TRIVIA.*
ALL who love clear type—bold, big and black—and well-produced reproductions of well-selected prints and pictures will be de- lighted with this fascinating reprint of Gay's Trivia ; or, The Art of Walking the Streets of London. Gay's poems are interesting, not only from the social point of view, but from the point of view of metre and style. Gay's verse was not nearly as much domi- nated by the antithesis as was that of Pope. It represents a kind of backwater in the history of the Heroic Couplet. Gay sometimes has curious anticipations of Crabbe or even of much later versifiers. Take the second line in such a couplet as " Who can the various City Frauds recite,
With all the petty Rapines of the Night ? "
Take, again, the following lines, which are strangely like Crabbe " 0 ye associate Walkers, 0 my Friends, Upon your State what Happiness attends I "
But to return to the book. It opens with an excellent plan of London of the year 1707 and a frontispiece showing a portrait of Gay. It is an easy-going, humorous face and not a type portrait. All the other pictures, except one, are topographical or architectural. Take, for example, the excellent print of " The New Exchange ; or, Britain's Bourse in the Strand, 1715." It is a pleasant-looking building and is worth the study of architects who want a little variety in their street fronts. Another print which is interesting from the architectural point of view
• Trivia ; or, The Art of Walking the Streets of London. By Mr. John Gay. Introduction and Notes by W. H. Williams, M.A. Loudon : Daniel O'Connor. [£2 2s. net.] is that of " Lincoln's Inn and Fields, 1720," as is also " Bur- lington House in Piccadilly." The book as a whole will certainly please literary Londoners. The notes are copious and full of odd and curious things about the London of Anne and George I. The book is not for narrow pockets, but it is pleasant to feel that the publishers are beginning to think that such handsome volumes will prove profitable.
Previous page
