years after, having altered it and, as he thought, adapted it more
to the public taste, he offered it again to the town; but, though he
was flushed with the success of the Beggar's Opera, had the
mortification to see it again rejected.

In the last year of Queen Anne's life Gay was made secretary to the
Earl of Clarendon, Ambassador to the Court of Hanover. This was a
station that naturally gave him hopes of kindness from every party;
but the Queen's death put an end to her favours, and he had
dedicated his "Shepherd's Week" to Bolingbroke, which Swift
considered as the crime that obstructed all kindness from the House
of Hanover. He did not, however, omit to improve the right which
his office had given him to the notice of the Royal Family. On the
arrival of the Princess of Wales he wrote a poem, and obtained so
much favour that both the Prince and the Princess went to see his
What D'ye Call It, a kind of mock tragedy, in which the images were
comic and the action grave; so that, as Pope relates, Mr. Cromwell,
who could not hear what was said, was at a loss how to reconcile the
laughter of the audience with the solemnity of the scene.

Of this performance the value certainly is but little; but it was
one of the lucky trifles that give pleasure by novelty, and was so
much favoured by the audience that envy appeared against it in the
form of criticism; and Griffin, a player, in conjunction with Mr.
Theobald, a man afterwards more remarkable, produced a pamphlet
called "The Key to the What D'ye Call It," "which," says Gay, "calls
me a blockhead, and Mr. Pope a knave."

But fortune has always been inconstant. Not long afterwards (1717)
he endeavoured to entertain the town with Three Hours after