1724-1727 "THE CAPTIVES"-- THE FIRST SERIES OF "FABLES"-- GAY AND THE COURT--POPE, SWIFT AND MRS.

HOWARD.
During 1723 Gay wrote a tragedy, "The Captives," which at the end of the year he read to the royal circle at Leicester House.

"When the hour came," Johnson has recorded, "he saw the Princess [of Wales] and her ladies all in expectation, and, advancing with reverence, too great for any other attention, stumbled at a stool, and, falling forward, threw down a weighty Japanese screen.

The Princess started, the ladies screamed, and poor Gay, after all the disturbance, was still to read his play."[1] "The Captives" was produced at Drury Lane Theatre in January, 1724, and according to the _Biographica Dramatica_ was "acted nine nights with great applause," the third, or author's night, being by the command of the Prince and Princess of Wales.

According, however, to Fenton, "Gay's play had no success.