66

"much encouraged by overhearing the Duke of Argyle, "who sat in the next box to us, say, "It will do-it must "do! I see it in the eyes of them." This was a good "while before the first act was over, and so gave us ease "soon; for that Duke (besides his own good taste) has a "particular knack, as any one now living, in discovering the "taste of the publick. He was quite right in this, as usual; "the good-nature of the audience appeared stronger and stronger every act, and ended in a clamour of applause." Its reception is thus recorded in the notes to the Dunciad. "This piece was received with greater applause than "was ever known. Besides being acted in London sixty"three days without interruption, and renewed the next "season with equal applause, it spread into all the great "towns of England; was played in many places to the "thirtieth and fortieth time; at Bath and Bristol fifty, &c. "It made its progress into Wales, Scotland, and Ireland, " where it was performed twenty-four days successively. "The ladies carried about with them the favourite songs of "it in fans, and houses were furnished with it in screens. "The fame of it was not confined to the author only. The 66 person who acted Polly, till then obscure, became all at once the favourite of the town; her pictures were en❝giaved, 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."

66

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 Beggar's 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 any elegant diversion; nor is it possible for any one to imagine that he may rob with safety, because he sees Macheath reprieved upon the stage.

This objection, however, or some other rather political than moral, obtained such prevalence, that when Gay produced a second part under the name of Polly, it was prohibited by the Lord Chamberlain; and he was forced to recompense his repulse by a subscription, which is said to have been so liberally bestowed, that what he called oppression ended in profit. 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 second.*

He received yet another recompence 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 œconomy, 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 imprest 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 + Ibid. + Ibid.

• Spence.

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.”*

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 dig nity 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 half 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 cannot 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 lie open to every one's use, are of little value. The attention naturally retires from a new tale of Venus, Diana, and Minerva.

His Fables seem to have been a favourite work; for, having published one volume, he left another behind him. Of this kind of Fables, the authors do not appear to have formed any distinct or settled notion. Phædrus evidently confounds them with Tales; and Gay both with Tales and Allegorical Prosopopoeias. A Fable, or Apologue, such as is now under consideration, seems to be, in its genuine state, a narrative in which beings irrational, and sometimes ina nimate, arbores loquuntur, non tantum feræ, are, for the purpose of moral instruction, feigned to act and speak with

Spence.

human interests and passions. To this description the compositions of Gay do not always conform. For a Fable he gives now and then a Tale, or an abstracted Allegory; and from some, by whatever name they may be called, it will be difficult to extract any moral principle. They are, however, told with liveliness; the versification is smooth; and the diction, though now-and-then a little constrained by the measure or the rhyme, is generally happy.

To Triviu 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. Horace'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.

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 Amynta, 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 an 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.

VOL. II.

GRANVILLE.

OF GEORGE GRANVILLE, or, as others write, Greenville, or Grenville, afterwards Lord Lansdowne of Bideford, in the county of Devon, less is known than his name and high rank might give reason to expect. He was born about 1667, the son of Bernard Greenville, who was entrusted by Monk with the most private transactions of the Restoration, and the grandson of Sir Bevil Greenville, who died in the King's cause, at the battle of Lansdowne.

His early education was superintended by Sir William Ellis; and his progress was such, that before the age of twelve he was sent to Cambridge,* where he pronounced a copy of his own verses to the Princess Mary d'Esté of Modena, then Dutchess of York, when she visited the university.

At the accession of King James, being now at eighteen, he again exerted his poetical powers, and addressed the new monarch in three short pieces, of which the first is profane, and the two others such as a boy might be expected to produce; but he was commended by old Waller, who perhaps was pleased to find himself imitated in six lines, which, though they begin with nonsense and end with dulness, excited in the young author a rapture of acknowledgment,

In numbers such as Waller's self might use.

It was probably about this time that he wrote the poem to the Earl of Peterborough, upon his accomplishment of the Duke of York's marriage with the Princess of Modena, whose charms appear to have gained a strong preva

*To Trinity College. By the university register it appears that he was admitted to his Master's degree in 1679 ; we must, therefore, set the year of his birth some years back. H.