e, a middling
help will make you just tolerable. Your lateness in life (as you so soon
call it) might be improper to begin the world with, but almost the
eldest men may hope to see changes in a Court. A Minister is always
seventy; you are thirty years younger; and consider, Cromwell did not
begin to appear till he was older than you."[18]

* * * * *

Swift could not forgive the Court for the offer, Mrs. Howard for not
exerting her influence to get a better post for her protege. "I desire
my humble service to Lord Oxford, Lord Bathurst, and particularly to
Miss Blount, but to no lady at Court. God bless you for being a greater
dupe than I. I love that character too myself, but I want your charity,"
he wrote to Pope, August 11th, 1729; but Pope replying on October 9th
said: "The Court lady[19] I have a good opinion of. Yet I have treated
her more negligently than you would do, because you will like to see the
inside of a Court, which I do not ... after all, that lady means to do
good and does no harm, which is a vast deal for a courtier."

* * * * *

More than once Swift took up his pen to avenge his friend for the slight
that he considered had been passed upon him. In "A Libel on the Rev. Mr.
Delany and His Excellency Lord Cartaret," he wrote in 1729:--

Thus Gay, the hare with many friends.
Twice seven long years the Court attends;
Who, under tales conveying truth,
To virtue form'd a princely youth;
Who paid his courtship with the crowd,
As far as modest pride allow'd;
Rejects a servile usher's place,
And leaves St. James's in disgrace.

Two years later he returned to the attack in "An Epistle to Mr. Gay ":--

How could you, Gay, disgrace the Muse's train,
To serve a tasteless Court twelve years in vain!
Fain would I think our female friend sincere,
Till Bob,[20] the poet's foe, possess'd her ear.
Did female virtue e'er so high ascend,
To lose an inch of favour for a friend?
Say, had the Court no better place to choose
For thee, than make a dry-nurse of thy Muse?
How cheaply had thy liberty been sold,
To squire a royal girl of two years old:
In leading strings her infant steps to guide,
Or with her go-cart amble side by side!

It is a little difficult at this time of day to understand Swift's
indignation. Gay was already in the enjoyment of a sinecure of L150 a
year; he was offered another of L200 a year-