"I am at last returned from my Somersetshire expedition, but since my return I cannot boast of my health as before I went, for I am frequently out of order with my colical complaint, so as to make me uneasy and dispirited, though not to any violent degree. The reception we met with, and the little excursions we made, were in every way agreeable. I think the country abounds with beautiful prospects. Sir William Wyndham is at present amusing himself with some real improvements, and a great many visionary castles. We are often entertained with sea-views, and sea fish, and were at some places in the neighbourhood, among which I was mightily pleased with Dunster Castle, near Minehead. It stands upon a great eminence, and has a prospect of that town, with an extensive view of the Bristol Channel, in which are seen two small islands, called the Steep Holms and Flat Holms, and on the other side we could plainly distinguish the divisions of fields on the Welsh coast. All this journey I performed on horseback, and I am very much disappointed that at present I feel myself so little the better for it. I have indeed followed riding and exercise for three months successively, and really think I was as well without it: so that I begin to fear the illness I have so long complained of, is inherent in my constitution, and that I have nothing for it but patience.
"As to your advice about writing panegyric, it is what I have not frequently done. I have indeed done it sometimes [pg 138]against my judgment and inclination, and I heartily repent of it. And at present, as I have no desire of reward, and see no just reason of praise, I think I had better let it alone. There are flatterers good enough to be found, and I would not interfere in any gentleman's profession. I have seen no verses on these sublime occasions, so that I have no emulation. Let the patrons enjoy the authors, and the authors their patrons, for I know myself unworthy."
JOHN GAY TO DEAN SWIFT.
"I am at last come to London before the family, to follow my own inventions. In a week or fortnight I expect the family will follow me.
"If my present project[[7]] succeeds, you may expect a better account of my own fortune a little while after the holidays; but I promise myself nothing, for I am determined that neither anybody else, nor myself shall disappoint me."[[8]]
Neither the production of "Achilles," nor any other earthly project of Gay's, took place, for, within a few weeks, on December 4th, after three days' illness, he passed away in his forty-eighth year, at the Duke of Queensberry's town house in Burlington Gardens.
On the following day, Arbuthnot, who attended him, imparted the sad tidings to Pope: "Poor Mr. Gay died of an inflammation, and, I believe, at last a mortification of the bowels; it was the most precipitous case I ever knew, having cut him off in three days. He was attended by two physicians besides myself. I believed the distemper mortal from the beginning."[[9]] Pope, in his turn, immediately wrote to Swift, and his letter was found among Swift's papers, bearing the following endorsement: "On [pg 139]my dear friend Mr. Gay's death. Received December 15th, but not read till the 20th, by an impulse foreboding some misfortune."
ALEXANDER POPE TO DEAN SWIFT.
"It is not a time to complain that you have not answered me two letters (in the last of which I was impatient under some fears). It is not now, indeed, a time to think of myself, when one of the longest and nearest ties I have ever had, is broken all on a sudden by the unexpected death of poor Mr. Gay. An inflammatory fever burned him out of this life in three days. He died last night at nine o'clock, not deprived of his senses entirely at last, and possessing them perfectly till within five hours. He asked of you a few hours before, when in acute torment by the inflammation in his bowels and breast. His effects are in the Duke of Queensberry's custody. His sisters, we suppose, will be his heirs, who are two widows; as yet it is not known whether or no he left a will ...