urt?
Why should our patriots virtue's cause support?
Why to true merit should they have regard?
They know that virtue is its own reward.
Yet let me not of grievances complain.
Who (though the meanest of the Muse's train)
Can boast subscriptions to my humble lays,
And mingle profit with my little praise.

What to do with the thousand pounds--a sum certainly far larger than any
of which he had ever been possessed--Gay had not the slightest idea. He
had just enough wisdom to consult his friends. Erasmus Lewis, a prudent
man of affairs, advised him to invest it in the Funds and live upon the
interest; Arbuthnot advised him to put his faith in Providence and live
upon the capital; Swift and Pope, who understood him best, advised him
to purchase an annuity. Bewildered by these divergent counsels, he did
none of these things. Just when he was confronted with the necessity of
making up his mind, Pope's friend, James Craggs the younger, of whom he
wrote in "Mr. Pope's Welcome from Greece":--

Bold, generous Craggs, whose heart was ne'er disguised,

made him a present of some stock of the South Sea Company, at the same
time, no doubt, telling him that in all probability it would rise in
value. Here was a chance, dear to the heart of this hunter after
sinecures, of getting something for nothing--or next to nothing. With
his thousand pounds he purchased more South Sea stock. At what price Gay
bought it is impossible to say, but it is not unlikely that Craggs'
present was made in April, 1720, when the first money-subscription was
issued at the price of L300 for each L100 stock. The poet's good fortune
was at this moment in the ascendant. A mania for speculation burst over
the town, and everybody bought and sold South Sea stock. In July it was
quoted at L1,000. If Gay had then sold out he would have realised a sum
in the neighbourhood of L20,000. His friends implored him to content
himself with this handsome profit, but in vain. As Dr. Johnson put it,
"he dreamed of dignity and splendour, and could not bear to obstruct his
own fortune."[2] He who a few months ago had been practically penniless,
could not now bring himself to be satisfied with an income of about a
thousand a year. Realising that it was impossible entirely to overcome
his obduracy, his friends then begged him at least to sell so much as
would produce even a hundred a year in the Funds, "which," Fenton said
to him, "will make you sure of a clean shir