. They are, however, told with liveliness: the versification is smooth, and the diction, though now and then a little constrained by the measure or the rhyme, is generally happy. To Trivia may be allowed all that it claims: it is spritely, 30 31 32 various, and pleasant. The subject is of that kind which Gay was by nature qualified to adorn; yet some of his decorations may be justly wished away. An honest blacksmith might have done for Patty what is performed by Vulcan'. The appearance of Cloacina is nauseous and superfluous; a shoeboy could have been produced by the casual cohabitation of mere mortals. Horace's rule is broken in both cases: there is no 'dignus vindice nodus, no difficulty that required any supernatural interposition. A patten may be made by the hammer of a mortal, and a bastard may be dropped by a human strumpet. On great occasions and on small the mind is repelled by useless and apparent falsehood. Of his little poems the publick judgement seems to be right; they are neither much esteemed, nor totally despised. The story of the Apparition is borrowed from one of the tales of Poggio*. Those that please least are the pieces to which Gulliver gave occasion; for who can much delight in the echo of an unnatural fiction"? Dione' is a counterpart to Amynta and Pastor Fido, and other trifles of the same kind, easily imitated, and unworthy of imitations. What the Italians call comedies from a happy conclusion, Gay calls a tragedy from a mournful event; but the style of the Italians and of Gay is equally tragical. There is something in the poetical Arcadia so remote from known reality and speculative possibility, that we can never support its representation through a long work. A Pastoral of an hundred lines may be Jan. 10, 1716:-'Gay's poem is just on the brink of the press, to which we have had the interest to procure him subscriptions of a guinea a book to a pretty tolerable number. I believe it may be worth £150 to him in the whole.' Pope's Works (Elwin and Courthope), vi. 237. See also ib. vii. 460. Vulcan wins Patty's love by making her a pair of pattens. "The patten now supports each frugal dame, [takes the name.' Which from the blue-eyed Patty Eng. Poets, xxxvi. 112. 2 lb. p. 117. HORACE, Ars Poet. 1. 191. 4 This sentence is not in the first edition. For the story see Eng. endured; but who will hear of sheep and goats, and myrtle bowers and purling rivulets, through five acts? Such scenes please barbarians in the dawn of literature, and children in the dawn of life; but will be for the most part thrown away as men grow wise, and nations grow learned '. Ante, MILTON, 182. Baretti wrote in 1768:- The fashion of pastoral plays is now so utterly exploded throughout Italy that the revered name of Politian himself cannot rescue his Orfeo from total disregard.' An Account of the Customs of Italy, &c. i. 181. See post, POPE, 30. GRANVILLE' F GEORGE GRANVILLE, or as others write Greenville, For Grenville, afterwards lord Lansdown of Biddeford in the county of Devon, less is known than his name and rank might give reason to expect. He was born about 1667, the son of Bernard Greenville, who was entrusted by Monk with the most private transactions of the Restoration3, and the grandson of Sir Bevil Greenville, who died in the King's cause at the battle of Lansdown. 2 His early education was superintended by Sir William Ellis 5; and his progress was such that before the age of twelve he was sent to Cambridge, where he pronounced a copy of his own verses' to the princess Mary d'Esté of Modena, then dutchess of York, when she visited the university. 3 At the accession of king James, being now at eighteen, he again exerted his poetical powers, and addressed the new monarch in three short pieces, of which the first is profane, and the two others such as a boy might be expected to produce; but he was commended by old Waller, who perhaps was pleased to find 'Johnson, in this Life, follows closely the Biog. Brit. [and Granville's Works (1732), which include his Vindications of General Monk and Sir Richard Grenville]. 2 Clarendon describes the Grenvilles as a very ancient and worthy family of Cornwall, which had in several ages produced men of great courage, and very signal in their fidelity to, and service of, the Crown.' History, iv. 563. 3 ['My Father, Mr. Bernard Granville, was the person entrusted by the General with his last despatches to the King to invite him home and to acquaint him that everything was then ready for his reception.' A Vindication of General Monk, Granville's Works, 1732, i. 481. Bernard's elder brother Sir John Grenville played a still more important part in these negotiations. Ib.; Claren don's Hist. vii. 443; Pepys's Diary, May 2, 1660.] 4 In 1643. Clarendon's Hist. iv. 125. At the Revolution he followed James 'At the age of thirteen he was admitted to the degree of Master of Arts.' Ib. See Graduati Cantabrig. p. 202. 'Eng. Poets, xxxviii. 8, where, in the title of the poem, the age is given. 8 Ib. xxxviii. 9-11. In the first piece he begins a comparison with James II:-'So the world's Saviour.' |