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Life And Letters Of John Gay (1685-1732) by Lewis Melville
page 69 of 221 (31%)
his thousand pounds he purchased more South Sea stock. At what price Gay
bought it is impossible to say, but it is not unlikely that Craggs'
present was made in April, 1720, when the first money-subscription was
issued at the price of £300 for each £100 stock. The poet's good fortune
was at this moment in the ascendant. A mania for speculation burst over
the town, and everybody bought and sold South Sea stock. In July it was
quoted at £1,000. If Gay had then sold out he would have realised a sum
in the neighbourhood of £20,000. His friends implored him to content
himself with this handsome profit, but in vain. As Dr. Johnson put it,
"he dreamed of dignity and splendour, and could not bear to obstruct his
own fortune."[2] He who a few months ago had been practically penniless,
could not now bring himself to be satisfied with an income of about a
thousand a year. Realising that it was impossible entirely to overcome
his obduracy, his friends then begged him at least to sell so much as
would produce even a hundred a year in the Funds, "which," Fenton said
to him, "will make you sure of a clean shirt and a shoulder of mutton
every day." Gay was not to be moved from his resolve to become a great
capitalist. Arguments were of no avail. The wilful man finally had his
way. Almost from the moment he refused to yield to his friends'
entreaties the price of South Sea stock declined rapidly. The "Bubble"
burst, and in October South Sea stock was unsaleable at any price. Gay
lost not only his profit but his capital, and was again reduced to
penury.

Gay spoke his mind about the "Bubble" in "A Panegyrical Epistle to Mr.
Thomas Snow, Goldsmith, near Temple Bar: Occasioned by his Buying and
Selling of the Third Subscriptions, taken in by the Directors of the
South Sea Company, at a thousand per cent," which was published by
Lintott in 1721:--

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