verse, he wrote, in his dedication to the Duke of Queensberry.[7] Gay's
patron and friend:--

"O Queensberry! could happy Gay
This offering to thee bring,
''Tis he, my Lord' (he'd smiling say),
'Who taught your Gay to sing.'"

These lines suggest that an intimacy between Gay and Luck existed long
after their relations as pupil and master had ceased, but it is doubtful
if this was the case. It is certainly improbable that the lad saw much
of the pedagogue when he returned to Barnstaple for a while as the guest
of the Rev. John Hanmer, since Luck was a bitter opponent of the
Dissenters and in open antagonism to John Hanmer.

How long Gay remained at the Grammar School is not known. There are,
indeed, no records upon which to base a narrative of his early years. It
is, however, generally accepted that, on leaving school, he was
apprenticed to a silk-mercer in London. This was not so unaccountable a
proceeding then as appears to-day, for we know from Gibbon's "Memoirs"
that "our most respectable families have not disdained the
counting-house, or even the shop;... and in England, as well as in the
Italian commonwealths, heralds have been compelled to declare that
gentility is not degraded by the exercise of trade": for example, the
historian's great grandfather, son of a country gentleman, became a
linen-draper in Leadenhall Street.

Gay had no taste for trade, and did not long remain in this employment.
According to one authority, "he grew so fond of reading and study that
he frequently neglected to exert himself in putting oft silks and