tention was paid to English composition; even its grammatical principles were casually discovered to the student in the course of his tedious probation through the dead languages. To withhold knowledge, rather than to communicate it, should seem to have been the object of the classical instructor: nor could any plan be conceived more conformable to the Chinese principle of confining letters to a particular class, or better calculated to raise an insuperable barrier between the learned and the vulgar, than the practice which then prevailed of teaching even the elements of Latin and Greek in a language which to the learner was still unknown. This practice, of which the evils have been sufficiently expos ed, and which, happily for the present generation, is now exploded, was, however, obviously calculated to inspire reverence for learning, and to confine the respect due to literary reputation, to such as were really entitled to consideration for the solidity or the amplitude of their attainments. The acquisition of a classical language was a labour which could only be achieved by capacity and diligence, by ardour and perseverance; and, as a natural consequence, it followed, that an enterprise of such difficulty and effort was in after life estimated beyond its real value and importance. In every youth of genius, the flame of ambition was first kindled by the hope of establishing his academical precedence. Addison, Prior, and almost all their celebrated contemporaries, had produced specimens of elegant latinity before they were either esteemed or known for their English compositions. It cannot be doubted that the enthusiasm. with which the great masters of antiquity were then studied and imitated, was highly useful in supplying the mind with those genuine principles of criticism which are necessary to discipline genius, and elicit taste :-it is, however, curious to observe, how generally the admiration of ancient literature was associated with a contempt for the living languages, and with an illiberal depreciation of modern authors. So universally was this sentiment adopted by wits, poets, and philoso

phers,

phers, that it would be difficult to discover a polite writer of the age, who had not occasionally arraigned the defects, or lamented the incompetency, of his vernacular tongue. This querulous strain is easily traced to the persuasion that the English language possessed no stamina of strength or durability;-that it was without those regular rudimental principles which are necessary to secure stability and resist in-novation;-that it was an anomalous composition of various elements, subject to perpetual changes and corruptions, and in its character almost as fugitive and fluctuating as the race of men to whom it was appropriate. To the present age, these pathetic complaints appear sufficiently ludicrous. We find Pope, in immortal numbers, deploring the perishable language in which he and Dryden should, in a few revolving years, become obsolete :-the sceptical Bolingbroke assumes the spirit of prophecy to denounce oblivion to his own volumes;-and Swift, after having exercised his keenest ridicule on Utopian speculations, seriously suggests a plan worthy to have found a place in his Floating Island of Laputa, for the institution of an academy to tyrannize over the principles of speech and composition. The influence of such opinions must have contributed to create an exalted idea of scholastic attainments, and to identify the man of learning with the man of genius.

Of the many polite writers of this reign, we discover only the two poets Pope and Gay who had not participated to a certain extent in academical honours and privileges. For the former, however, his sedentary youth, his early associations with veteran writers, and the precocious excellence of his own compositions, had procured a kind of literary dispensation, which entitled him to hold the rank of an acknowledged scholar.

In after-life, this distinction was secured to him by his unrivalled eminence. He was the translator of Homer; and,

without assuming the cumbrous dignity of erudition, enjoyed all the prerogatives of criticism and taste.

To Gay no such privileges were conceded:-raised from obscurity by his genius, he became connected with the learned, and received flattering attentions from the great; but the want of an academical qualification seems to have attached to him during life, and to have constantly subjected him to the consciousness of being inferior to his more dignified confederates.

John Gay was a native of Barnstaple, in Devon, at whose grammar school he had acquired all the learning he possessed. His fortune being small, he was destined to trade, and sent to London to be apprenticed to a silk-mercer: but he found this situation so irksome, that after a probation of some years he procured his liberation by cancelling the indentures, and surrendered himself without reserve to his literary taste.

His first publication was Rural Sports,' a georgical poem, dedicated to Pope, who appears to have been the first object of his enthusiasm and emulation. The intuitive sagacity of genius, however, failed not to discover to him. that this was not the track in which he was destined to arrive at eminence:-he perceived that there was a humbler walk, in which, though he might not extort the suffrage of the learned, he should engross the affections of the people.

Gay possessed more feeling than fancy. Whatever he had seen, he could describe; but in his delineations he did not always embellish nature. His imagination was not excursive; his mind supplied no materials for exquisite imagery; but his invention was adequate to whatever was simple, familiar, or domestic. He soared not to the sublime ;-like a bee, pursuing the track of spring, he wandered over fields and gar

dens

dens of delicious verdure, extracting sweetness even from the homely blossom which scatters round the poor man's cottage the freshness and fragrance of nature. In his 'Trivia,' published after the Rural Sports, Gay discloses some of that natural humour which was his peculiar talent; but it was by the publication of his 'Shepherd's Week,' a series of burlesque pastorals, in ridicule of the Georgical poems of Ambrose Phillips, that he produced a composition of unrivalled excellence.

It is remarkable that Gay appears to have always remained in a state of tutelage to his literary associates. The same sweetness and facility of temper, which rendered him so engaging as a companion, attended him to the closet, where even his pen was tributary to friendship. He seldom attempted the execution of any plan of which the outline was not formed by another mind :--a solitary hint was sufficient to his fertile fancy: he commenced his allotted task, and soon produced what surpassed the conceptions, or even the expectations, of his master.

In this manner his Shepherd's Week was, it is well known, undertaken at the fiat of Pope. The design of the 'Beggar's Opera' originated with Swift, who had once observed to Gay, that a Newgate pastoral would be a pretty novelty. With his accustomed promptitude Gay seized the idea; expanded the Newgate pastoral to a ballad opera, and contrived to render it not only the vehicle of music, but of poignant satire, playful wit, and oblique raillery.

He had previously attempted dramatic composition; but, with the exception of his What-d'ye-call-it,' a mock-heroic play, he failed in his efforts to please the public. The success which attended his Beggar's Opera was probably owing"

as much to the whimsical novelty of the plan, as the intrinsic merit of the piece.

In no other performance was Gay equally fortunate. With the versatility natural to his sanguine character, he had made an essay in tragedy, and produced The Captives,' which was received with coldness and neglect.

Although Gay was not formed to become a good dramatic writer, he has in this tragedy exhibited talents which few of his contemporaries possessed: the fable is, perhaps, too intricate, but the characters are sufficiently natural to excite a considerable degree of interest. As a composition, it has the rare though negative merit of not being encumbered with inappropriate images, or disfigured by bombastic sentiment: yet, as the author seldom rises beyond mediocrity, and, even when he pleases most, leaves on the mind an impression that he might have pleased still more, it is little surprising that this play should be obsolete to the stage, and even in the closet almost forgotten.

During this literary progress, the fortunes of Gay had undergone many vicissitudes. In his early days of celebrity he had been patronized by the duchess of Monmouth, in whose family he lived as her secretary; and, afterwards in the same capacity, attended lord Clarendon the ambassador to Hanover. Caressed by the tories, he enjoyed during their administration some gleams of court favour; but on the accession of the House of Hanover he shared the fate of his party, and was thrown at an immeasurable distance from preferment. The produce of his pen was, however, still sufficient to have secured to him the possession of independence, had he not adventured the whole sum in the South Sea speculation, in the progress of which he was suddenly reduced from affluence to poverty.

Having