October, 1727.

“I hear you expect, and have a mind to have, a letter from me, and though I have little to say, I find I don’t care that you should be either disappointed or displeased.  Tell her Grace of Queensberry I don’t think she looked kindly upon me when I saw her last; she ought to have looked and thought very kindly, for I am much more her humble servant than those who tell her so every day.  Don’t let her cheat you in the pencils; she designs to give you nothing but her old ones.  I suppose she always uses those worst who love her best, Mrs. Herbert excepted; but I hear she has done handsomely by her.  I cannot help doing the woman this justice, that she can now and then distinguish merit.

“So much for her Grace; now for yourself, John.  I desire you will mind the main chance, and be in town in time enough to let the opera[21] have play enough for its life, and for your pockets.  Your head is your best friend; it could clothe, lodge and wash you, but you neglect it, and follow that false friend, your heart, which is such a foolish, tender thing that it makes others despise your head that have not half so good a one upon their own shoulders.  In short, John, you may be a snail or a silk-worm, but by my consent you shall never be a hare again.

“We go to town next week.  Try your interest and bring the duchess up by the birthday.  I did not think to have named her any more in this letter.  I find I am a little foolish about her; don’t you be a great deal so, for if she will not come, do you come without her.”

* * * * *

Gay was not the man to keep his feelings of disappointment to himself, and his feelings were so widely known that at the time the following copy of verses was handed about in manuscript [22]:—­

  A mother who vast pleasure finds,
  In forming of the children’s minds;
  In midst of whom with vast delight,
  She passes many a winter’s night;
  Mingles in every play to find,
  What bias nature gives her mind;
  Resolving there to take her aim. 
  To guide them to the realms of fame;
  And wisely make those realms their way,
  To those of everlasting day;
  Each boist’rous passion she’d control,
  And early humanise the soul,
  The noblest notions would inspire,
  As they were sitting by the fire;
  Her offspring, conscious of her care,
  Transported hung around her chair. 
  Of Scripture heroes would she tell,
  Whose names they’d lisp, ere they could spell;
  Then the delighted mother smiles,
  And shews the story in the tiles. 
  At other times her themes would be,
  The sages of antiquity;
  Who left a glorious name behind,
  By being blessings to their kind: 
  Again she’d take a nobler scope,
  And tell of Addison and Pope.