PART IV.

ESSAY III.

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SKETCHES OF

OCCASIONAL CORRESPONDENTS OF STEELE
ADDISON.

THE

AND

THE ten characters, whose biography we have now given, were, after Steele and Addison, the chief contributors to the Tatler, Spectator, and Guardian; they have, therefore, with propriety, occupied more of our attention than can, consistently with the limits of our original design, be paid to the next two series of periodical writers, of which the first will consist of those only who have composed an entire paper; the second of those who have written merely letters, or portions of a number.

11. JOHN GAY was born A. D. 1688, in the vicinity of Barnstaple, in Devonshire. Having received a good grammatical education under the care of Mr. Luck, the master of the free-school at Barnstaple, he was, owing to the reduced cir

cumstances of his family, destined for trade, and bound an apprentice to a silk-mercer in London.

With this occupation, however, he was greatly dissatisfied; for, having imbibed a taste for poetry and classical literature, he was early disgusted with the servility and frivolous nature of his employment, and, shortly afterwards, induced his master, who saw his aversion to the business unconquerable, to resign his indentures for a small consideration.

On his release he immediately applied himself to the cultivation of poetry, and, in 1711, published his first attempt in verse, entitled Rural Sports, which he inscribed to Mr. Pope, then nearly of his own age; and an intimacy took place between the poets in consequence of this literary compliment, that ripened into a friendship equally durable and sincere. The poem, though written on a theme so trite, is evidently the production of one who describes what he has himself actually seen; and it can, therefore, boast of several descriptions which are novel and interesting.

In 1712, our author obtained a situation which left him at full liberty to indulge his taste for elegant literature. He was appointed secretary to the Duchess of Monmouth, and the public was soon gratified by the product of his leisure. His

Trivia, or, The Art of walking the Streets in London, appeared the same year, and procured him much reputation. It is a fine specimen of that species of burlesque, in which elevated language is employed in the detail of trifling, mean, or ludicrous circumstances. He occasionally, however, touches upon subjects of a very different nature; and the following description of a fire is so minutely correct as to make the reader shudder:

At first a glowing red enwraps the skies,

And borne by winds the scatt'ring sparks arise;
From beam to beam the fierce contagion spreads;
The spiry flames now lift aloft their heads;
Thro' the burst sash a blazing deluge pours,
And splitting tiles descend in rattling showers.

A more sublime and awful, though not a more accurate picture of this dreadful disaster, has been given us by Dr. Darwin, in his Botanic Garden. He is addressing the Aquatic Nymphs:

From dome to dome when flames infuriate climb,
Sweep the long street, invest the tower sublime,
Gild the tall vanes amid the astonish'd night,
And reddening heaven returns the sanguine light;
While with vast strides and bristling hair aloof,
Pale Danger glides along the falling roof,
And giant Terror, howling in amaze,

Moves his dark limbs across the lurid blaze:

NYMPHS! YOU first taught the gelid wave to rise,
Hurl'd in resplendent arches to the skies;
In iron cells condensed the airy spring,
And imp'd the torrent with unfailing wing;

--On the fierce flames the shower impetuous falls,
And sudden darkness shrouds the shatter'd walls;
Steam, smoke, and dust in blended volumes roll,
And Night and silence repossess the Pole---------.

Gay was now willing to ascertain what were his talents for dramatic composition, from which, should success attend him on the stage, he might justly expect far greater remuneration than from any other department of poetry. He produced, therefore, about this period, a farce and a comedy, under the titles of The Mohocks, and The Wife of Bath; they were both, however, unsuccessful, a disappointment that was alleviated the succeeding year by the popularity which accompanied his Shepherd's Week, so called, as it consisted of six pastorals designated by the days of the week. This singular but original work was written to support the cause of Pope in his quarrel with Philips, and was intended as a burlesque parody upon the pastorals of his rival. Notwithstanding the vulgarity of manners and coarseness of style which these pieces exhibit, they are, when we dismiss from our minds the caricature intention with which they were com

* Part i, p. 144.

He had scarcely, how

posed, so just a picture of genuine nature, and present us with so many natural delineations of rural life, that they became greater favourites with the people than any other productions of the rustic class. In general, indeed, they were read without any reference to, or knowledge of, the dispute which occasioned their appearance, and are justly considered as representations of nature, of merit equal with the paintings of Heemskirke or Teniers. They were dedicated to Lord Bolingbroke; and in return Gay was nominated secretary to the Earl of Clarendon, ambassador to the court of Hanover. ever, begun to act in his new office, when the death of the Queen closed all his prospects from the Tory party; yet he neglected not the opportunity, which his short residence in Hanover afforded him, of recommending himself to the royal family; and his attentions would probably have been successful, could the dedication to Bolingbroke have been forgotten; a political crime which never ceased to operate against all his views of official promotion. He did, however, what laid in his power; he congratulated the Princess of Wales in a poetical epistle on her arrival; and when in 1715 he brought forward a dramatic piece, named The What d'ye call it, a kind of mock tragedy, it was patronised and attended