JOHN GAY TO ALEXANDER POPE.
"My melancholy increases, and every hour threatens me with some return of my distemper, nay, I think I may rather say I have it on me. Not the divine looks, the kind favours, and the expressions of the divine Duchess, who, hereafter, shall be in the place of a queen to me—nay, she shall be my queen—nor the inexpressible goodness of the Duke, can in the least cheer me. The Drawing-room no more receives light from those two stars. There is now what Milton says is in hell—darkness visible. Oh, that I had never known what a Court was! Dear Pope, what a barren soil (to me so) have I been striving to produce something out of. Why did I not take your advice before my writing Fables for the Duke, not to write them! It is my very hard fate I must get nothing, write for them or against them. I find myself in such a strange confusion and depression of spirits that I have not strength enough even to make my will, though I perceive by many warnings I have no continuing city here. I begin to look upon myself as one already dead, and desire, my dear Mr. Pope, [ [pg 107]whom I love as my own soul, if you survive me, as you certainly will, that you will, if a stone should mark the place of my grave, see these words put upon it:—
with what more you may think proper. If anyone should ask how I could communicate this after death, let it be known, it is not meant so, but my present sentiment in life. What the bearer brings besides this letter, should I die without a will, which I am the likelier to do, as the law will settle my small estate much as I should do so myself, let it remain with you, as it has long done with me, the remembrance of a dead friend; but there is none like you, living or dead."
Both Swift and Pope remained faithful to Gay, and in their correspondence there are many allusions to him. "Mr. Gay," wrote Swift to Pope, "is a scandal to all lusty young fellows with healthy countenances; and, I think, he is not intemperate in a physical sense. I am told he has an asthma, which is a disease I commiserate more than deafness, because it will not leave a man quiet either sleeping or waking."[[1]]
JOHN GAY TO DEAN SWIFT.
"I am but just recovered from the severest fit of sickness that ever anybody had who escaped death. I was several times given up by the physicians, and everybody that attended me; and upon my recovery was judged to be in so ill a condition, that I should be miserable for the remainder of my life; but contrary to all expectation, I am perfectly recovered, and have no remainder of the distempers that attacked me, which were at the same time, fever, asthma, and pleurisy.
"[pg 108]I am now in the Duke of Queensberry's house, and have been so ever since I left Hampstead; where I was carried at a time that it was thought I could not live a day. Since my coming to town, I have been very little abroad, the weather has been so severe.
"I must acquaint you (because I know it will please you) that during my sickness I had many of the kindest proofs of friendship, particularly from the Duke and Duchess of Queensberry, who, if I had been their nearest relation and nearest friend, could not have treated me with more constant attendance then; and they continue the same to me now.
"You must undoubtedly have heard, that the Duchess took up my defence with the King and Queen, in the cause of my play, and that she has been forbid the Court for interesting herself to increase my fortune, by the publication of it without being acted. The Duke, too, has given up his employment (which he would have done if the Duchess had not met with this treatment) upon account of ill-usage from the Ministers; but this hardened him in what he had determined.
"The play ['Polly '] is now almost printed, with the music, words, and basses, engraved on thirty-one copper-plates, which, by my friends' assistance, has a possibility to turn greatly to my advantage. The Duchess of Marlborough has given me a hundred pounds for one copy; and others have contributed very handsomely; but as my account is not yet settled, I cannot tell you particulars.