preserved alive with as much care as the partridges, which no one
yet has had the heart to kill, though several barbarous attempts have
been made. If I could write I would for ever, but my pen is so much your
friend that it will only let me tell you that I am extremely so.

"I pray it may not be difficult for my dear Mrs. Howard to forgive, as
to read this provocation. By the next I hope to write plain."

C.Q.

ALEXANDER POPE TO JOHN GAY.

October, 1730.

"I continue, and ever shall, to wish you all good and happiness. I wish
that some lucky event might set you in a state of ease and independency
all at once, and that I might live to see you as happy as this silly
world and fortune can make anyone. Are we never to live together more as
once we did?"

THE HON. MRS. HOWARD TO JOHN GAY.

October 3rd, 1730.

"I hear you have had a house full of courtiers, and, what is more
extraordinary, they were honest people; but I will take care, agreeably
to your desire, that you shall not increase the number. I wish I could
as easily gratify you in your other request about a certain person [the
Duchess of Queensberry]'s health; but, indeed, John, that is not in my
power. I have often thought it proceeds from thinking better of herself
than she does of anybody else; for she has always confidence to inquire
after those she calls friends, and enough assurance to give them
advice; at the same time, she will not answer a civil question about
herself, and would certainly never follow any advice that was given her:
you plainly see she neither thinks well of their heart or their head. I
believe I have told you as much before; but a settled opinion of
anything will naturally lead one into the same manner of expressing
one's thoughts."

DEAN SWIFT TO JOHN GAY.

Dublin, November 10th, 1730.

"I hope you have now one advantage that you always wanted before, and
the want of which made your friends as uneasy as it did yourself; I mean
the removal of that solicitude about your own affairs, which perpetually
filled your thoughts and disturbed your conversation. For if it be true,
what Mr. Pope seriously tells me, you will have opportunity of saving
every groat of the interest you receive; and so, by the time you and he
grow weary of each other, you will be able to pass the rest of your
wineless life in ease and plenty; with the additional triumphal comfort
of never having received a penny from those tasteless, ungrateful pe