Book 4 — Notes on The Epitaph on Gay
Reading edition
John Gay, the idlest, best-natured, and best-loved man of letters of his day, was the special friend of Pope. His early work,
The Shepherd's Week
, was planned as a parody on the
Pastorals
of Pope's rival, Ambrose Philips, and Pope assisted him in the composition of his luckless farce,
Three Hours after Marriage
. When Gay's opera
Polly
was forbidden by the licenser, and Gay's patrons, the Duke and Duchess of Queensberry, were driven from court for soliciting subscriptions for him, Pope warmly espoused his cause. Gay died in 1732 and was buried in Westminster Abbey. Pope's epitaph for his tomb was first published in the quarto edition of Pope's works in 1735 — Johnson, in his discussion of Pope's epitaphs (
Lives of the Poets
), devotes a couple of pages of somewhat captious criticism to these lines; but they have at least the virtue of simplicity and sincerity, and are at once an admirable portrait of the man and a lasting tribute to the poet Gay.
Contents / Contents, p. 2