there would appear to have been a measure of reason in giving him a sinecure in the service of another. His friends thought him unjustly neglected by the court, but he had already received (1722) a sinecure as lottery commissioner with a salary of £150 a year, and from 1722 to 1729 he had lodgings in the palace at Whitehall. He had never rendered any special services to the court.
He certainly did nothing to conciliate the favour of the government by his next production, the Beggars’ Opera, a lyrical drama produced on the 29th of January 1728 by Rich, in which Sir Robert Walpole was caricatured. This famous piece, which was said to have made “Rich gay and Gay rich,” was an innovation in many respects, and for a time it drove Italian opera off the English stage. Under cover of the thieves and highwaymen who figured in it was disguised a satire on society, for Gay made it plain that in describing the moral code of his characters he had in mind the corruptions of the governing class. Part of the success of the Beggars’ Opera may have been due to the acting of Lavinia Fenton, afterwards duchess of Bolton, in the part of Polly Peachum. The play ran for sixty-two nights, though the representations, four of which were “benefits” of the author, were not, as has sometimes been stated, consecutive. Swift is said to have suggested the subject, and Pope and Arbuthnot were constantly consulted while the work was in progress, but Gay must be regarded as the sole author. He wrote a sequel, Polly, the representation of which was forbidden by the lord chamberlain, no doubt through the influence of Walpole. This act of “oppression” caused no loss to Gay. It proved an excellent advertisement for Polly, which was published by subscription in 1729, and brought its author more than £1000. The duchess of Queensberry was dismissed from court for enlisting subscribers in the palace. The duke of Queensberry gave him a home, and the duchess continued her affectionate patronage until Gay’s death, which took place on the 4th of December 1732. He was buried in Westminster Abbey. The epitaph on his tomb is by Pope, and is followed by Gay’s own mocking couplet:—
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“Life is a jest, and all things show it, |
Acis and Galatea, an English pastoral opera, the music of which was written by Handel, was produced at the Haymarket in 1732. The profits of his posthumous opera of Achilles (1733), and a new volume of Fables (1738) went to his two sisters, who inherited from him a fortune of £6000. He left two other pieces, The Distressed Wife (1743), a comedy, and The Rehearsal at Goatham (1754), a farce. The Fables, slight as they may appear, cost him more labour than any of his other works. The narratives are in nearly every case original, and are told in clear and lively verse. The moral which rounds off each little story is never strained. They are masterpieces in their kind, and the very numerous editions of them prove their popularity. They have been translated into Latin, French and Italian, Urdu and Bengali.
See his Poetical Works (1893) in the Muses’ Library, with an introduction by Mr John Underhill; also Samuel Johnson’s Lives of the Poets, John Gay’s Singspiele (1898), edited by G. Sarrazin (Englische Textbibliothek II.); and an article by Austin Dobson in vol. 21 of the Dictionary of National Biography; Gay’s Chair (1820), edited by Henry Lee, a fellow-townsman, contained a biographical sketch by his nephew, the Rev. Joseph Baller.
GAY, MARIE FRANÇOISE SOPHIE (1776–1852), French
author, was born in Paris on the 1st of July 1776. Madame
Gay was the daughter of M. Nichault de la Valette and of
Francesca Peretti, an Italian lady. In 1793 she was married
to M. Liottier, an exchange broker, but she was divorced from
him in 1799, and shortly afterwards was married to M. Gay,
receiver-general of the department of the Roër or Ruhr. This
union brought her into intimate relations with many distinguished
personages; and her salon came to be frequented by all the
distinguished littérateurs, musicians, actors and painters of the
time, whom she attracted by her beauty, her vivacity and her
many amiable qualities. Her first literary production was a
letter written in 1802 to the Journal de Paris, in defence of
Madame de Staël’s novel, Delphine; and in the same year she
published anonymously her first novel Laure d’Estell. Léonie de Montbreuse, which appeared in 1813, is considered by Sainte-Beuve her best work; but Anatole (1815), the romance of a deaf-mute, has perhaps a higher reputation. Among her other works, Salons célèbres (2 vols., 1837) may be especially mentioned. Madame Gay wrote several comedies and opera libretti which met with considerable success. She was also an accomplished musician, and composed both the words and music of a number of songs. She died in Paris on the 5th of March 1852. For an account of her daughter, Delphine Gay, Madame de Girardin, see Girardin.
See her own Souvenirs d’une vieille femme (1834); also Théophile Gautier, Portraits contemporains; and Sainte-Beuve, Causeries du lundi, vol. vi.
GAY, WALTER (1856–), American artist, was born at Hingham, Massachusetts, on the 22nd of January 1856. In 1876 he became a pupil of Léon Bonnat in Paris. He received an honourable mention in the Salon of 1885; a gold medal in 1888, and similar awards at Vienna (1894), Antwerp (1895), Berlin (1896) and Munich (1897). He became an officer of the Legion of Honour and a member of the Society of Secession, Munich. Works by him are in the Luxembourg, the Tate Gallery (London), and the Boston and Metropolitan (New York) Museums of Art. His compositions are mainly figure subjects portraying French peasant life.
GAYA, a city and district of British India, in the Patna division of Bengal. The city is situated 85 m. S. of Patna by rail. Pop. (1901) 71,288. It consists of two distinct parts, adjoining each other; the part containing the residences of the priests is Gaya proper; and the other, which is the business quarter, is called Sahibganj. The civil offices and residences of the European inhabitants are situated here. Gaya derives its sanctity from incidents in the life of Buddha. But a local legend also exists concerning a pagan monster of great sanctity, named Gaya, who by long penance had become holy, so that all who saw or touched him were saved from perdition. Yama, the lord of hell, appealed to the gods, who induced Gaya to lie down in order that his body might be a place of sacrifice; and once down, Yama placed a large stone on him to keep him there. The tricked demon struggled violently, and, in order to pacify him, Vishnu promised that the gods should take up their permanent residence in him, and that any one who made a pilgrimage to the spot where he lay should be delivered from the terrors of the Hindu place of torment. This may possibly be a Brahmanic rendering of Buddha’s life and work. There are forty-five sacred spots (of which the temple of Vishnupada is the chief) in and around the city, and these are visited by thousands of pilgrims annually. During the Mutiny the large store of treasure here was conveyed safely to Calcutta by Mr A. Money. The city contains a government high school and an hospital, with a Lady Elgin branch for women.
The District of Gaya comprises an area of 4712 sq. m. Generally speaking, it consists of a level plain, with a ridge of prettily wooded hills along the southern boundary, whence the country falls with a gentle slope towards the Ganges. Rocky hills occasionally occur, either detached or in groups, the loftiest being Maher hill about 12 m. S.E. of Gaya city, with an elevation of 1620 ft. above sea-level. The eastern part of the district is highly cultivated; the portions to the north and west are less fertile; while in the south the country is thinly peopled and consists of hills, the jungles on which are full of wild animals. The principal river is the Son, which marks the boundary between Gaya and Shahabad, navigable by small boats throughout the year, and by craft of 20-tons burden in the rainy season. Other rivers are the Punpun, Phalgu and Jamuna. Two branches of the Son canal system, the eastern main canal and the Patna canal, intersect the district. In 1901 the population was 2,059,933, showing a decrease of 3% in the decade. Among the higher castes there is an unusually large proportion of Brahmans, a circumstance due to the number of sacred places which the district contains. The Gayawals, or priests in charge of the holy
