Editing John Gay (section)

==Patrons==
Gay had numerous patrons, and in 1720 he published ''Poems on Several Occasions'' by subscription, taking in £1000 or more. In that year James Craggs, the secretary of state, presented him with some [[South Sea Bubble|South Sea stock]]. Gay, disregarding the advice of Pope and others of his friends, invested all his money in South Sea stock, and, holding on to the end of the South Sea Bubble, he lost everything. The shock is said to have made him dangerously ill. His friends did not fail him at this juncture. He had patrons in [[William Pulteney, 1st Earl of Bath|William Pulteney]], afterwards Earl of Bath, in the third Earl of Burlington, who constantly entertained him at Chiswick or at Burlington House, and in the [[Charles Douglas, 3rd Duke of Queensberry|Duke]] and [[Catherine Douglas, Duchess of Queensberry|Duchess]] of Queensberry. He was a frequent visitor with Pope, and received unvarying kindness from [[William Congreve]] and [[John Arbuthnot]].

In 1727 he wrote for six-year-old [[Prince William, Duke of Cumberland|Prince William]], later the Duke of Cumberland, ''Fifty-one [[Fable]]s in Verse'', for which he naturally hoped to gain some preferment, although he has much to say in them of the servility of courtiers and the vanity of court honours. He was offered the situation of gentleman-usher to the Princess Louisa, who was also still a child. He refused this offer, all his friends seemingly having regarded it- "for no very obvious reason"- as an indignity. His friends thought him unfairly neglected, but Gay, who had never rendered any special services to the court, had nevertheless been given a sinecure as lottery commissioner with a salary of £150 a year in 1722, and from 1722 to 1729 had lodgings in the palace at Whitehall.<ref name=EB/>