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the Shepherd's Week, to fhew, that if it be neceffary to copy nature with minutenefs, rural life must be exhibited fuch as groffness and ignorance have made it. So far the plan was reasonable; but the Paftorals are introduced by a Proeme, written with such imitation as they could attain of obfolete language,, and by confequence in a ftile that was never spoken nor written in any age or in any place.

But the effect of reality and truth became confpicuous, even when the in-tention was to fhew them groveling and. degraded. These Pastorals became popular, and were read with delight as just representations of rural manners and oc-cupations by thofe who had no interest.

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in the rivalry of the poets, nor knowledge of the critical difpute.

In 1713 he brought a comedy called The Wife of Bath upon the stage, but it received no applaufe; he printed it, however; and feventeen years after, having altered it, and, as he thought, adapted it more to the publick taste, he offered it again to the town; but though he was flufhed with the fuccefs of the Beggar's Opera, had the mortification to fee it again rejected.

In the laft year of queen Anne's life, Gay was made fecretary to the earl of Clarendon, ambaffador to the court of Hanover. This was a ftation that naturally gave him hopes of kindness from every party; but the Queen's death put

an end to her favours, and he had dedicated his Shepherd's Week to Bolingbroke, which Swift confidered as the crime that obftructed all kindness from the houfe of Hanover.

He did not, however, omit to improve the right which his office had given him to the notice of the royal family. On the arrival of the princess of Wales he wrote a poem, and obtained fo much favour that both the Prince and Princefs went to fee his What d'ye call it, a kind of mock-tragedy, in which the images were comick, and the action grave; fo that, as Pope relates, Mr. Cromwel, who could not hear what was faid, was at a lofs how to reconcile the

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laughter of the audience with the folem

nity of the scene.

Of this performance the value certainly is but little; but it was one of the lucky trifles that give pleasure by novelty, and was fo much favoured by the audience that envy appeared against it in the form of criticism; and Griffen a player, in conjunction with Mr. Theobald, a man afterwards more remarkable, produced a pamphlet called the Key to the What d'ye call it; which, fays Gay, calls me a blockhead, and Mr. Pope a knave.

But Fortune has always been inconftant. Not long afterwards (1717) he endeavoured to entertain the town with Three Hours after Marriage; a comedy written,

as

as there is fufficient reafon for believing, by the joint affistance of Pope and Arbuthnot. One purpose of it was to bring into contempt Dr. Woodward the Foffilift, a man not really or juftly contemptible. It had the fate which fuch outrages deserve: the fcene in which Woodward was directly and apparently ridiculed, by the introduction of a mummy and a crocodile, difgufted the audience, and the performance was driven. off the stage with general condemna

tion.

Gay is reprefented as a man eafily incited to hope, and deeply depreffed when his hopes were disappointed. This is not the character of a hero; but it may naturally supply something more generally

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