All this seems modern preface, where we're told
That wit is praised, but hungry lives and cold:
Against th' ungrateful age these authors roar,
And fancy learning starves because they're poor.
Yet why should learning hope success at Court?
Why should our patriots virtue's cause support?
Why to true merit should they have regard?
They know that virtue is its own reward.
Yet let me not of grievances complain.
Who (though the meanest of the Muse's train)
Can boast subscriptions to my humble lays,
And mingle profit with my little praise.

What to do with the thousand pounds--a sum certainly far larger than any
of which he had ever been possessed--Gay had not the slightest idea. He
had just enough wisdom to consult his friends. Erasmus Lewis, a prudent
man of affairs, advised him to invest it in the Funds and live upon the
interest; Arbuthnot advised him to put his faith in Providence and live
upon the capital; Swift and Pope, who understood him best, advised him
to purchase an annuity. Bewildered by these divergent counsels, he did
none of these things. Just when he was confronted with the necessity of
making up his mind, Pope's friend, James Craggs the younger, of whom he
wrote in "Mr. Pope's Welcome from Greece":--

Bold, generous Craggs, whose heart was ne'er disguised,

made him a present of some stock of the South Sea Company, at the same
time, no doubt, telling him that in all probability it would rise in
value. Here was a chance, dear to the heart of this hunter after
sinecures, of getting something for nothing--or next to nothing. With