It’s easy to enjoy John Gay’s poetry for the humor, and sexual innuendo. Yet to do so is to deny him the frustrations he felt so strongly. Except for the Church being antagonized by his musings, few were offended, perhaps this added to his anguish.
In the poem which he wrote to Alexander Pope titled Rural Sports , his frustration emerges:
“You, who the Sweets of Rural Life have known,
Despise th’ ungrateful Hurry of the Town;
‘Midst Windsor Groves your easie Hours employ,
And undisturb’d, your self and Muse enjoy.
Soft flowing Thames his mazy Course retains,
And in suspence admires the charming Strains;
The River-Gods and Nymphs about thee throng,
To hear the Syrens warble in thy Song.
But I, who ne’er was bless’d from Fortune’s Hand,
Nor brignten’d Plough-shares in Paternal Land,
Have long been in the noisie Town immur’d,
Respir’d its’s Smoak, and all it’s Toils endur’d,
Have courted Bus’ness with successless Pain,
And in Attendance wasted Years in vain;
Where News and Politicks amuse Mankind,
And Schemes of State involve th’ uneasie Mind;
Faction embroils the World; and ev’ry Tongue
Is fraught with Malice, and with Scandal hung:
Friendship, for Sylvan Shades, does Courts despise,
Where all must yield to Int’rest’s dearer Ties;
Each Rival Machiael with Envy burns,
And Honest forsakes them all by turns;
Whilst Calumny upon each Party s thrown,
Which Both abhor, and Both alike disown.
Thus have I, ‘midst the Brawls of factious Strife,
Long undergone the Drudgery of Life;
On Courtiers Promises I founded Schemes,
Which still deluded me, like golden Dreams;
Expectance wore the tedious Hours away,
And glimm’ring Hope roll’d on each lazy Day.
Resolv’d at last no more Fatigues to bear,
At once I both forsook the Town and Care”...
NB He went trout fishing!
pp 255 vol. 1.
He instructs others who might pen a poem to practice as a skilled cook attempting to please each guest.
On a MISCELLANY OF POEMS to BERNARD LINTOTT
...“The lyric bard must strike th’ harmonious lyre;
Heroic strains must here and there be found,
And nervous sense be sung in lofty sound;
Let elegy in moving numbers flow,
And fill some pages with melodious woe;
Le not your am’rous songs too num’rous prove,
Nor glut thy reader with abundant love;
Satire must interfere, whose pointed rage
May lash the madness of a vicious age;
Satire, the muse that never fails to hit,
For if there’s scandal, to be sure there’s wit.
Tire not our patience with Pindaric lays,
Those swell the piece, but very rarely please:
Let short-breathed epigram its force confine,
And strike at follies in a single line:
Translations should throughout the work be sown,
And Homer’s godlike muse be made your own;
....
Horace in useful numbers should be sung,
And Virgil’s thoughts adorn the British tongue;
Let Ovid tell Corinna’s hard disdain,
And at her door in melting notes complain:
His tender accents pitying virgins move,
and charm the list’ing ear with tales of love.
...
Let ev’ry classic in the volume shine,
And each contribute to thy great design:
Through various subjects let the reader range,
And raise his fancy with a grateful change;
Variety’s the source of joy below,
From whence still fresh revolving pleasures flow.”
...
pp175, book 1
To which I add:
Jay’s Laments amply padded,
Sprinkled with abandon
Through poetry pagan
Reveal for all to see
The soul in misery of he.
Outshining accomplishments
Are his Life’s disappointments.
Corpulent he became as he sought food
To satiate the inner lust for bad, not good.
Tweaking those held up to public notice
As the Priest starred down the matron’s bodice.
Calling attention to the pleasures of the skin
Ignoring the evil that lurked within.
Writing song-poems to be preformed
About the lady or husband scorned.
Morals within his fables are easily seen
For those that have a mind so clean.
For others let them be
To see what it is they want to see.
Or, the ladies petition in which he reveals the frustration of being passed over by others possessing less talent.
“THE LADIES’ PETITION
to the
Honorable the House of Commons
Sirs, we the maids of Exon city,
The Maids! good lack, the more’s the pity!
Do humbly offer this petition,
To represent our sad condition;
Which once made known our hope and trust is,
Your honoured House will do us justice.
But lest our tender sense of wrong,
And volubility of tongue
Should make us trespass on your leisure,
And speechify it out of measure,
To save our breath and eke your time
We clog our fluent speech with rhyme.
First you shall hear – but can’t you guess
The reason of our sad distress? –
(Plague on the widows that compel us
Thus to petition ‘bout young fellows!)
But we were saying – you must know,
Tho’ blushing we declare our woe,
A maiden was design’d by nature
A weakly and imperfect creature,
So liable to err or stray,
Her wants require a guide, a stay;
And then so timorous to sprites,
She dreads to be alone at nights!
