Life and Letters of John Gay (1685-1732) | Page 6

secured a sufficient popularity to be paid the
doubtful compliment of piracy in 1709, by Henry Hill, of Blackfriars,
on whom presently the author neatly revenged himself in his verses,
"On a Miscellany of Poems to Bernard Lintott," by the following
reference:--
While neat old Elzevir is reckon'd better Than Pirate Hill's brown
sheets and scurvy letter.
This blank-verse poem, which may have been suggested by John
Philips' "Cider," published in 1708, is written in the mock-heroic strain,
and although it has no particular value, shows some sense of humorous
exaggeration, of which Gay was presently to show himself a master.
Of happiness terrestrial, and the source Whence human pleasures flow,
sing, Heavenly Muse, Of sparkling juices, of th' enlivening grape,
Whose quick'ning taste adds vigour to the soul. Whose sov'reign power
revives decaying Nature, And thaws the frozen blood of hoary age, A
kindly warmth diffusing--youthful fires Gild his dim eyes, and paint
with ruddy hue His wrinkled visage, ghastly wan before-- Cordial
restorative to mortal man, With copious hand by bounteous gods
bestow'd.
These are the opening lines. The concluding passage describing the
tippling revellers leaving the tavern suggests, as has more than once
been pointed out, the hand that afterwards wrote "Trivia."
Thus we the winged hours in harmless mirth And joys unsullied pass,

till humid night Has half her race perform'd; now all abroad Is hush'd
and silent, now the rumbling noise Of coach or cart, or smoky
link-boy's call Is heard--but universal Silence reigns: When we in
merry plight, airy and gay. Surprised to find the hours so swiftly fly.
With hasty knock, or twang of pendent cord. Alarm the drowsy youth
from slumb'ring nod; Startled he flies, and stumbles o'er the stairs
Erroneous, and with busy knuckles plies His yet clung eyelids, and
with stagg'ring reel Enters confused, and muttering asks our wills;
When we with liberal hand the score discharge, And homeward each
his course with steady step Unerring steers, of cares and coin bereft.
So far as is known, Gay preserved a profound silence for three years
after his publication of "Wine," and then, on May 3rd, 1711, appeared
from his pen, "The Present State of Wit, in a Letter to a Friend in the
Country," sold at the reasonable price of three-pence. This attracted the
attention of Swift. "Dr. Freind[9] ... pulled out a two-penny pamphlet
just published, called 'The State of Wit', giving the characters of all the
papers that have come out of late," he wrote in the "Journal to Stella,"
May 12: "The author seems to be a Whig, yet he speaks very highly of
a paper called the Examiner, and says the supposed author of it is Dr.
Swift. But, above all things, he praises the Tatlers and Spectators, and I
believe Steele and Addison were privy to the printing of it. Thus is one
treated by the impudent dogs." In this unambitious little sketch, as the
author puts it, he gives "the histories and characters of all our periodical
papers, whether monthly, weekly or diurnal," and it is, therefore, of
value to the student of the early days of English journalism. He claimed
to write without political bias: "I shall only promise that, as you know,
I never cared one farthing either for Whig or Tory, so I shall consider
our writers purely as they are such, without any respect to which party
they belong." In "The Present State of Wit" most of the better-known
periodical writers are introduced. Dr. William King is mentioned, not
he who was the Archbishop of Dublin, nor he who was the Principal of
St. Mary Hall, Oxford, but he of whom it was said that he "could write
verses in a tavern three hours after he could not speak," who was the
author of the "Art of Cookery" and the "Art of Love," and who in 1709
had fluttered the scientific dovecotes by parodying the "Philosophical
Transactions" in the Useful Transactions in Philosophy and Other Sorts

of Learning, of which, however, only three numbers were issued. John
Ozell was pilloried as the author of the Monthly Amusement, which was
not, as the title suggests, a periodical, but was merely a title invented to
summarise his frequent appearances in print. "It is generally some
French novel or play, indifferently translated, it is more or less taken
notice of, as the original piece is more or less agreeable." Defoe takes
his place in the gallery as the editor and principal contributor to the
weekly Poor Review, that is, the Weekly Review (which was published
weekly from February 19th, 1704, until 1712) which, says Gay, "is
quite exhausted and grown so very contemptible, that though he has
provoked all his brothers of the quill round, none of them will enter
into a controversy with him."