DEAN SWIFT TO JOHN GAY.

  Dublin, November 10th, 1730.

“I hope you have now one advantage that you always wanted before, and the want of which made your friends as uneasy as it did yourself; I mean the removal of that solicitude about your own affairs, which perpetually filled your thoughts and disturbed your conversation.  For if it be true, what Mr. Pope seriously tells me, you will have opportunity of saving every groat of the interest you receive; and so, by the time you and he grow weary of each other, you will be able to pass the rest of your wineless life in ease and plenty; with the additional triumphal comfort of never having received a penny from those tasteless, ungrateful people from which you deserved so much, and which deserve no better geniuses than those by whom they are celebrated."[5]

JOHN GAY TO DEAN SWIFT.

  Amesbury, December 6th, 1730.

“The Duchess is a more severe check upon my finances than ever you were; and I submit, as I did to you, to comply to my own good.  I was a long time before I could prevail with her to let me allow myself a pair of shoes with two heels; for I had lost one, and the shoes were so decayed that they were not worth mending.  You see by this that those who are the most generous of their own, can be the most covetous for others.  I hope you will be so good to me as to use your interest with her (for what ever she says, you seem to have some) to indulge me with the extravagance suitable to my fortune."[6]

DUCHESS OF QUEENSBERRY AND JOHN GAY TO THE HON.  MRS. HOWARD.

  December 17th [1730].

“You cannot imagine in what due time your letter came; for I had given you up, and with great pains had very near brought our friend Mr. Gay to own that nobody cared for us, and a few more thoughts which shall now be nameless.  I am sincerely sorry that you have been ill, and very very glad that you are better and think of life; for I know none whom one could more wish to have life than yourself.  I do not in the least approve of your changing your way of thinking of me, for I was convinced it was a good one, and when such opinions change, it is seldom for the better; if it could on my account, I declare you would be in the wrong, for to my knowledge I improve in no one thing.  The best thing I can say for myself is, that I feel no alteration in the regard and inclination I have to you.  I have no comprehension of what I said in my letter; but at that time my body was distempered, and very likely my mind also....  I know nothing of coming to town; I only know that when I do I shall not be sorry to see you; and this is knowing a great deal; for I shall not be glad to come, and shall only come if it be unavoidable:  this is the blunt truth.  I own it would look less like indifference if I had written some civil lie.”