gar's Opera, the gangs of robbers were evidently multiplied.

Both these decisions are furely exaggerated. The play, like many others, was plainly written only to divert, without any moral purpose, and is therefore not likely to do good; nor can it be conceived, without more fpeculation than life requires or admits, to be productive of much evil. Highwaymen and house-breakers feldom frequent the play-house, or mingle in any elegant diverfion; nor is it poffible for any one to imagine that he may rob with fafety, because he fees Macheath reprieved upon the ftage.

This objection however, or fome other rather political than moral, obtained fuch prevalence, that when Gay produced a fecond part under the name of Polly, it was prohibited by the Lord Chamberlain; and he was forced to recompenfe his repulfe by a subscription, which is faid to have been fo liberally beftowed, that what he called oppreffion ended in profit. The publication was fo much favoured, that though the first part gained him four hundred

*Spence.

pounds,

pounds, near thrice as much was profit of the fecond.

He received yet another recompenfe for this fuppofed hardship, in the affectionate attention of the duke and dutchefs of Queensberry, into whofe house he was taken, and with whom he paffed the remaining part of his life. * The duke. confidering his want of œconomy, undertook the management of his money, and gave it to him as he wanted it. But it is fuppofed that the discountenance of the Court funk deep into his heart, and gave him more difcontent than the applaufes or tenderness of his friends could overpower. He foon fell into his old distemper, an habitual colick, and languished, though with many intervals of ease and cheerfulness, till a violent fit at laft feized him, and carried him to the grave, as Arbuthnot reported, with more precipitance than he had ever known. He died on the fourth of December 1732, and was buried in Weftminfter Abbey. The letter which brought an account of his death to Swift was laid by for fome days unopened, becaufe when he received it

* Spence.

he

he was impreft with the preconception of some misfortune.

After his death, was published a fecond volume of Fables more political than the former. His opera of Achilles was acted, and the profits were given to two widow filters, who inherited what he left, as his lawful heirs; for he died without a will, though he had gathered * three thousand pounds. There have appeared likewife under his name a comedy called the Difireft Wife, and the Rebearful at Gotham, a piece of humour.

*

The character given him by Pope is this, that "he was a natural man, without defign, "who spoke what he thought, and just as he

16

thought it;" and that "he was of a timid. temper, and fearful of giving offence to the "great;" which caution however, fays Pope, was of no avail.

As a poet, he cannot be rated very high. He was, as I once 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

Spence.

the

the author of a new fpecies of compofition, though it be not of the highest kind. We owe to Gay the Ballad Opera; a mode of comedy which at first was fuppofed to delight only by its novelty, but has now by the experience of half a century been found fo well accommodated to the difpofition of a popular audience, that it is likely to keep long poffeffion of the stage. Whether this new drama was the product of judgement or of luck, the praise of it muft be given to the inventor; and there are many writers read with more reverence, to whom fuch merit of originality cannot be attributed.

The

His first performance, the Rural Sports, is fuch as was eafily planned and executed; it is never contemptible, nor ever excellent. Fan 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 ufe, are of little value. The attention naturally retires from a new tale of Venus, Diana, and Minerva

His Fables feem to have been a favourite work; for having published one volume, he left another behind him. Of this kind of Fa.

bles,

bles, the authors do not appear to have formed any diftinct or fettled notion. Phædrus evidently confounds them with Tales, and Gay both with Tales and Allegorical Profopopias. A Fable, or Apologue, fuch as is now under confideration, feems to be, in its genuine ftate, a narrative in which beings irrational, and fometimes inanimate, arbores loquuntur, non tantum fere, are, for the purpose of moral inftruction, feigned to act and speak with human interests and paffions. To this defcription the compofitions of Gay do not always conform. For a Fable he gives now and then a Tale, or an abftracted Allegory; and from fome, by whatever name they may be called, it will be difficult to extract any moral principle. They are, however, told with liveliness; the verfification is fmooth; and the diction, though now-and-then a little constrained by the meafure or the rhyme, is generally happy.

To Trivia may be allowed all that it claims; it is fpritely, various, and pleafant. The fubject is of that kind which Gay was by nature qualified to adorn ; yet fome of his decorations may be justly wished away, An honeft blackfmith might have done for Patty what is perVOL. IV. C formed