CHAPTER II.
1706-1712 GAY COMMENCES AUTHOR Gay's health was improved by his stay in his native town, and presently he returned to London, where, according to the family tradition, he "lived for some time as a private gentleman."[1] Mr.Austin Dobson has pointed out that this is "a statement scarcely reconcilable with the opening in life his friends had found for him";[2] but it may be urged against this view that Gay and his sisters had each a small patrimony.[3] If it is assumed that he returned to the metropolis after he came of age in September, 1706, he may have been possessed of a sum of money, small, no doubt, but sufficient to provide him with the necessaries of life for some little time.

When his brother, Jonathan, who had been promoted lieutenant at Cologne by Marlborough, under whom he served at Hochstadt and elsewhere, and captain by Queen Anne, committed suicide in 1709, after a quarrel with his colonel, John may have inherited some further share of the paternal estate.
When Gay was one-and-twenty, ginger was hot in his mouth.

Wine, woman, and song appealed to him.

It is not on record that he had any love-affair, save those indicated in the verses in "Gay's Chair"; but the indelicacy of many passages in his writings suggests that he was rather intimately acquainted with the bagnios of the town.

No man whose sense of decency had not been denied could possibly have written the verses "To a Young Lady, with some Lamphreys," and this, even after making allowance for the freedom of the early eighteenth century.