REMARKS. The celebrated author of this celebrated opera was born to experience variety of fortune; such as plunged him into the bitterest despondency, and such as elevated him to the height of joy. John Gay was born near Barnstaple, in Devonshire, 1688, and received his education at the grammar school there. He was of an ancient family, and yet was bred a mercer: but having a small independent fortune, and a mind superior to the state in which his relations had placed him, he purchased his freedom from the indentures, which bound him to a shopkeeper, in the Strand, and quitted the counter, where he had attended for several years. His first production, a poem, called "Rural Sports," printed in 1711, and dedicated to Pope, gained him the acquaintance and friendship of that poet, and introduced him to many other distinguished persons. The year following, he was made secretary to the Duchess of Monmouth; and soon after accompanied Lord Clarendon, in the same capacity, to Hanover. Gay seems to have fixed his inclination upon a certain possession, which poets, of all other classes of men, appear most to have despised-money. With the various earnings of his pen, both as se cretary and author, poor Gay, in search of riches, placed all he had accumulated in the bank of the famous South Sea company.-His warmest wishes were soon accomplished, and his little fortune became treble. He was advised to sell out, and purchase an annuity with his increased store-he waited to have it still augment, and lost every guinea he was worth in the world. * The poet had neither wife nor child to share in this severe misfortune, and yet it seemed to have struck to his heart. He was, for a time, inconsolable, almost driven. to despair. But the treasure he still possessed in affectionate and enlightened friends, who sought every method to dissipate his care, at length prevailed; and he began, once more, to write for money, and to save it. He now produced his tragedy of "The Captives" -had the honour of reading it to the Princess of Wales, afterwards Queen Caroline; and the greater honour of receiving her royal command to write a book of Fables, which was dedicated, by permission, to the young Duke of Cumberland, and most graciously accepted. Gay's hopes were again elated; he looked forward to advancement from so powerful and liberal a patronage; but in 1727, when this princess ascended the throne, another South Sea bubble broke, and he was offered a place at court, which he conceived it an indignity to suppose he would accept. |