ter of her
matrimonial troubles. He was the _protege_ of the Duke and Duchess of
Queensberry. His "Fables" and "The Beggar's Opera" have become
classics; his play "Polly" made history. Though he persistently
regarded himself as neglected by the gods, it is nevertheless a fact
that the fates were unusually kind to him. A Cabinet Minister made him
a present of South Sea stock; Walpole appointed him a Commissioner of
Lotteries; he was granted an apartment in Whitehall; Queen Caroline
offered him a sinecure post in her Household. Because he thought Gay
ill-used, the greatest man of letters of the century quarrelled with
Lady Suffolk; for the same reason a Duchess insulted the King and
wiped the dust of the Court from her shoes, and a Duke threw up his
employment under the Crown. All his friends placed their purses and
their houses at Gay's disposal, and competed for the pleasure of his
company. Never was there a man of letters so petted and pampered.

It is somewhat strange that there should be no biography of a man so
well-known and so much beloved. It is true that no sooner was the
breath out of his body than Curll published a "Life." "Curll (who is
one of the new horrors of death) has been writing letters to everybody
for memoirs of his (Gay's) life," Arbuthnot wrote to Swift, January
13th, 1733: "I was for sending him some, which I am sure might have
been made entertaining, by which I should have attained two ends at
once, published truth and got a rascal whipped for it. I was
over-ruled in this."[1] Curll obtained no assistance from Gay's
friends, and his book, issued in 1733, is at once inadequate and
unreliable. Of Curll, at whose hands so many of Gay's friends had
suffered, the poet had written in the "Epistle to the Right Honourable
Paul Methuen, Esquire":--

Were Prior, Congreve, Swift, and Pope unknown,
Poor slander-selling Curll would be undone.

Of some slight biographical value is the "Account of the Life and
Writings of the Author," prefixed to the volume of "Plays Written by Mr.
Gay," published 1760; but there is little fresh information in the
"Brief Memoir" by the Rev. William (afterwards Archdeacon) Coxe, which
appeared in 1797. More valuable is the biographical sketch by Gay's
nephew, the Rev. Joseph Baller, prefixed to "Gay's Chair" (1820); but
the standard authorities on Gay's life are Mr. Austin Dobson
("Dictionary of National Biography," Vol. XXI., 1890) and Mr. John
Underwood ("Introductory