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

Neither the production of "Achilles," nor any other earthly project of Gay's, took place, for, within a few weeks, on December 4th, after three days' illness, he passed away in his forty-eighth year, at the Duke of Queensberry's town house in Burlington Gardens.

On the following day, Arbuthnot, who attended him, imparted the sad tidings to Pope: "Poor Mr. Gay died of an inflammation, and, I believe, at last a mortification of the bowels; it was the most precipitous case I ever knew, having cut him off in three days. He was attended by two physicians besides myself. I believed the distemper mortal from the beginning."^[9] Pope, in his turn, immediately wrote to Swift, and his letter was found among Swift's papers, bearing the following endorsement: "On [pg 139]my dear friend Mr. Gay's death. Received December 15th, but not read till the 20th, by an impulse foreboding some misfortune."

Gay's body was removed from Burlington House on the morning of December 23rd, to Exeter Change, in the Strand, where it lay in state during the day. At nine o'clock in the evening, it was taken for burial to Westminster Abbey in a hearse with plumes of white and black feathers and appropriate escutcheons, attended by three coaches, each [pg 140]drawn by six horses. In the first coach was the principal mourner, Gay's nephew, the Rev. Joseph Bailer, who is responsible for the above account of the obsequies; in the second coach were the Duke of Queensberry and Arbuthnot. The pall-bearers were Lord Chesterfield, Lord Cornbury, the Hon. Mr. Berkeley, General Dormer, Mr. Gore, and Pope. The service was read by the Dean of Westminster, Dr. Wilcox, Bishop of Rochester. Gay's remains were deposited in the south cross aisle of the Abbey, over against Chaucer's tomb.^[11] Later a monument was erected to his memory.

Charles and Catherine, Duke and Duchess of Queensbury, who loved this excellent man living, and regret him dead, have caused this monument to be erected to his memory. [pg 141]Pope, than whom no man loved him better, composed an epitaph for him:—

Of Gay's posthumous works, there are several references in the correspondence of his friends. The first mention is concerning "Achilles," in a letter written from Twickenham by Pope to Caryll: "Poor Gay has gone before, and has not left an honester man behind him; he has just put a play into the house, which the Duke of Queensberry will take care of, and turn to the benefit of his relations. I have read it, and think it of his very best manner, a true original; he has left some other pieces fit for the press." Quite in keeping with his character Gay had made no arrangements for the disposal of the manuscripts he left behind him. "As to his writings, he left no will, nor spoke a word of them, or anything else, during his short and precipitate illness, in which I attended him to his last breath," Pope informed Swift, February 16th, 1733. "The Duke has acted more than the part of a brother to him, and it will be strange if the sisters do not leave his papers totally at his disposal, who will do the same that I would with them. He had managed the comedy (which our poor friend gave to the playhouse a week before his death) to the utmost advantage for his relations; and proposes to do the same with some Fables he left unfinished."^[12] The play was much discussed in advance of its representation.

"[pg 142]Mr. Gay has left a posthumous work, which is soon to be acted," Lady Anne Irvine wrote to Lord Carlisle on January 6th, 1733. "Tis in the manner of 'The Beggar's Opera,' interspersed with songs; the subject is Achilles among the women, where he is discovered choosing a sword. The design is to ridicule Homer's Odysses; 'tis much commended, and I don't doubt, from the nature of the subject, will be much approved."^[13] Gay's play was put into rehearsal in December, 1732, about a fortnight after his death,^[14] and it was produced at the theatre in Lincoln's Inn Fields in February, 1723, when a contemporary account says it "met with a general applause the first night, when there was a noble and crowded audience,"^[15] and Pope wrote to Swift on February 16th: "The play Mr. Gay left succeeds very well. It is another original of its kind."^[16] It ran for eighteen nights. The cast was as follows:—

"The Distrest Wife," another of the posthumous plays, was a poor thing, and Swift was much annoyed that it was staged. "As to our poor friend, I think the Duke of [pg 143]Queensberry has acted a very noble and generous part," Swift wrote to Pope, March 31st, 1734. "But before he did it, I wish there had been so much cunning used as to have let the sisters know that he expected they would let him dispose of Mr. Gay's writings as himself and other friends should advise. And I heartily wish his Grace had entirely stifled that comedy, if it were possible, than do an injury to our friend's reputation, only to get a hundred or two pounds to a couple of, perhaps, insignificant women. It has been printed here, and I am grieved to say it is a very poor performance. I have often chid Mr. Gay for not varying his schemes, but still adhering to those he had exhausted; and I much doubt whether the posthumous Fables will prove equal to the first. I think it is incumbent upon you to see that nothing more be published of his that will lessen his reputation for the sake of adding a few pounds to his sisters, who have already got so much by his death." "The Distrest Wife" was produced at Covent Garden Theatre on March 5th, 1734,^[17] and the Duke and Duchess of Queensberry were present at the performance. "To-morrow will be acted a new play of our friend Mr. Gay's; we stay on purpose now for that," the Duchess wrote to Swift on the previous day.^[18] The play was published in 1743, and a second edition was issued in 1750. It was revived at Covent Garden, in 1772, with some alteration.^[19]

In a humorous piece, "The Rehearsal at Goatham," published in 1754, which was written probably about 1729, Gay ventilated his grievance against Walpole and the rest, à propos of the suppression of "Polly." This was Gay's King Charles's Head, and he never forgave the Minister for this, or for not finding him a place. He made an attack on him, obvious to all, in "The Vulture, the Sparrow, and Other Birds," which was included in his [pg 144]second series of "Fables"^[20] that appeared posthumously in 1738.

