John Gay and "Trivia"

In his poem Trivia John Gay (1685–1732) casts himself as a “bold Traveller.” This is metropolitan travelling, however, which does not require the poet to “wander from [his] native Home / And (tempting Perils) foreign Cities roam.” Rather, his roaming abroad is limited to London: “Now venture, Muse, from Home to range the Town.” Three books of verse, amounting to more than a thousand lines, describe his itinerary and expound the “art” (as the poem’s subtitle terms it) of “walking the streets of London.