Page:The Lives of the Most Eminent English Poets, Volume 3.djvu/113

Rh 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 publick 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 and 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 princess went to see his What d’ye call it, a kind of mock-tragedy, in which the images were comick, and the action grave; so that, as