From this letter it will be seen that Gay was endeavouring to make some return to his host and hostess for their kindness in looking after him by acting as a private secretary to the Duchess.  But it may be taken for granted that his duties were merely nominal, and it may equally be taken for granted that his assistance was of little value, and only accepted nominally in order to lessen the weight of the obligation under which they thought—­probably erroneously—­he might be suffering.  Why Gay should have led a life of dependence unless he liked it, it is not easy to see, for when he died about thirty months later, he left the then not inconsiderable sum of L6,000.  Gay, who never did to-day what could by any possibility be postponed, neglected, of course, to make a will.  As he died intestate, his fortune was divided between his surviving sisters, Katherine Bailer and Joanna Fortescue.

Gay until the end kept up his correspondence with Mrs. Howard, and his letters to her are often delightful reading, especially when he had nothing in particular to say, or when he was able to poke kindly fun at his hostess and protectress.

JOHN GAY TO THE HON.  MRS. HOWARD.

  May 9th, 1730.

“It is what the Duchess never would tell me—­so that it is impossible for me to tell you—­how she does:  but I cannot take it ill, for I really believe it is what she never really and truly did to anybody in her life.  As I am no physician and cannot do her any good, one would wonder how she could refuse to answer this question out of common civility; but she is a professed hater of common civility, and so I am determined never to ask her again.  If you have a mind to know what she hath done since she came here, the most material things that I know of is, that she hath worked a rose, and milked a cow, and those two things I assure you are of more consequence, I verily believe, than hath been done by anybody else.

“Mrs. Herbert was very angry with her Grace the night before she left the town, that she could part with her friends with such an indecent cheerfulness; she wishes she had seen you at the same time, that she might have known whether she could have carried this happy indifference through, or no.  She is grown a great admirer of two characters in Prior’s poems, that of “Sauntering Jack and Idle Joan"[3]; and she thinks them persons worthy imitation:  at this very instant she herself is in their way.  She had a mind to write to you, but cannot prevail with herself to set about it; she is now thinking of Mrs. Herbert, but is too indolent to tell me to make her compliments to her.  Just this minute she is wishing you were in this very room; but she will not give herself the trouble to say so to me:  all that I know of it is, she looks all this, for she knows I am writing to you.