Edited by Henry Lee ...

1820," but the authenticity of these cannot definitely be accepted.

A chair, said to have been the property of Gay at Barnstaple, was sold early in the nineteenth century to Henry Lee, who sent it to be repaired.

"On taking out the drawer in front, which was somewhat broken," so runs the story, "I found at the back part of the chair a concealed drawer, ingeniously fastened with a small wooden bolt;...

it was full of manuscript papers, some of which appeared to have slipped over, as I found them stuck to the bottom or seat of the chair."[10] The poems in question are: "The Ladies' Petition to the Honorable the House of Commons," the longest and most ambitious of the pieces; "To Miss Jane Scott," "Prediction," "Comparisons," "Absence," "Fable," "Congratulation to a Newly-married Pair," "A Devonshire Hill," "Letter to a Young Lady," and "To My Chair." Of this small collection, Mr.John Underhill, who includes it in his admirable edition of Gay's poems in the "Muses' Library," writes: "The evidence in support of their authenticity is (1) the fact that they were found in a chair which was always spoken of by Gay's 'immediate descendants' as 'having been the property of the poet, and which, as his favourite easy chair, he highly valued'; and (2) that 'The Ladies' Petition' was printed nearly _verbatim_ from a manuscript in the handwriting of the poet ...