John Gay

“ One felt always that if he should think that another might do given work better than he, there could be for him nothing but distress if the best was not done, even though it meant the loss of personal opportunity. But it is one of the happy things of genius that this exquisite humility can only live with great creative gifts, so that Lovat Fraser knew from day to day the supreme joy of mastery. The humility, however, is our example, and the thought that seems most worthy to-day is that he stands at this moment, for all he was younger than most of us, as a challenging leader to us all. ”

“ While I alone am kept awake by love.
Remember, Colin, when at last year's wake,
I bought the costly present for thy sake:
Couldst thou spell o'er the posie on thy knife, 95
And with another change thy state of life?
If thou forget'st, I wot, I can repeat,
My memory can tell the verse so sweet.
As this is grav'd upon this knife of thine,
So is thy image on this heart of mine. 100
But woe is me! such presents luckless prove,
For knives, they tell me, always fever love.
Thus Marian wail'd, her eye with tears brimful,
When goody Dobbins brought her cow to bull. ”

“ No carts, no coaches, shake the floating town!100
Thus was, of old, Britannia's city bless'd,
Ere pride and luxury her sons possess'd;
Coaches and chariots yet unfashion'd lay,
Nor late-invented chairs perplex'd the way:
Then the proud lady tripp'd along the town,105
And tuck'd-up petticoats secur'd her gown;
Her rosy cheeks with distant visits glow'd,
And exercise unartful charms bestow'd:
But since in braided gold her foot is bound,
And a long trailing mantua sweeps the ground,
Her shoe disdains the street—the lazy fair,110
With narrow step, affects a limping air. ”

“ POLLY. Is thus true Love requited? LUCY. My Heart is bursting. POLLY. --Mine too breaks. LUCY. Must I POLLY. --Must I be slighted?
MACHEATH. What would you have me say, Ladies?--You see this affair will soon be at an end, without my disobliging either of you.
PEACHUM. But the settling this Point, Captain, might prevent a Law- Suit between your two Widows.
AIR LII. Tom Tinker's my true Love.
MACHEATH. Which way shall I turn me--How can I decide? Wives, the Day of our Death, are as fond as a Bride. One Wife is too much for most Husbands to hear, But two at a time there's no mortal can bear. ”

“ How blest the lot of fondlings, early taught;
Joy strings her hours on pleasure's golden twine,
And fancy forms it to an endless line.
But ah! the charm must cease, or soon or late,
When chicks and misses rise to woman's state;
The little tyrant grows in turn a slave,
And feels the soft anxiety she gave.
This truth, my pretty friend, an ancient sage,
Who wrote in tale and legend many a page,
Couch'd in that age's unaffected guise,
When fables were the wisdom of the wise.
To careless notes I've tuned his Gothic style,
Content, if you approve, and Laura smile. ”

“ And yet we know how easily that effort is beset by fears and jealousies and failure in generosity, how lightly we who should together give all our energy to the service of our art, waste it in little concerns of spite and self-interest. And it is in just such ways as this that great example may serve us nobly, and there has surely never lived an artist in whom such example more clearly shone. Art, which for him embraced and crystallised all that was brave and adventurous and tender, was the worship of Lovat Fraser’s life, a worship which he kept with an absolute loyalty. ”