...From all his ill-got honours flung, Turn'd to that dirt from whence he sprung. ON GAY," BY HIMSELF. LIFE is a jest, and all things show it ; I thought so once, but now I know it. ON GAY. WELL then, poor Gay lies underground ! So there's an end of honest Jack. So little justice...

...to the Book Club, we may be excused for quoting here. He selects for a motto the two lines of Gay— Life is a Jest, and all Things show it ; I thought so once, but now I know it. On which the aged rhymester thus moralises :— On cool reflection, so said GAT, Yet had he gaily been...

...illusion which, in a manner most wonderful, his lordship has contrived to gather around his name. " Life is a jest, and all things show it ; I thought so once, and now I know it," will be an appropriate epitaph wherewith to deck the marble monument that the grateful...

...to so anti-religious a poet as Byron may be admitted where the inscription is allowed to stand, — Life is a jest, and all things show it, I thought so once, and now I know it. Bunsen told Wordsworth that Lord Byron had an im• Probably " How profitless the...

...Twickenham Church. Several poets wrote such mock epitaphs for themselves. Gay's is well known : Life is ft jest, and all things show it: I thought so once, but now I know it. Samuel Wesley, the usher of Westminster School, rejoiced in his rest: Here Wesley lies in quiet rest,...

...in Twickenham Church. Several poets wrote such mock epitaphs for themselves. Gay's is well known : Life is a jest, and all things show it; I thought so ouce, but now I know it Samuel Wesley, the usher of Westminster School, rejoiced in his rest: Here...

...could get nothing from the court, whether he wrote for or against it.' And he wrote his own epitaph : ' Life is a jest ; and all things! show it, I thought so once ; but now I know it. ' 3 This careless laugher, to revenge himself on the minister, wrote the Beggars' Opera, the fiercest...

...certainly will, that you will, if a stone should mark the place of my grave, see these words put upon it : Life is a jest, and all things show it, I thought so once, but now I know it, with what more you may think proper. If anybody should 1 This letter appears in Ayre's Life and they...

...seasons are carved. Gay's is a Cupid, unveiling a medallion of the poet, and one of his couplets : — "Life is a jest, and all things show it; I thought so once, but now I know it." On a pedestal, around which are grouped the Nine Muses, stands the statue of Addison, and a tablet...

...certainly will, that you will, if a stone should mark the place of my grave, see these words put upon it : Life is a jest, and all things show it, I thought so once, but now I know it, with what more you may think proper. If anybody should 1 This letter appears in Ayre's Life am] they...