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 collection have been preserved to us alike in the first continuation of Chrétien de Troyes Perceval, due to Wauchier de Denain, and in our vernacular Gawain poems. Among these “Bleheris” poems was one dealing with Gawain’s adventures at the Grail castle, where the Grail is represented as non-Christian, and presents features strongly reminiscent of the ancient Nature mysteries. There is good ground for believing that as Grail quester and winner, Gawain preceded alike Perceval and Galahad, and that the solution of the mysterious Grail problem is to be sought rather in the tales connected with the older hero than in those devoted to the glorification of the younger knights. The explanation of the very perplexing changes which the character of Gawain has undergone appears to lie in a misunderstanding of the original sources of that character. Whether or no Gawain was a sun-hero, and he certainly possessed some of the features—we are constantly told how his strength waxed with the waxing of the sun till noontide, and then gradually decreased; he owned a steed known by a definite name le Gringalet; and a light-giving sword, Escalibur (which, as a rule, is represented as belonging to Gawain, not to Arthur)—all traits of a sun-hero—he certainly has much in common with the primitive Irish hero Cuchullin. The famous head-cutting challenge, so admirably told in Syr Gawayne and the Grene Knighte, was originally connected with the Irish champion. Nor was the lady of Gawain’s love a mortal maiden, but the queen of the other-world. In Irish tradition the other-world is often represented as an island, inhabited by women only; and it is this “Isle of Maidens” that Gawain visits in Diu Crone; returning therefrom dowered with the gift of eternal youth. The Chastel Merveilleus adventure, related at length by Chrétien and Wolfram is undoubtedly such an “other-world” story. It seems probable that it was this connexion which won for Gawain the title of the “Maidens’ Knight,” a title for which no satisfactory explanation is ever given. When the source of the name was forgotten its meaning was not unnaturally misinterpreted, and gained for Gawain the reputation of a facile morality, which was exaggerated by the pious compilers of the later Grail romances into persistent and aggravated wrong-doing; at the same time it is to be noted that Gawain is never like Tristan and Lancelot, the hero of an illicit connexion maintained under circumstances of falsehood and treachery. Gawain, however, belonged to the pre-Christian stage of Grail tradition, and it is not surprising that writers, bent on spiritual edification, found him somewhat of a stumbling-block. Chaucer, when he spoke of Gawain coming “again out of faërie,” spoke better than he knew; the home of that very gallant and courteous knight is indeed Fairy-land, and the true Gawain-tradition is informed with fairy glamour and grace.

 GAWLER, a town of Gawler county, South Australia, on the Para river, 24 m. by rail N.E. of Adelaide. It is one of the most thriving places in the colony, being the centre of a large wheat-growing district; it has also engineering works, foundries, flour-mills, breweries and saw-mills, while gold, silver, copper and lead are found in the neighbouring hills. The inhabitants of the town and its extensive suburbs number about 7000; though the population of the town itself in 1901 was 1996.

 GAY, JOHN (1685–1732), English poet, was baptized on the 16th of September 1685 at Barnstaple, where his family had long been settled. He was educated at the grammar school of the town under Robert Luck, who had published some Latin and English poems. On leaving school he was apprenticed to a silk mercer in London, but being weary, according to Dr Johnson, “of either the restraint or the servility of his occupation,” he soon returned to Barnstaple, where he spent some time with his uncle, the Rev. John Hanmer, the Nonconformist minister of the town. He then returned to London, and though no details are available for his biography until the publication of Wine in 1708, the account he gives in Rural Sports (1713), of years wasted in attending on courtiers who were profuse in promises never kept, may account for his occupations. Among his early literary friends were Aaron Hill and Eustace Budgell. In The Present State of Wit (1711) Gay attempted to give an account of “all our periodical papers, whether monthly, weekly or diurnal.” He especially praised the Tatler and the Spectator, and Swift, who knew nothing of the authorship of the pamphlet, suspected it to be inspired by Steele and Addison. To Lintot’s Miscellany (1712) Gay contributed “An Epistle to Bernard Lintot,” containing some lines in praise of Pope, and a version of the story of Arachne from the sixth book of the Metamorphoses of Ovid. In the same year he was received into the household of the duchess of Monmouth as secretary, a connexion which was, however, broken before June 1714.

The dedication of his Rural Sports (1713) to Pope was the beginning of a lasting friendship. Gay could have no pretensions to rivalry with Pope, who seems never to have tired of helping his friend. In 1713 he produced a comedy, The Wife of Bath, which was acted only three nights, and The Fan, one of his least successful poems; and in 1714 The Shepherd’s Week, a series of six pastorals drawn from English rustic life. Pope had urged him to undertake this last task in order to ridicule the Arcadian pastorals of Ambrose Philips, who had been praised by the Guardian, to the neglect of Pope’s claims as the first pastoral writer of the age and the true English Theocritus. Gay’s pastorals completely achieved this object, but his ludicrous pictures of the English swains and their loves were found to be abundantly entertaining on their own account. Gay had just been appointed secretary to the British ambassador to the court of Hanover through the influence of Jonathan Swift, when the death of Queen Anne three months later put an end to all his hopes of official employment. In 1715, probably with some help from Pope, he produced What d’ye call it? a dramatic skit on contemporary tragedy, with special reference to Otway’s Venice Preserved. It left the public so ignorant of its real meaning that Lewis Theobald and Benjamin Griffin (1680–1740) published a Complete Key to what d’ye call it by way of explanation. In 1716 appeared his Trivia, or the Art of Walking the Streets of London, a poem in three books, for which he acknowledged having received several hints from Swift. It contains graphic and humorous descriptions of the London of that period. In January 1717 he produced the comedy of Three Hours after Marriage, which was grossly indecent without being amusing, and was a complete failure. There is no doubt that in this piece he had assistance from Pope and Arbuthnot, but they were glad enough to have it assumed that Gay was the sole author.

Gay had numerous patrons, and in 1720 he published Poems on Several Occasions by subscription, realizing £1000 or more. In that year James Craggs, the secretary of state, presented him with some South Sea stock. Gay, disregarding the prudent advice of Pope and other of his friends, invested his all in South Sea stock, and, holding on to the end, he lost everything. The shock is said to have made him dangerously ill. As a matter of fact Gay had always been a spoilt child, who expected everything to be done for him. His friends did not fail him at this juncture. He had patrons in William Pulteney, afterwards earl of Bath, in the third earl of Burlington, who constantly entertained him at Chiswick or at Burlington House, and in the third earl of Queensberry. He was a frequent visitor with Pope, and received unvarying kindness from Congreve and Arbuthnot. In 1724 he produced a tragedy called The Captives. In 1727 he wrote for Prince William, afterwards duke of Cumberland, his famous Fifty-one Fables in Verse, for which he naturally hoped to gain some preferment, although he has much to say in them of the servility of courtiers and the vanity of court honours. He was offered the situation of gentleman-usher to the Princess Louisa, who was still a child. He refused this offer, which all his friends seem to have regarded, for no very obvious reason, as an indignity. As the Fables were written for the amusement of one royal child,