To honour and employment rise

I court no favour, ask no place,

From such, preferment is disgrace:

Within my thatch'd retreat I find

(What these ne'er feel) true peace of mind.

The animus is evident, and it is clear that Gay's sense of humour had entirely deserted him. A man who had been a hanger-on at Court for more than ten years, and bidding diligently all the time for a sinecure, could but arouse laughter when, discarded at length by those in power, he says proudly, "I court no favour, ask no place."

Footnotes:

[1]

Swift: Works, XVII, p. 182.