Gay's health was improved by his stay in his native town, and presently
he returned to London, where, according to the family tradition, he
"lived for some time as a private gentleman."[1] Mr. Austin Dobson has
pointed out that this is "a statement scarcely reconcilable with the
opening in life his friends had found for him";[2] but it may be urged
against this view that Gay and his sisters had each a small
patrimony.[3] If it is assumed that he returned to the metropolis after
he came of age in September, 1706, he may have been possessed of a sum
of money, small, no doubt, but sufficient to provide him with the
necessaries of life for some little time. When his brother, Jonathan,
who had been promoted lieutenant at Cologne by Marlborough, under whom
he served at Hochstadt and elsewhere, and captain by Queen Anne,
committed suicide in 1709, after a quarrel with his colonel, John may
have inherited some further share of the paternal estate.

When Gay was one-and-twenty, ginger was hot in his mouth. Wine, woman,
and song appealed to him. It is not on record that he had any
love-affair, save those indicated in the verses in "Gay's Chair"; but
the indelicacy of many passages in his writings suggests that he was
rather intimately acquainted with the bagnios of the town. No man whose
sense of decency had not been denied could possibly have written the
verses "To a Young Lady, with some Lamphreys," and this, even after
making allowance for the freedom of the early eighteenth century. He
certainly frequented the coffee-houses of Covent Garden and Pall Mall.
Also, he roamed about the metropolis, and became learned in the highways
and byways, north and south, and east and west--a knowledge which bore
excellent fruit in "Trivia."

But I, who ne'er was bless'd by Fortune's hand,
Nor brighten'd plough-shares in paternal land.