"Your situation is an odd one. The Duchess is your treasurer, and Mr. Pope tells me you are the Duke's. And I had gone a good way in some verses on that occasion, prescribing lessons to direct your conduct, in a negative way, not to do so and so, etc., like other treasurers; how to deal with servants, tenants, or neighbouring squires, which I take to be courtiers, parliaments, and princes in alliance, and so the parallel goes on, but grew too long to please me."[[1]]
JOHN GAY TO DEAN SWIFT.
April 21st, 1731.
"Since I have got over the impediment to a writer, of water drinking, if I can persuade myself that I have any wit, and find I have inclination, I intend to write; though, as yet, I have another impediment: for I have not provided myself with a scheme. Ten to one but I shall have a propensity to write against vice, and who can tell how far that may offend? But an author should consult his genius, rather than his interest, if he cannot reconcile them."[[2]]
[pg 127]JOHN GAY TO DEAN SWIFT.
Amesbury, April 27th, 1731.
"When I was in town (after a bashful fit, for having writ something like a love-letter, and in two years making one visit), I writ to Mrs. Drelincourt, to apologise for my behaviour, and received a civil answer, but had not time to see her. They are naturally very civil: so that I am not so sanguine as to interpret this as any encouragement. I find by Mrs. Barber that she interests herself very much in her affair; and, indeed, from everybody who knows her, she answers the character you first gave me....
"You used to blame me for over-solicitude about myself. I am now grown so rich, that I do not think myself worth thinking on."[[3]]
DEAN SWIFT TO JOHN GAY.
Dublin, June 29th, 1731.