Richmond Lodge, July 22nd, 1723.

“I have taken some days to consider of your wheat-ear, but I find I can no more approve of your having a passion for that, than I did of your turning parson.  But if ever you will take the one, I insist upon your taking the other; they ought not to be parted; they were made from the beginning for each other.  But I do not forbid you to get the best intelligence of the ways, manners and customs of this wonderful phenomene, how it supports the disappointment of bad ale, and what are the consequences to the full enjoyment of her luxury?  I have some thoughts of taking a hint from the ladies of your acquaintance who pray for matadores, and turn devotees for luck at ombre, for I have already lost above L100 since I came to Richmond.

“I do not like to have you too passionately fond of everything that has no disguise.  I (that am grown old in Courts) can assure you sincerity is so very unthriving that I can never give consent that you should practise it, excepting to three or four people that I think may deserve it, of which number I am.  I am resolved that you shall open a new scene of behaviour next winter and begin to pay in coin your debts of fair promises.  I have some thoughts of giving you a few loose hints for a satire, and if you manage it right, and not indulge that foolish good-nature of yours, I do not question but I shall see you in good employment before Christmas.”

JOHN GAY TO THE HON.  MRS. HOWARD.

  Tunbridge Wells, August, 1723.

“I have long wished to be able to put in practice that valuable worldly qualification of being insincere.  One of my chief reasons is that I hate to be particular, and I think if a man cannot conform to the customs of the world, he is not fit to be encouraged or to live in it.  I know that, if one would be agreeable to men of dignity one must study to imitate them, and I know which way they get money and places.  I cannot indeed wonder that the talents requisite for a great statesman are so scarce in the world, since so many of those who possess them are every month cut off in the prime of their life at the Old Bailey.

“Another observation I have made upon courtiers is that if you have any friendship with any particular one, you must be entirely governed by his friendship and resentments, not your own; you are not only to flatter him but those that he flatters, and, if he chances to take a fancy to any man whom you know that he knows to have the talents of a statesman, you are immediately to think both of them men of the most exact honour.  In short, you must think nothing dishonest or dishonourable that is required of you, because, if you know the world, you must know that no statesman has or ever will require anything of you that is dishonest or dishonourable.