Madam,

To the DUCHESS.

My beginning thus low is meant as a mark of respect, like receiving your Grace at the bottom of the stairs. I am glad you know your Duty; for it hath been a known and established rule above twenty years in England, that the first advances have been constantly made me by all Ladies who aspired to my acquaintance, and the greater their quality, the greater were their advances. Yet, I know not by what weakness I have condescended graciously to dispense with you upon this important article. Though Mr. Gay will tell you that a nameless person sent me eleven messages before I would yield to a visit: I mean a person to whom he is infinitely obliged, for being the occasion of the happiness he now enjoys under the protection and favour of my Lord Duke and your Grace. At the same time, I cannot forbear telling you, Madam, that you are a little imperious in your manner of making your advances. You say, perhaps you shall not like me; I affirm you are mistaken, which I can plainly demonstrate; for I have certain intelligence, that another person dislikes me of late, with whose likings yours have not for some time past gone together. However, if I shall once have the honour to attend your Grace, I will out of fear and prudence appear as vain as I can, that I may not know your thoughts of me. This is your own direction, but it was need

He means Queen Caroline; and her neglect of Gay, which recommended him to the Duchess of Queensbury.

less For Diogenes himself would be vain, to have received the honour of being one moment of his life in the thoughts of your Grace.

LETTER LII.

Dublin, April 13, 1730-1.

YOUR situation is an odd one; the Duchess is your Treasurer, and Mr. Pope tells me you are the Duke's. And I had gone a good way in some Verses on that occasion, prescribing lessons to direct your conduct, in a negative way, not to do so and so, etc. like other Treasurers; how to deal with Servants, Tenants, or neighbouring Squires, which I take to be Courtiers, Parliaments, and Princes in alliance, and so the parallel goes on, but grows too long to please me: I prove that Poets are the fittest persons to be treasurers and managers to great persons, from their virtue and contempt of money,

etc.

-Pray, why did you not get a new heel to your shoe? unless you would make your court at St. James's by affecting to imitate the Prince of Lilliput.But the rest of your letter being wholly taken up in a very bad character of the Duchess, I shall say no more to you, but apply myself to her Grace.

Madam, since Mr. Gay affirms that you love to have your own way, and since I have the same perfection; I will settle that matter immediately, to prevent those ill consequences he apprehends. Your

Grace shall have your own way, in all places except your own house, and the domains about it. There, and there only, I expect to have mine, so that you have all the world to reign in, bating only two or three hundred acres, and two or three houses in town and country. I will likewise, out of my special grace, certain knowledge, and mere motion, allow you to be in the right against all human kind, except myself, and to be never in the wrong but when you differ from me. You shall have a greater privilege in the third article of speaking your mind; which I shall graciously allow you now and then to do even to myself, and only rebuke you when it does not please me.

Madam, I am now got as far as your Grace's letter, which having not read this fortnight (having been out of town, and not daring to trust myself with the carriage of it), the presumptuous manner in which you begin had slipt out of my memory. But I forgive you to the seventeenth line, where you begin to banish me for ever, by demanding me to answer all the good Character some partial friends have given me. Madam, I have lived sixteen years in Ireland, with only an intermission of two summers in England; and consequently am fifty years older than I was at the Queen's death, and fifty thousand times duller, and fifty million times more peevish, perverse, and morose; so that under these disadvantages I can only pretend to excel all other acquaintance about some twenty barrs length. Pray, Madam, have you a clear voice? and will let me sit at your left hand at least within three of

your

you

you, for of two bad ears, my right is the best? My Groom tells me that he likes your park, but your house is too little. Can the Parson of the parish play at back-gammon, and hold his tongue? is any one of your women a good nurse, if I should fancy myself sick for four and twenty hours? how many days will you maintain me and my equipage? When these preliminaries are settled, I must be very poor, very sick, or dead, or to the last degree unfortunate, if I do not attend you at Aimsbury. For, I profess, you are the first Lady that ever I desired to see, since the first of August 17145, and I have forgot the date when that desire grew strong upon me, but I know I was not then in England, else I would have gone on foot for that happiness as far as to your house in Scotland. But I can soon recollect the time, by asking some Ladies here the month, the day, and the hour when I began to endure their company? which however I think was a sign of my ill judgment, for I do not perceive they mend in any thing but envying or admiring your Grace. I dislike nothing in your letter but an affected apology for bad writing, bad spelling, and a bad pen, which you pretend Mr. Gay found fault with; wherein front Mr. Gay, you affront me, and you affront yourself. False spelling is only excuseable in a Chamber-maid, for I would not pardon it in any of your Waiting-women.--Pray God preserve your Grace and family, and give me leave to expect that you

you af

'The day on which Queen Anne died, when all his hopes of more preferment were lost.

will be so just to remember me among those who have the greatest regard for virtue, goodness, prudence, courage, and generosity; after which you must conclude that I am, with the greatest respect and gratitude, Madam, your Grace's most obedient and most humble servant, etc.

To Mr. GAY.

I have just got yours of February 24, with a postscript by Mr. Pope. I am in great concern for him; I find Mr. Pope dictated to you the first part, and with great difficulty some days after added the rest. I see his weakness by his hand-writing. How much does his philosophy exceed mine? I could not bear to see him: I will write to him soon.

LETTER LIII.

Dublin, June 29, 1731.

EVER since I received your letter, I have been upon a balance about going to England, and landing at Bristol, to pass a month at Aimsbury, as the Duchess hath given me leave. But many difficulties have interfered; first I thought I had done with my law-suit, and so did all my lawyers: but my adversary, after being in appearance a Protestant these twenty years, hath declared he also was a Papist, and consequently by the law here, cannot buy nor (I think) sell; so that I am at sea again, for almost