Say what she will, do what she can,
Her heart still gravitates to man;
From whence ‘tis a woman’s right;
And therefore ‘tis prodigious hard
To be of such a right debarr’d:
Yet we, poor souls, can’t have the freedom
To get good husbands, tho’ we need ‘em!
The Widows, Sirs! – Their art denotes
Them Machiavels in petticoats.
These plagues, with heads on mischief running,
Exceed by far the fox in cunning!
The cut us out, are still before us,
And leave no lovers to adore us!
‘Adore us!’ nay, ‘tis ten times worse,
Deuce take ‘em! (But we should not curse)
For tho’ our number is not small,
There’s hardly one amongst us all,
Scarce one – ‘tis true as G’s in Glo’ser,
Can get a Stephon to accost her!
No single creature e’er is seen
With bearded chin and manly mien,
But what they have him in a minute!
Well! Sure there is some witchcraft in it,
And all the elves are magic pimps.
To adid and succour widow imps!
For when by force of all our wits,
Kind looks, kind words, and fainting fits
We’ve brought our beaus just to the lure,
And think the captives are secure –
When the ring glitters in our eye,
The lawyer call’d, the parson nigh,
Up starts a widow in the way,
And disappoints us of the prey;
By some curst hocus-pocus trick
The lover leaves us in the nick,
And our confusion to confound
He’s led directly to Lob’s pound.
Besides, what makes it more provoking,
The dames oft wound us by their joking,
Tho’ they’ve a thousand times been told
they need not be so pert and bold;
For could we have the chance to try,
We would be wives, or else know why!
And having welcomed wedlock’s boon,
We might be widows too, and soon!
Thank heaven, we want nor will nor breath
To plague or talk a man to death!
But then the spiteful troop upbraids,
Calling us, sneeringly, old maids!
(The major part of us they mean)
You well may think it moves our spleen,
When we must suffer such disgraces,
Or, when is worse, display our faces:
The fair and timid sex esteem’d,
We should about fifteen be deem’d;
Timid and fair are signs of youth;
The widows can’t deny this truth.
If still they urge we are not young,
However glib or loud the tongue,
Till we afford ‘em more conviction,
E’en for them talk sans contradiction!
‘Old maids indeed!’ for goodness’ sake
Could they no likelier scandal make?
When time’s so much at our devotion,
They could not think to spread the notion
In spite of registers and nurses
(Whose blunders well deserve our curses)
Obsequious to a maiden’s will,
Old Time turns backward or stands still.
However strage the thing appears,
Some have been twenty, twenty years!
And some that reckon just a score,
Were thirty, ten years since, or more!
Need any person now be told
That single ladies can’t grow old?
We should despise such taunting carriage,
Did we not quite despair of marriage;
Nor about husbands make this fuss,
Were there enough for them and us.
But ‘tis the truth we represent t’ye
Men are so scarce and maids so plenty,
That were each man a maid to wed,
Not one in fifty wold be led
To Hymen’s shrine, or during life,
Become that envied thing – a wife.
While thus the widows interlope,
How can we maidens live in hope?
Your honoured House will then debate
On our most lamentable state.
And after hearing this as fact
Will guard our rights to legal act;
For if the widows be allowed
To taunt us thus, and be so proud,
We maidens must embrace the pillow,
Or cut a caper from a willow!
But lest your honours should surmise
That we, more resolute than wise,
Make ‘gainst the widows an invective,
When ‘tis ourselves are most defective,
We state (and thus for favour sue)
That all that can be done, we do;
We plot, devise, thy every plan,
To win the fickle creature man;
Contriving, or pursuing schemes,
Not more when waking than in dreams;
At every moment, every place,
Our lures we’re throwing with a grace,
In curtseying, smiling, nodding, talking,
In laughing, singing, dancing, walking,
In romping, frowning, ogling, dressing,
And fifty things that want expressing;
At home, abroad, by night, by day,
We various stratagems display.
But sure the most becoming airs
Are those we practice as our prayers!
And therefore nothing can be fitter
Than frequent visits to St. Peter!
Which every maid more daily prays
Than Canons on reflection days.
Ah! Sirs, ‘twould do you good to know
The nice demeanour there we show;
And sure such visits are enchanting –
good company is never wanting!
The forms too, and the ordinances,
So suited to young ladies fancies;
For meekness graced by pure contrition,
To female beauty gives addition.
While turning round to crave a blessing,
The figure’s seen and taste in dressing!
There one may sit, the eye not idle,
Tho’ our discretion hold the bridle,
And archly view, behind a fan,
Which is the smartest gentleman;
And while we are his worth attesting,
He soon becomes more interesting,
Claims more respect, more notice shares,
And renders more devout our prayers!
