d to Gay by Swift, survived him
for some years. _The Fables_ were written for and dedicated to the
youthful Duke of Cumberland, who is asked to "accept the moral lay, and
in these tales mankind survey." There is skill and ingenuity in the
poems, but higher merit they cannot boast, and young readers are likely
to prefer the illustrations which generally accompany _The Fables_ to
the letterpress. Many of Gay's allusions are beyond the apprehension of
the young, and have a political flavour. _The Beggar's Opera_ was
intended as a burlesque of the Italian opera, which had been long the
laughing-stock of men of letters, and as the play was thought to have
political significance, and the character of Macheath to be a portrait
of Walpole, it was received with enthusiasm, and acted in London for
about sixty nights. So popular did the opera become, that ladies carried
about the songs on their fans.

Eight years before, Gay had published his poems by subscription, and in
those happy days for versemen had gained L1,000 by the venture. He put
the money into South Sea stock, and lost it all. For _The Beggar's
Opera_ he received about L800. It was followed by _Polly_, a play of the
same coarse character, which, for political reasons, was not allowed to
be acted. The result was that it had a large sale, and put money in
Gay's purse. Ten thousand five hundred copies are said to have been
printed in one year, and the L1,200 realized by the sale were very
wisely retained for the poet's use by the Duke of Queensberry, under
whose roof he had at length found a warm nest. To the student Gay is
chiefly interesting as the only noteworthy poet of the period, south of
the Tweed, gifted with a lyrical capacity. Two or three of his songs and
ballads, and especially _Black-Eyed Susan_, have a charm beyond the
reach of the mechanical versifier. But the art of song is at a low level
even in the hands of Gay. The lyric which the Elizabethan and Jacobean
poets loved so well, and of which the present century has produced
specimens to be matched only by Shakespeare, may be said to have been
lost to English poetry for the first half of the last century, since
neither Prior's verse, delightful though it be, nor the songs of Gay,
have enough of the poetical element to form exceptions to this
statement.

In his _Tales_ he follows Prior in grossness, while inferior to him in
art. Like the greater number of the Queen Anne poets, Gay flatters with
a free han