sov'reign power revives decaying Nature,
And thaws the frozen blood of hoary age,
A kindly warmth diffusing—youthful fires
Gild his dim eyes, and paint with ruddy hue
His wrinkled visage, ghastly wan before—
Cordial restorative to mortal man,
With copious hand by bounteous gods bestow'd.

These are the opening lines. The concluding passage describing the tippling revellers leaving the tavern suggests, as has more than once been pointed out, the hand that afterwards wrote "Trivia."

Thus we the winged hours in harmless mirth
And joys unsullied pass, till humid night
Has half her race perform'd; now all abroad
Is hush'd and silent, now the rumbling noise
Of coach or cart, or smoky link-boy's call
Is heard—but universal Silence reigns:
When we in merry plight, airy and gay.
Surprised to find the hours so swiftly fly.
With hasty knock, or twang of pendent cord.
Alarm the drowsy youth from slumb'ring nod;
Startled he flies, and stumbles o'er the stairs
[pg 11] Erroneous, and with busy knuckles plies
His yet clung eyelids, and with stagg'ring reel
Enters confused, and muttering asks our wills;
When we with liberal hand the score discharge,
And homeward each his course with steady step
Unerring steers, of cares and coin bereft.

So far as is known, Gay preserved a profound silence for three years after his publication of "Wine," and then, on May 3rd, 1711, appeared from his pen, "The Present State of Wit, in a Letter to a Friend in the Country," sold at the reasonable price of three-pence. This attracted the attention of Swift. "Dr. Freind^[9] ... pulled out a two-penny pamphlet just published, called 'The State of Wit', giving the characters of all the papers that have come out of late," he wrote in the "Journal to Stella," May 12: "The author seems to be a Whig, yet he speaks very highly of a paper called the Examiner, and says the supposed author of it is Dr. Swift. But, above all things, he praises the Tatlers and Spectators, and I believe Steele and Addison were privy to the printing of it. Thus is one treated by the impudent dogs." In this unambitious little sketch, as the author puts it, he gives "the histories and characters of all our periodical papers, whether monthly, weekly or diurnal," and it is, therefore, of value to the student of the early days of English journalism. He claimed to write without political bias: "I shall only promise that, as you know, I never cared one farthing either for Whig or Tory, so I shall consider our writers purely as they are such, without any respect to which party they belong." In "The Present State of Wit" most of the better-known periodical writers are introduced. Dr. William King is mentioned, not he who was the Archbishop of Dublin, nor he who was the Principal of St. Mary Hall, Oxford, but he of whom it was said that he "could write verses in a tavern three hours after he could not speak," who was the author of the "Art of Cookery" and the "Art of Love," and [pg 12]who in 1709 had fluttered the scientific dovecotes by parodying the "Philosophical Transactions" in the Useful Transactions in Philosophy and Other Sorts of Learning, of which, however, only three numbers were issued. John Ozell was pilloried as the author of the Monthly Amusement, which was not, as the title suggests, a periodical, but was merely a title invented to summarise his frequent appearances in print. "It is generally some French novel or play, indifferently translated, it is more or less taken notice of, as the original piece is more or less agreeable." Defoe takes his place in the gallery as the editor and principal contributor to the weekly Poor Review, that is, the Weekly Review (which was published weekly from February 19th, 1704, until 1712) which, says Gay, "is quite exhausted and grown so very contemptible, that though he has provoked all his brothers of the quill round, none of them will enter into a controversy with him."

The periodical publications of the day are passed under review: the Observer, founded in 1702 by John Tutchin, and after his death five years later, conducted by George Ridpath, editor of the Flying Post, until 1712, when it had almost entirely ceased to please, and was finally extinguished by the Stamp Tax; the weekly Examiner, set up in August, 1710, in opposition to the Whig Taller, numbering among its contributors Dr. King, St. John, Prior, Atterbury, and Freind, and managed by Swift from No. 14 (October 26th, 1710); the Whig Examiner, the first issue of which appeared on September 14th, 1710, its five numbers being written by Addison; the Medley, another Whig paper, which ran from August, 1710, to August, 1711, and was edited by Arthur Mainwaring, with the assistance of Steele, Oldmixon, and Anthony Henley (a wit and a man of fortune, to whom Garth dedicated "The Dispensary," and who distinguished himself by describing Swift as "a beast for ever after the order of Melchisedec"). The Tatter, which appeared three times a week from April 12th, 1709, to January 2nd, 1711, was of course mentioned, [pg 13]and well-deserved tributes were paid to Steele and Addison. Of Addison he wrote with appreciation, but briefly: "This is that excellent friend to whom Mr. Steele owes so much, and who refuses to have his pen set before those pieces which the greatest pens in England would be proud to own. Indeed, they could hardly add to this gentleman's reputation, whose works in Latin and English poetry long since convinced the world that he was the greatest master in Europe of those two languages." Of Steele, Gay wrote at greater length: "To give you my own thoughts of this gentleman's writings, I shall, in the first place, observe that there is a noble difference between him and all the rest of our polite and gallant authors. The latter have endeavoured to please the age by falling in with them, and encourage them in their fashionable views and false notion of things. It would have been a jest, some time since, for a man to have asserted that anything witty could be said in praise of a married state, or that devotion and virtue were any way necessary to the character of a fine gentleman. Bickerstaff ventured to tell the town that they were a parcel of fops, fools and coquettes; but in such a manner as even pleased them, and made them more than half-inclined to believe that he spoke truth. Instead of complying with the false sentiments and vicious tastes of the age—either in morality, criticism, or good breeding—he has boldly assured them that they were altogether in the wrong; and commanded them, with an authority which perfectly well became him, to surrender themselves to his arguments for virtue and good sense. It is incredible to conceive the effect his writings have had on the town; how many thousand follies they have either quite banished, or given a very great check to! how much countenance they have added to virtue and religion! how many people they have rendered happy, by showing them it was their own fault if they were not so! and, lastly, how entirely they have convinced our