The devotion of Gay's friends survived his death, and they vied with one another in paying tribute to his memory. "As to himself, he knew the world too well to regret leaving it; and the world in general knew him too little to value him as they ought,"^[21] the Duchess of Queensberry wrote to Swift on February 21st, 1733; and, later, she addressed herself to Lady Suffolk from Amesbury, on September 28th, 1734: "I often want poor Mr. Gay, and on this occasion extremely. Nothing evaporates sooner than joy untold, or even told, unless to one so entirely in your interest as he was, who bore at least an equal share in every satisfaction or dissatisfaction which attended us. I am not in the spleen, though I write thus; on the contrary, it is a sort of pleasure to think over his good qualities: his loss was really great, but it is a satisfaction to have once known so good a man." Her affection endured until the end. Although she was then a very old woman, when "Polly" was produced at the Haymarket Theatre on June 19th, 1777, nothing would content her but she must be present. Within a few weeks, on the following July 17th, she passed away.

Lord Bathurst, too, deplored the loss of Gay; he of whom the poet had written in "Mr. Pope's Welcome from Greece":—

"[pg 145]Poor John Gay!" he wrote to Swift on March 29th, 1733. "We shall see him no more; but he will always be remembered by those who knew him, with a tender concern." Arbuthnot, who also had had tribute paid him in "Mr. Pope's Welcome from Greece":—

knew him well and loved him deeply. "We have all had another loss of our worthy and dear friend, Mr. Gay," he wrote to Swift on January 13th, 1733. "It was some alleviation of my grief to see him so universally lamented by almost everybody, even by those who knew him only by reputation. He was interred at Westminster Abbey, as if he had been a peer of the realm; and the good Duke of Queensberry, who lamented him as a brother, will set up a handsome monument upon him. These are little affronts put upon vice and injustice, and is all that remains in our power. I believe 'The Beggar's Opera,' and what he had to come upon the stage, will make the sum of the diversions of the town for some time to come."^[22]

By virtue of their fame, towering high above the rest of the select band of Gay's dearest friends, were Pope and Swift:—

Pope had written in the "Epistle to Arbuthnot"; and Gay, as has been said, had more than once entered the lists and broken a lance on his brother poet's behalf, as when he parodied Ambrose Philips in "The Shepherd's Week." His "Mr. Pope's Welcome from Greece," written when Pope had finished his translation of the "Iliad," was a fine panegyric, in which he had a sly dig at the rival editor:—

[pg 146]and in his "Epistle to the Right Honourable Paul Methuen, Esq.," he pilloried one of his friend's most violent critics:—

"You say truly," Pope wrote to Swift, on April 2nd, 1733, "that death is only terrible to us as it separates us from those we love; but I really think those have the worst of it who are left by us, if we are true friends. I have felt more (I fancy) in the loss of Mr. Gay, than I shall suffer in the thought of going away myself into a state that none of us can feel this sort of losses. I wished vehemently to have seen him in a condition of living independent, and to have lived in perfect indolence the rest of our days together, the two most idle, most innocent, undesigning poets of our age."^[23]

Through the long years Gay was present to the minds of these, his dearest friends. "Dr. Arbuthnot's daughter is like Gay, very idle, very ingenuous, and inflexibly honest,"^[24] Pope wrote to Swift, May 17th, 1739; and two years earlier, on July 23rd, 1737, Swift had written to Erasmus Lewis: "I have had my share of affliction in the loss of Dr. Arbuthnot, and poor Gay, and others.^[25] Such devotion, from such very different people puts it beyond question that Gay was a very lovable creature. How deeply he returned that devotion it is difficult to say—gratitude he felt, no doubt, but of love ... a man of such weak character, a man so devoted to the fleshpots, probably received more than he could give." Perhaps Swift, whose affections never blinded his intelligence, had some inkling of this when he said in the "Verses on His Own Death,"

[pg 147]When Gay, in "Mr. Pope's Welcome from Greece," wrote:—

the formal tribute is agreeable, but in this set of verses, while there is much that is complimentary, there is something perfunctory about the tributes he paid. He wrote of Pope and Swift and the rest as witty or humorous or generous or clever or learned or honest of mind: they wrote of the love they bore him. The two great literary giants took him under their wing, bore with his foibles, humoured him, championed him, and to the utmost of their power sought to protect their weaker brother of the pen from the rude buffetings of life.

Footnotes:

APPENDIX

I. NOTES ON THE SOURCES OF THE TUNES OF "THE BEGGAR'S OPERA," BY W.H. GRATTAN FLOOD, Mus.D.

II. A CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF THE CORRESPONDENCE OF JOHN GAY

III. PROGRAMME OF THE REVIVAL OF "THE BEGGAR'S OPERA," LYRIC THEATRE, HAMMERSMITH, JUNE 7TH, 1920

I

NOTES ON THE SOURCES OF THE TUNES OF "THE BEGGAR'S OPERA," BY W.H. GRATTAN FLOOD, Mus.D.

All the songs, except I, VI, XXIV, XXX, and XLIV were written by Gay.