This was certainly ungrateful of Gay, but allowance may perhaps be made for him on the ground that he was, as Coxe has written, “of a sanguine disposition, was easily raised and as easily depressed.  He mistook the usual civilities of persons of distinction for offers of assistance, and argued from the common promises of a Court certain preferment.”  He accordingly always suffered from mortification, about which he was prone to discourse.  This was a foible well known to his friends, and even Pope could not refrain from gently chaffing him:  “I wish you joy of the birth of the young Prince,[5] because he is the only prince we have from whom you have had no expectations and no disappointments."[6]

DEAN SWIFT TO JOHN GAY.

  Dublin, January 8th, 1723.

“Although I care not to talk to you as a divine, yet I hope you have not been the author of your colic.  Do you drink bad wine or keep bad company?...  I am heartily sorry you have any dealings with that ugly distemper, and I believe our friend Arbuthnot will recommend you to temperance and exercise ...

“I am extremely glad he [Pope] is not in your case of needing great men’s favour, and could heartily wish that you were in his.

“I have been considering why poets have such ill success in making their court, since they are allowed to be the greatest and best of all flatterers.  The defect is, that they flatter only in print or in writing, but not by word of mouth; they will give things under their hand which they make a conscience of speaking.  Besides, they are too libertine to haunt antechambers, too poor to bribe porters and footmen, and too proud to cringe to second-hand favourites in a great family.

“Tell me, are you not under original sin by the dedication of your Eclogues to Lord Bolingbroke?

“I am an ill judge at this distance, and besides am, for my case, utterly ignorant of the commonest things that pass in the world; but if all Courts have a sameness in them (as the parsons phrase it), things may be as they were in my time, when all employments went to Parliament-men’s friends, who had been useful in elections, and there was always a huge list of names in arrears at the Treasury, which would at least take up your seven years’ expedient to discharge even one-half.

“I am of opinion, if you will not be offended, that the surest course would be to get your friend [Lord Burlington] who lodgeth in your house to recommend you to the next Chief Governor who comes over here, for a good civil employment, or to be one of his secretaries, which your Parliament-men are fond enough of, when there is no room at home.  The wine is good and reasonable; you may dine twice a week at the Deanery-house; there is a set of company in this town sufficient for one man; folks will admire you, because they have read you, and read of you; and a good employment will make you live tolerably in London, or sumptuously here; or, if you divide between both places, it will be for your health."[7]