Life and Letters of John Gay (1685-1732) | Page 4

probably was. Anyhow, Gay returned to
Barnstaple, and stayed awhile with his maternal uncle, the Rev. John
Hanmer.
It has been said that it was during this visit to Barnstaple that Gay
began to write verses; and as most men who take to poetry began to
dabble in ink in their youth, this statement may well be accepted. Only,
so far no bibliographer has traced any of these early writings. Some
poems, said to have been written by him in these days have been
printed in the volume to which reference has already been made, "Gay's
Chair: Poems never before printed, written by John Gay.... With a
Sketch of his Life from the MSS. of the Rev. Joseph Bailer, his nephew.
Edited by Henry Lee ... 1820," but the authenticity of these cannot
definitely be accepted. A chair, said to have been the property of Gay at
Barnstaple, was sold early in the nineteenth century to Henry Lee, who
sent it to be repaired. "On taking out the drawer in front, which was
somewhat broken," so runs the story, "I found at the back part of the
chair a concealed drawer, ingeniously fastened with a small wooden
bolt;... it was full of manuscript papers, some of which appeared to
have slipped over, as I found them stuck to the bottom or seat of the
chair."[10] The poems in question are: "The Ladies' Petition to the

Honorable the House of Commons," the longest and most ambitious of
the pieces; "To Miss Jane Scott," "Prediction," "Comparisons,"
"Absence," "Fable," "Congratulation to a Newly-married Pair," "A
Devonshire Hill," "Letter to a Young Lady," and "To My Chair." Of
this small collection, Mr. John Underhill, who includes it in his
admirable edition of Gay's poems in the "Muses' Library," writes: "The
evidence in support of their authenticity is (1) the fact that they were
found in a chair which was always spoken of by Gay's 'immediate
descendants' as 'having been the property of the poet, and which, as his
favourite easy chair, he highly valued'; and (2) that 'The Ladies'
Petition' was printed nearly verbatim from a manuscript in the
handwriting of the poet ... If really Gay's, they [the verses] may, we
think, a great many of them, be safely regarded as the production of his
youth, written, perhaps, during the somewhat extended visit to
Devonshire which preceded his introduction to the literary world of
Pope. The least doubtful piece, 'The Ladies' Petition' was probably
'thrown off' upon the occasion of his visit to Exeter in 1715."
If the verses are genuine, they have such biographical interest as is
afforded by an allusion to a youthful love-affair. There are lines "To
Miss Jane Scott":--
The Welsh girl is pretty. The English girl fair, The Irish deem'd witty,
The French débonnaire;
Though all may invite me, I'd value them not; The charms that delight
me I find in a SCOT.
It is presumedly to the same young lady he was referring in the verses
written probably shortly after he returned to London after his visit to
Devonshire:--
ABSENCE.
Augustus, frowning, gave command. And Ovid left his native land;
From Julia, as an exile sent. He long with barb'rous Goths was pent.
So fortune frown'd on me, and I was driven From friends, from home,

from Jane, and happy Devon! And Jane, sore grieved when from me
torn away;-- loved her sorrow, though I wish'd her--GAY.
That another girl there was may be gathered from the "Letter to a
Young Lady," who was not so devoted as Jane Scott, for the poet
writes:
Begging you will not mock his sighing. And keep him thus whole years
a-dying! "Whole years!"--Excuse my freely speaking. Such tortures,
why a month--a week in? Caress, or kill him quite in one day, Obliging
thus your servant, JOHN GAY.
[Footnote 1: Risdon: Survey of Devon (1811), p. 243.]
[Footnote 2: Gribble: Memorials of Devonshire.]
[Footnote 3: Gay's Chair, p. 12.]
[Footnote 4: Gay's Chair, p. 13.]
[Footnote 5: Notes and Queries, N.S. VI, 488, December 16th, 1882,
from the North Devon Herald of December 7th.]
[Footnote 6: Aaron Hill (1685-1750), dramatist and journalist.]
[Footnote 7: Charles Douglas, third Duke of Queensbury and second
Duke of Dover (1698-1777), married Catherine, second daughter of
Henry Hyde, Earl of Clarendon and Rochester.]
[Footnote 8: Ayre: Pope, pp. 11, 97.]
[Footnote 9: Gay's Chair, p. 13.]
[Footnote 10: Gay's Chair, p. 5.]
CHAPTER II
1706-1712

GAY COMMENCES AUTHOR
Gay's health was improved by his stay in his native town, and presently
he returned to London, where, according to the family tradition, he
"lived for some time as a private gentleman."[1] Mr. Austin Dobson
has pointed out that this is "a statement scarcely reconcilable with the
opening in life his friends had found for him";[2] but it may be urged