Eight years before, Gay had published his poems by subscription, and in those happy days for versemen had gained £1,000 by the venture. He put the money into South Sea stock, and lost it all. For _The Beggar's Opera_ he received about £800. It was followed by _Polly_, a play of the same coarse character, which, for political reasons, was not allowed to be acted. The result was that it had a large sale, and put money in Gay's purse. Ten thousand five hundred copies are said to have been printed in one year, and the £1,200 realized by the sale were very wisely retained for the poet's use by the Duke of Queensberry, under whose roof he had at length found a warm nest. To the student Gay is chiefly interesting as the only noteworthy poet of the period, south of the Tweed, gifted with a lyrical capacity. Two or three of his songs and ballads, and especially _Black-Eyed Susan_, have a charm beyond the reach of the mechanical versifier. But the art of song is at a low level even in the hands of Gay. The lyric which the Elizabethan and Jacobean poets loved so well, and of which the present century has produced specimens to be matched only by Shakespeare, may be said to have been lost to English poetry for the first half of the last century, since neither Prior's verse, delightful though it be, nor the songs of Gay, have enough of the poetical element to form exceptions to this statement. In his _Tales_ he follows Prior in grossness, while inferior to him in art. Like the greater number of the Queen Anne poets, Gay flatters with a free hand. In an epistle addressed to Lintot, the bookseller, he declares that Anacreon lives once more in Sheffield, and Waller in Granville, that Buckingham's verse will last to distant time; while Ovid sings again in Addison, and 'Homer's _Iliad_ shines in his _Campaign_.' One of the liveliest and most graceful of Gay's poems is addressed to Pope 'On his having finished his translation of Homer's _Iliad_.' It is called _A Welcome from Greece_, and describes the friends who assembled to greet the poet on his return to England. Three stanzas from the Epistle shall be quoted: 'Oh, what a concourse swarms on yonder quay! The sky re-echoes with new shouts of joy; By all this show, I ween 'tis Lord Mayor's day; I hear the voice of trumpet and hautboy-- No, now I see them near.--Oh, these are they Who come in crowds to welcome thee from Troy. Hail to the bard, whom long as lost we mourned From siege, from battle, and from storm returned! 'What lady's that to whom he gently bends? Who knows not her? Ah! those are Wortley's eyes: How art thou honoured, numbered with her friends! For she distinguishes the good and wise. The sweet-tongued Murray near her side attends; Now to my heart the glance of Howard flies; Now Hervey, fair of face, I mark full well, With thee Youth's youngest daughter, sweet Lepell.