es money, the other time."
It added to his chagrin, that having, in conjunction with Pope and
Arbuthnot, produced, in 1717, a comedy, entitled "Three Months after
Marriage," to satirise Dr Woodward, then famous as a fossilist; the
piece, being personal and indecent, was not only hissed but hooted off
the stage. The chief offence was taken at the introduction of a mummy and
a crocodile on the stage. To divert his grief, he, at the suggestion of
Lord Burlington, who paid his expenses, rambled into Devonshire, went
next with Pultney to Aix, in France, and when afterwards on a visit to
Lord Harcourt's seat, witnessed the incident of the two country lovers
killed by lightning in each other's arms, to which Pope alludes in one of
his letters, and Goldsmith in his "Vicar of Wakefield."

In 1720 he published his "Poems" by subscription. The general kindness
felt for Gay, notwithstanding his faults and feebleness, now found a
vent. The Prince and Princess of Wales not only subscribed, but gave
him a liberal present, and some of the nobility, who regarded him as an
agreeable plaything and lapdog of genius, took a number of copies. The
result was that he gained a thousand pounds. He asked the advice of his
friends how to dispose of this sum, and, as usual, took his own. Lewis,
steward to Lord Oxford, advised him to entrust it to the funds, and live
on the interest; Arbuthnot, to live upon the principal; Pope and Swift,
to buy an annuity. Gay preferred to sink it in the South-Sea Bubble, then
in all its glory. At first he imagined himself master of L20,000, and
when advised to sell out and purchase as much as his wise friend Elijah
Fenton said would "procure him a clean shirt and a shoulder of mutton
every day," rejected the counsel, and in fine lost every farthing, and
nearly lost next, through vexation, either his life or his reason.

Pope, who occasionally laughed at him, was now very kind, and partly
through his assiduous attention, Gay recovered his health, spirits, and
the use of his pen. He wrote a tragedy called the "Captives," and was
invited to read it before the Princess of Wales. The sight of her and
her assembled ladies frightened him, and in advancing he stumbled over a
stool and overthrew a heavy japan screen. How he fared afterwards in the
reading we are not informed; but as we are told that the Princess started
and her ladies screamed, we fear it had been poorly. On this story
Hawkesworth has founded an amusing sto