nephew, the Rev. Joseph Baller, prefixed to "Gay's Chair" (1820); but
the standard authorities on Gay's life are Mr. Austin Dobson
("Dictionary of National Biography," Vol. XXI., 1890) and Mr. John
Underwood ("Introductory Memoir" to the "Poems of John Gay" in the
"Muses' Library," 1893).

Among Gay's correspondents were Pope, Swift, Lady Suffolk, Arbuthnot,
the Duchess of Queensberry, Oxford, Congreve, Parnell, Cleland, Caryll
and Jacob Tonson, the publisher. Unpublished letters to Caryll and
Tonson, and to and from Lady Suffolk, are in the British Museum; letters
which have appeared in print are to be found in the correspondence of
Pope, Swift, and Lady Suffolk, in Nichols' "Literary Anecdotes of the
Eighteenth Century," and in the Historical Commission's Report on the
MSS. of the Marquis of Bath. Biographical information is also to be
found, as well as in the works mentioned above, in Gribble's "Memorials
of Barnstaple," Mrs. Delany's "Autobiography," Hervey's "Memoirs,"
Colley Cibber's "Apology," and Spence's "Anecdotes"; in the works and
biographies of Pope, Swift, Steele, Addison, and Aaron Hill; in
contemporary publications such as "A Key to 'The What D'ye Call It,'" "A
Complete Key to the New Farce 'Three Hours After Marriage,'" Joseph
Gay's "The Confederates"; and in numerous works dealing with dramatic
productions and dramatic literature. A bibliography is printed in the
"Cambridge History of English Literature" (Vol. IX., pp. 480-481; 1912);
and a more detailed bibliography is being compiled by Mr. Ernest L. Gay,
Boston, Mass., U.S.A., who has informed the present writer that he "has
collected about five hundred editions of Gay's works, and also over five
hundred playbills of his plays, running from the middle of the
eighteenth century to the middle of the nineteenth century." The most
valuable criticisms of Gay as a man of letters are by Johnson in the
"Lives of the Poets" and Thackeray in the "English Humourists of the