“As to your advice about writing panegyric, it is what I have not frequently done.  I have indeed done it sometimes against my judgment and inclination, and I heartily repent of it.  And at present, as I have no desire of reward, and see no just reason of praise, I think I had better let it alone.  There are flatterers good enough to be found, and I would not interfere in any gentleman’s profession.  I have seen no verses on these sublime occasions, so that I have no emulation.  Let the patrons enjoy the authors, and the authors their patrons, for I know myself unworthy.”

JOHN GAY TO DEAN SWIFT.

  November 16th, 1732.

“I am at last come to London before the family, to follow my own inventions.  In a week or fortnight I expect the family will follow me.

“If my present project[7] succeeds, you may expect a better account of my own fortune a little while after the holidays; but I promise myself nothing, for I am determined that neither anybody else, nor myself shall disappoint me."[8]

* * * * *

Neither the production of “Achilles,” nor any other earthly project of Gay’s, took place, for, within a few weeks, on December 4th, after three days’ illness, he passed away in his forty-eighth year, at the Duke of Queensberry’s town house in Burlington Gardens.

On the following day, Arbuthnot, who attended him, imparted the sad tidings to Pope:  “Poor Mr. Gay died of an inflammation, and, I believe, at last a mortification of the bowels; it was the most precipitous case I ever knew, having cut him off in three days.  He was attended by two physicians besides myself.  I believed the distemper mortal from the beginning."[9] Pope, in his turn, immediately wrote to Swift, and his letter was found among Swift’s papers, bearing the following endorsement:  “On my dear friend Mr. Gay’s death.  Received December 15th, but not read till the 20th, by an impulse foreboding some misfortune.”

ALEXANDER POPE TO DEAN SWIFT.

  December 5th, 1732.

“It is not a time to complain that you have not answered me two letters (in the last of which I was impatient under some fears).  It is not now, indeed, a time to think of myself, when one of the longest and nearest ties I have ever had, is broken all on a sudden by the unexpected death of poor Mr. Gay.  An inflammatory fever burned him out of this life in three days.  He died last night at nine o’clock, not deprived of his senses entirely at last, and possessing them perfectly till within five hours.  He asked of you a few hours before, when in acute torment by the inflammation in his bowels and breast.  His effects are in the Duke of Queensberry’s custody.  His sisters, we suppose, will be his heirs, who are two widows; as yet it is not known whether or no he left a will ...