[Footnote 3:  Swift:  Works (ed.  Scott), XVII, p. 370.]

[Footnote 4:  Ibid., XVII, p. 382.]

[Footnote 5:  Lady Suffolk’s great-great-great-grandfather was Sir Henry Hobart, Chief-Justice of the Common Pleas.]

[Footnote 6:  Swift:  Works (ed.  Scott), XVII, p. 385.]

[Footnote 7:  Swift:  Works (ed.  Scott), XVII, p. 436.]

CHAPTER XIII

1732

DEATH

As time passed Gay became less satisfied with his condition.  It may have been that his health became worse; or it may be that, like to many men who are idle and make no effort to work, he became annoyed at the ennui which is so often the result of an unoccupied life.  Anyhow, in his letters there crept in a note of irritability, which has not previously been sounded.

JOHN GAY TO DEAN SWIFT.

  March 13th, 1732.

“I find myself dispirited for want of having some pursuit.  Indolence and idleness are the most tiresome things in the world.  I begin to find a dislike to society.  I think I ought to try to break myself of it, but I cannot resolve to set about it.  I have left off almost all my great acquaintance, which saves me something in chair hire, though in that article the town is still very expensive.  Those who were your old acquaintance are almost the only people I visit; and, indeed, upon trying all, I like them best....

“If you would advise the Duchess to confine me four hours a-day to my own room, while I am in the country, I will write; for I cannot confine myself as I ought."[1]

DEAN SWIFT TO JOHN GAY.

  Dublin, May 4th, 1732.

“It is your pride or laziness, more than chair-hire, that makes the town expensive.  No honour is lost by walking in the dark; and in the day, you may beckon a blackguard boy under a gate [to clean your shoes] near your visiting place (experto crede), save eleven pence, and get half a crown’s-worth of health ...

“I find by the whole cast of your letter, that you are as giddy and volatile as ever:  just the reverse of Mr. Pope, who has always loved a domestic life from his youth.  I was going to wish you had some little place that you could call your own, but, I profess I do not know you well enough to contrive any one system of life that would please you.  You pretend to preach up riding and walking to the Duchess, yet from my knowledge of you after twenty years, you always joined a violent desire of perpetually shifting places and company, with a rooted laziness, and an utter impatience of fatigue.  A coach and six horses is the utmost exercise you can bear; and this only when you can fill it with such company as is best suited to your taste, and how glad would you