Pope's resentment against Ambrose Philips. This year, however, was fatal to Gay's independence, for the Duchess discharged him from her service, an appointment in the household of Lord Clarendon fell through, and the poet was penniless. In 1715 Gay produced his entertaining "tragic-comic-pastoral" farce, called The IVhat d've Call It, which enjoyed a great success, and his picturesque poem of Trivia in 1716. In these and succeeding years he seems to have led a parasitical life, visiting from house to house, and starving between whiles. In 1720 Gay collected his " Poems" in quarto and made ^1000 : with this he speculated on the Stock Exchange

until he made it a nominal ,£20,000 ; the South Sea Bubble burst and Gay was once more penniless. He now began to be " always with the Duchess of Queensberry," and this amusing and brilliant lady became Gay's patron-in-ordinary. His famous Fables appeared in 1727 ; his no less famous Beggar's Opera in 1728, and the sequel, Pollv, in 1729; these three books brought money, fame, and scandal to everybody concerned with them. After the publication of Pollv, indeed, the " inoffensive John Gay became the terror of ministers and one of the obstructions to the peace of Europe," and Duchesses had to retire from Court for patronising him. Gay did not survive his successes long, but on the 4th of December 1732 died in the house of the Duke of Queensberry in Burlington Gardens. He was ceremoniously buried in Westminster Abbey, and after all his solicitudes he was found to have ^6000

in his possession. " Gay dies unpensioned with a hundred friends," Pope sang, but it is not easy to pity him, for his early indigence was certainly the result of sheer indolence. Gay was amiable, merry, greedy, lazy, and a charming com

From a Congratulatory Poem from John Gay to Alexander Pope on the completion of the latter's translation of Homer

panion. He loved good eating, smart clothes, and snug quarters, and he hated to work for them ; he made himself agreeable to so many wealthy people that he had no need to do so. As some one said of him, he wanted a place with a handsome income and no duties, and to this ideal he practically, though never nominally, managed to attain.

The Pedlar.

Now he goes on, and sings of fairs and shows, For still new fairs before his eyes arose. How pedlars' stalls with glitt'ring toys are laid, The various fairings of the country maid.

Long silken laces hang upon

the twine, And rows of pins and amber

bracelets shine ; How the tight lass, knives,

combs, and scissors spies, And looks on thimbles with

desiring eyes. Of lott'ries next with tuneful

note he told, Where silver spoons are won,

and rings of gold. The lads and lasses trudge the

streets along. And all the fair is crowded in

his song. The mountebank now treads

the stage, and sells His pills, his balsams, and his

ague-spells ; Now o'er and o'er the nimble

tumbler springs, And on the rope the vent'rous

maiden swings ; Jack-pudding in his particolour'd jacket Tosses the glove, and jokes at

ev'ry packet. Of raree-shows, he sung, and

Punch's feats,

Catherine Hyde, Duchess of Queensberry Of pockets pick'd in crowds,

After the Portrait by Charles Jervas and various cheats.

Thomas Parnell (1679-1718) belonged to the well-known Cheshire family of that name; and his father was the Thomas Parnell of Dublin, ancestor of the first Lord Congleton, whose great-grand-nephew was the Irish leader. The poet was born in Dublin in 1679; his mother was Anna Grice of Tipperary, from whom, doubtless, he received his strong Irish characteristics. In 1693 he was admitted to Trinity College, Dublin, and remained there until he took his degree of M.A. in 1700. He was patronised by the great Whig divine, Dr. William King, who admitted Parnell to deacon's orders when he was below canonical age, and found him promotion. At the early age of twenty-seven Parnell was appointed Archdeacon of Clogher, and married a lady who, like his own mother, was of County Tipperary. He had two sons, who died

in childhood, and he lost his mother in 1709 and his wife in 1711. In consequence of the depression caused by these losses, he is said to have taken to heavy drinking, which shortened his life. Uy this time he had renewed a college acquaintance with Swift, and had acquired the friendship of Addison, Bolingbroke, Pope, and Steele. His earliest appearances in print were made in the form of a few essays contributed to the Spectator and to the Guardian. Parnell was now beginning to circulate among his friends copies of verses, which were greatly commended. Swift told Stella in 1712 that Parnell outdid " all our poets here by a bar's length," and he endeavoured to make Parnell known to the Ministry. In 1713 Archbishop King made the poet a Prebendary of St. Patrick's, and Parnell joined the Scriblerus Club. He wrote an essay on Homer as an introduction to Pope's Iliad. In 1716 King presented Parnell with the vicarage of Finglas, and the poet, who was rich, and already in failing health and spirits, resigned his archdeaconry. In 1717 he published Homers Battle of ttie Frogs and Mice, in which the line which Pope was to take in his Dunciad was dimly foreshadowed. Parnell died, on the journey from London to Dublin, at Chester, and was buried there on the 24th of October 1718. Pope immediately set about collecting the scattered poems of his

friend, including the most important of them all, The Hermit, but he did not publish them till the close of 1721, when the volume appeared with a beautiful dedication of the verses of the "once-loved" Parnell to Lord Oxford. He had been much beloved in spite of a splenetic and irregular temper, which gave anxiety and some annoyance to his friends. Parnell was always either exaggeratedly elated or in the depths of misery. His hatred of Ireland was equalled only by that of Swift. His works were first collected in 1758, with a posthumous certificate of genuineness from the last-named friend.

How deep yon azure dyes the sky, Where orbs of gold unnumbered lie ; While through their ranks, in silver pride, The nether crescent seems to glide.

Thomas Parnell, D.D.

The slumbering breeze forgets to breathe, The lake is smooth and clear beneath, Where once again the spangled show Descends to meet our eyes below. The grounds, which on the right aspire, In dimness from the view retire : The left presents a place of graves, Whose wall the silent water laves. That steeple guides thy doubtful right Among the livid gleams of night. There pass, with melancholy state, By all the solemn heaps of fate, And think, as softly sad you tread Above the venerable dead, "Time was, like thee, they life possessed, And time shall be that thou shalt rest."

Thomas Tickcll (1686-1740)

Thomas Tickell (1686-1740) was the son of the Rev. John Tickell, Vicar of Bridekirk, in Cumberland, where he was born in 1686. He was educated at

Queen's College, Oxford, where he mainly resided from 1701 to 1726. He introduced himself to Addison, by writing a copy of laudatory verses on the opera of Rosamond. When Addison went to Dublin in 1714, he seems to have taken Tickell with him as a private secretary. Tickell's translation of the first book of the Iliad, in June 1715, was a leading incident in Pope's famous quarrel with Addison. The latter made Tickell UnderSecretary of State in 1717, and at his death in 1719 designed his admirer and protege as his literary executor. Tickell's famous and very fine elegy on Addison was not printed until 1721, when it opened the stately edition of Addison's Works which he edited. After 1723 Tickell spent much of his In 1726 he married, and so

Thomas Tickell

From an original Portrait

time in Ireland, keeping up his friendship with Swift.

severed his connection with Oxford. He died at Bath on the 23rd of April 1740. Gray called Tickell " a poor, short-winded imitator of Addison," but once, in his elegy, he far surpassed his master.