* * * * *

More than once Swift took up his pen to avenge his friend for the slight that he considered had been passed upon him.  In “A Libel on the Rev. Mr. Delany and His Excellency Lord Cartaret,” he wrote in 1729:—­

  Thus Gay, the hare with many friends. 
  Twice seven long years the Court attends;
  Who, under tales conveying truth,
  To virtue form’d a princely youth;
  Who paid his courtship with the crowd,
  As far as modest pride allow’d;
  Rejects a servile usher’s place,
  And leaves St. James’s in disgrace.

Two years later he returned to the attack in “An Epistle to Mr. Gay “:—­

  How could you, Gay, disgrace the Muse’s train,
  To serve a tasteless Court twelve years in vain! 
  Fain would I think our female friend sincere,
  Till Bob,[20] the poet’s foe, possess’d her ear. 
  Did female virtue e’er so high ascend,
  To lose an inch of favour for a friend? 
  Say, had the Court no better place to choose
  For thee, than make a dry-nurse of thy Muse? 
  How cheaply had thy liberty been sold,
  To squire a royal girl of two years old: 
  In leading strings her infant steps to guide,
  Or with her go-cart amble side by side!

It is a little difficult at this time of day to understand Swift’s indignation.  Gay was already in the enjoyment of a sinecure of L150 a year; he was offered another of L200 a year—­for the post of Gentleman-Usher involved no duties save occasional attendance at Court, and to this the poet had shown himself by no means averse.  A total gift of L350 a year for nothing really seems rather alluring to a man of letters, and it is difficult to understand why Gay refused the offer, unless it was, as the editors of the standard edition of Pope’s Correspondence suggest:  “The affluent friends who recommended Gay to reject the provisions were strangers to want, and with unconscious selfishness they thought less of his necessities than of venturing their spleen against the Court.”

* * * * *

Swift, unable effectively to vent his anger on Caroline, chose to regard Mrs. Howard as the cause of the mortification of his friend.  Mrs. Howard, however, not only had nothing to do with the offer of the place of Gentleman-Usher to Gay, the patronage being directly in the Queen’s hands, but, as has been indicated, was unable to secure for him, or anyone else, a place at Court of any description.  Certainly she was in blissful ignorance of having given offence, for as Gay wrote to the Dean so late as February 15th, 1728:  “Mrs. Howard frequently asks after you and desires her compliments to you.”

All the matters affected not a whit the relations between Mrs. Howard and Gay; against her he had no ill-feeling, and their correspondence continued on the same lines of intimacy as before.

THE HON.  MRS. HOWARD TO JOHN GAY.