If ever, as ‘twill sometimes happen,
One cannot get one’s hood or cap on,
So early as to be at church,
We never leave it in the lurch,
But with all possible regard
Wait in the consecrated yard;
Hinder’d by no profane pretences,
There we discharge our consci-ences!
Away we sail – if rough the weather,
It more directly drives us thither.
What tho’ the wind disturbs our clothes,
Why should the widows harm suppose?
Surely there can be nothing shocking
In a neat ankle and silk stocking!
If coxcombs pry and make a fuss,
The blame must lie with them, not us.
So far we trust we do our duty,
In setting off our wit and beauty.
But more if Nature on her part,
Leaves us the smallest room for art.
We say, and o our praise ‘tis known,
We show more graces than our own;
With stiffened stays or iron bodices,
We are as finely shaped as goddesses,
If native colours are too faint,
It surely can’t be wrong to paint
If too reveal’d the lily shows,
What harm to imitate the rose?
A patch that hides a freckled place
May add a beauty to the face;
Then as to faults – admit we’ve one,
Its name we change – the fault is gone:
For instance, if Miss looks awry,
Ha! Miss has got an ogling eye!
Or if a lengthen’d heel she want,
Her step’s genteel, ‘tis elegant!
Yet, sirs, in spite of all our cares,
Our melting eyes and plaintive airs.
We must allow, when press’d thus far,
Just where we were at first we are;
All means have fail’d – all tricks miscarried,
And we, alas! are still unmarried!
Since then, ‘tis not our fault but fortune,
We take the freedom to importune
Your House will let it be enacted,
That not one widow be contracted,
Or, that it henceforth may be reckon’d
‘She kill’d the first who weds a second,’
Till ever maid is in the way
Of wedlock’s treat as well as they.
And yet in case (but heaven avert it!)
A luckless fair should be deserted,
She from that very hour may claim
A widow’s privilege and name.
But since we plainly can foresee
The task will not more easy be
To keep the widow’d host from marrying,
Than ‘tis to keep the crows from carrion,
We think ‘twill be extremely proper,
With all despatch to send a troop here
Of bold gallants to prop our cause,
Our rights maintain and aid the laws!
But if you find it hard to muster
Of such like beaus sufficient cluster,
Rather than leave a single creature
Of our complacent modest nature,
To bear the taunts of widow elvers
Take us, we pray you, to yourselves;
For we imagine and don’t flatter,
You will not start at such a matter;
For if ‘tis rightly understood,
Our private weal is public good,
And public good, the wise ones say,
All real patriots should sway.
Then if you are not dead to beauty,
And know your parliamentary duty ,
the question put – divide – and so,
When you say Ay we’ll not say No!
Come make election, pick and choose,
welcome to take but not refuse;
Here all your fancies may be suited,
With real maids and maids reputed.
From these proposals we expect
The best your judgment can effect;
Aid then our wishes – grant the boon,
And we beseech you, grant it soon.
Old proverbs state, strike while you may,
All men lose something by delay,
And maids in sunshine should make hay:
Grant then this suit, Exonian spinsters say
And your petitioners will ever pray.”
pp 213, book 2, poems from Gay’s chair.
Another poem from “Gay’s Chair”, is one of a number of fables, all of which make good reading. In this, titled simply “Fable”, he reveals his disdain for those who would never understand him or his skill and see him as only a “silly goose”, not the swan that he was.
FABLE
“A MILK-WHITE swan in Aesop’s time,
Had got the knack of making rhyme;
All other birds he did excel;
Wrote verses, – yes, – wrote them well;
Praised was his genius and his parts--
All wonder’d how he reach’d the arts:
Except some geese in neighbouring brook;
Yet even they admired his look,
And grudged each feather in his wing;
But, envious, hiss’d whene’er he’d sing!
His sonnets they denounced as satire ,
His lyric pleasantries, ill-nature .
One day these geese most pertly squall’d,
‘Cygnet!’ – for so the swan was call’d –
‘Cygnet, – why will you thus abuse
Our patience with ;your dogg’rel muse?
Not only you offend our ears,
But you assail our characters!
Blush, and no longer do amiss’
The critics ended with a hiss.
Erect the cygnet raised his crest,
And thus the silly geese address’d:
‘ I know not any of your tribe –
Why, then, d’ye feel my jest or gibe?
Fools ever – (‘tis a certain rule)
Think they’re the butts of ridicule;
As if they so important were,
No other theme the muse could cheer.
Begone! you but yourselves expose,
When thus your folly you disclose:
Know this, and then your gabbling cease –
Swans like my verse; but YOU are – Geese!”
pp224, vol. 2
Regardless of how you judge John Gay and his poetry, there is much to enjoy.
The Poetical Works of John Gay, Edited with a life and notes by John Underhill, Vol.1 and 2. Lawrence and Bullen London, 1893.
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