and houses were furnished with it in screens.

The fame of it was not confined to the author only. The person who acted Polly, till then obscure, became, all at once, the favourite of the town; her pictures were engraved, and sold in great numbers; her life written, books of letters and verses to her published, and pamphlets made even of her sayings and jests. Furthermore, it drove out of England, for that season, the Italian opera, which had carried all before it for ten years."

Of this performance, when it was printed, the reception was different, according to the different opinion of its readers. Swift commended it for the excellence of its morality, as a piece that "placed all kinds of vice in the strongest and most odious light;" but others, and among them Dr. Herring, afterwards archbishop of Canterbury, censured it, as giving encouragement not only to vice, but to crimes, by making a highwayman the hero, and dismissing him, at last, unpunished. It has been even said, that, after the exhibition of the Beggars' Opera, the gangs of robbers were evidently multiplied.

Both these decisions are surely 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 speculation than life requires or admits, to be productive of much evil Highwaymen and housebreakers seldom frequent the playhouse, or mingle in ary elegant diversion; nor is it possible for any one to imagine that he may rob with safety, Avanse he sees Macheath reprieved upon the

Phix ofjevernom dowever, or some other, rather political thenewed such prevalence, that when Gay prodived a wround part, under the name of Polly, it was probibed by the Ard chamberlain; and he was forced to re

Via Pau'se by a subseription, which is said to Are Aww litre) asetowed, that what he called opjwa pod prit. The publication was so much

favoured, that though the first part gained him four hundred pounds, near thrice as much was the profit of the secondi.

He received yet another recompense for this supposed hardship in the affectionate attention of the duke and dutchess of Queensberry, into whose house he was taken, and with whom he passed the remaining part of his life. The duke, considering his want of economy, undertook the management of his money, and gave it to him as he wanted it. But it is supposed that the discountenance of the court sunk deep into his heart, and gave him more discontent than the applauses or tenderness of his friends could overpower. He soon fell into his old distemper, an habitual colick, and languished, though with many intervals of ease and cheerfulness, till a violent fit, at last, seized him, and hurried 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 Westminster Abbey. The letter, which brought an account of his death to Swift, was laid by, for some days, unopened, because, when he received it, he was impressed with the preconception of some misfortune.

After his death, was published a second volume of fables, more political than the former. His opera of Achilles was acted, and the profits were given to two widow sisters, 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, likewise, under his name, a comedy, called the Distrest Wife, and the Rehearsal at Gotham, a piece of humour.

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"."

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 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 ha'f a century, been found so well accommodated 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 judgment 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 eannot be attributed.

His first performance, the Rural Sports, is such as was easily planned and executed; it is never contemptible, nor ever excellent. The Fan is one of those mythological fictions which antiquity delivers ready to the hand, but which, like other things that Ee open to every one's use, are of little value. The attention naturally retires from a new tale of Venus, Diana, and Minerva.

His tables seem to have been a favourite work; for, having pubised one voline, he left another behind him. Of this kind of tables, the authors do not appear to have formed my Estinct or settled notion. Phædrus evidently comvands them with tales; and Gay, both with tales and alegered mostrererias Aibe, or apologue, such as as you wder consideration, seems to be, in its genuine Nakts & Partiove » which beings imitoa, and, someVinca, Staminate, “actures "Gerineır, nen tantum fere." 60 g de pa vse d` mersi iscretio, Reggned to act and you wi) Jamant 'n geests and passions. To this „baciqved de Quipesvus à Gaș do not always conગ Px & àde, d QS WA Und sien, a tie, or an Aliev alegers, and, *ym sme, by whatever name ikh mà de volta, i wil de difont u zxract any moral tha an Nacio vu wat jvziness; the

then, a little constrained by the measure or the rhyme, is generally happy.

To Trivia may be allowed all that it claims; it is sprightly, 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 shoe boy could have been produced by the casual cohabitation of mere mortals. race'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.

Ho

Of his little poems the publick judgment 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 Aminta, and Pastor Fido, and other trifles of the same kind, easily imitated, and unworthy of imitation. 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 a hundred lines may be 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.

*opy of ine oy verses 1 the Modus, tucu duteness of Tol Viel she set the unwernity,

At the moession of king James, beny nova eginAEL, be again exerted his poetical powers, and addressed De mw monarch in three short pieces, of which the first is profume, and the two others such as a boy might be experted to produce; but he was commended by od Wille, who, perlups, was pleased to find himse ined in sa luna, which though they begin with nonsense and end with dulu, xcited in the young author a rapture of acknowbolgment

In numbers such as Waller's self might use.

It was probably about this time that he wrote the poem he the suit of Poterborough, upon his accomplishment of the subs of York's marriage with the princess of Modena, Whoopharma appear to have gained a strong prevalence

vom kako mwaka. Tuz, we must, therefore, set the year of his Thy the unfecrally register it appears, that he was ad