many of his pieces are rather tales and allegories than fables. The moral is too often obscure or inapposite; and he has introduced much too large a portion of satire and political matter. Excellence in the composition of fable, indeed, has been found of rare attainment: Phædrus and La Fontaine have no rivals; and though Gay may be justly considered as the best writer of these pleasing productions in the English language, he is, without doubt, greatly inferior to the Latin bard in terseness and elegance; to the French poet in simplicity and naïveté.

The political hopes which Gay entertained from the composition of these Fables were never gratified; on the accession of George the IId. when he expected the rich reward of all his labours, he found no appointment allotted him but the post of gentleman-usher to the young princess Louisa; a place which he rejected with contempt, and with a high sense of the indignity that had been offered him.

A very short time after this event, and while still smarting from the disappointment he had undergone, he produced his celebrated Beggar's Opera. It was acted, in 1727, at Lincoln's-innfields, having been refused at Drury-lane; and the applause and popularity which it acquired were beyond precedent. It was performed sixtythree nights in succession; nor was it less a fa

vourite on the provincial theatres.

Gay and Rich the manager had great reason to be satisfied with the result; and it was humorously remarked by the public, that this opera had made Gay rich, and Rich gay.

The object of Gay, in the production of this popular trifle, was to ridicule the Italian opera, and to satirize the court; and it need scarcely be added, that, for a time, he succeeded to the extent of his wishes. The tendency of the piece, however, has been justly reprobated; and though it did not produce the mischief which Dr. Herring and other friends to virtue and religion apprehended from its frequent exhibition, it must be allowed to be not only without any moral principle, but in its characters and conduct seductive and dangerous.

Encouraged by the patronage of the public, our author composed a second part, under the title of Polly; but, owing to the political complexion of its predecessor, the Lord Chamberlain issued a prohibition against its performance; a circumstance which in the end proved highly favourable to the interests of Gay; for his friends, stimulated by the opposition, exerted themselves so effectually in obtaining a subscription for its publication, that he acquired near twelve hundred pounds by the expedient; a sum greatly superior to the profits of the Beggar's Opera. Nor

was this the only good consequence which resulted from the interference of the court party; the Duke and Duchess of Queensbury, who had a sincere regard for Gay, received him into their house; treated him with every respect and attention; and undertook the regulation of his finances, a task to which the poet had ever proved himself inadequate.

He was now no longer at the mercy of fortune; but, as life is necessarily chequered with evil, no sooner was he released from pecuniary anxiety than his health began to decline. He had for some years been subject to returns of a complaint in his stomach and bowels; these now became more frequent and violent; and he was at length seized with an inflammation of these organs, which proved more than commonly rapid in its progress, and he expired on the 4th of December, 1732, in the forty-fourth year of his age.

Few men were more beloved by those who intimately knew him than Gay; his moral character was excellent; his temper peculiarly sweet and engaging; but he possessed a simplicity of manner and character which, though it endeared him to his friends, rendered him very unfit for the general business of life. He was, in fact, as Pope has emphatically observed,

In wit, a man; simplicity, a child.

Independent of the compositions which we have enumerated, Gay was the author of the Fan, a mythological fiction; of Dione, a pastoral drama; of Achilles, an opera, not acted until after his death; and of several minor poems, among which the pathetic beauties of the two ballads, commencing All in the Downs, and 'Twas when the Seas were roaring, have, without doubt, been felt by all my readers. To these may be added some posthumous productions; a second volume of his Fables, not equal to the first; the Distrest Wife, a comedy; and a humorous effusion, entitled The Rehearsal at Gotham.

He was the author also of a paper in the Guardian, N° 149, on dress; a subject which, though not very promising, being frivolous in itself, and nearly worn out by others, he has contrived to render the vehicle both of originality and wit. For these acquisitions, he is indebted to the ingenuity of his parallel between poetry and dress; which he has supported with much fancy and spirit, accompanied by a pretty large portion of justifiable satire.

The dress of our ancestors, at the commencement of the eighteenth century, with all its follies and mutabilities, may be very accurately drawn from the various sketches interspersed among the papers of Steele and Addison; and, though we may be rather inclined to complain

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BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SKETCHES. 249 of the too frequent recurrence of the subject, there is, most undoubtedly, a pleasure to be derived from contemplating the drapery and decoration of beauty and fashion, as they existed a century ago, especially when these portraits are grouped and coloured by masters of such acknowledged skill and fidelity.

12. EDWARD YOUNG, the only son of Dr. Edward Young, Dean of Sarum and rector of Upham, near Winchester, was born at Upham in June 1681. He was placed by his father upon the foundation of Winchester College; and in his eighteenth year, the period of superannuation at this school, was removed to New College, Oxford. Here, however, he did not remain long; for on the death of the warden, which happened before the expiration of a year, he entered himself a gentleman commoner of Corpus Christi, and, in 1708, was elected to a law-fellowship at All-Souls. On the 23d of April, 1714, he became a batchelor of civil laws; and, on the 10th of June, 1719, doctor.

As the literary labours of Dr. Young are very numerous, and many of them but little read in the present day, we shall confine this short sketch to the consideration of those only which have contributed to give him a permanent station in