seemed to disown it. Not content with
this, he is supposed to have incited Gay to write "The Shepherd's Week,"
to show that, if it be necessary to copy nature with minuteness, rural
life must be exhibited such as grossness and ignorance have made it.
So far the plan was reasonable; but the pastorals are introduced by a
Proeme, written with such imitation as they could attain of obsolete
language, and, by consequence, in a style that was never spoken nor
written in any language or in any place. But the effect of reality
and truth became conspicuous, even when the intention was to show them
grovelling and degraded. These pastorals became popular, and were read
with delight as just representations of rural manners and occupations by
those who had no interest in the rivalry of the poets, nor knowledge of
the critical dispute.

In 1713 he brought a comedy called The Wife of Bath upon the stage, but
it received no applause; he printed it, however, and seventeen years
after, having altered it and, as he thought, adapted it more to the
public taste, he offered it again to the town; but, though he was
flushed with the success of the Beggar's Opera, had the mortification to
see it again rejected.

In the last year of Queen Anne's life Gay was made secretary to the Earl
of Clarendon, Ambassador to the Court of Hanover. This was a station
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 considered as the crime
that obstructed all kindness from the House 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 so much favour that both the Prince and the
Princess went to see his What D'ye Call It, a kind of mock tragedy,
in which the images were comic and the action grave; so that, as Pope
relates, Mr. Cromwell, who could not hear what was said, was at a loss
how to reconcile the laughter of the audience with the solemnity 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 so much
favoured by the audience that envy appeared against it in the form of
criticism; and Griffin, a player, in conjunction with Mr. Theobald, a
man afterwards more remarkable, produced a pamphlet call