y plethoric, and
only occasionally diverting in his latter days. But everybody loved him,
and the remembrance of his pretty little tricks; and the raging old Dean
of St. Patrick's, chafing in his banishment, was afraid to open the letter
which Pope wrote him, announcing the sad news of the death of Gay.(119)

Swift's letters to him are beautiful; and having no purpose but kindness
in writing to him, no party aim to advocate, or slight or anger to wreak,
every word the Dean says to his favourite is natural, trustworthy, and
kindly. His admiration for Gay's parts and honesty, and his laughter at
his weaknesses, were alike just and genuine. He paints his character in
wonderful pleasant traits of jocular satire. "I writ lately to Mr. Pope,"
Swift says, writing to Gay; "I wish you had a little villakin in his
neighbourhood; but you are yet too volatile, and any lady with a coach and
six horses would carry you to Japan." "If your ramble," says Swift, in
another letter, "was on horseback, I am glad of it, on account of your
health; but I know your arts of patching up a journey between
stage-coaches and friends" coaches--for you are as arrant a Cockney as any
hosier in Cheapside. I have often had it in my head to put it into yours,
that you ought to have some great work in scheme, which may take up seven
years to finish, besides two or three under-ones that may add another
thousand pounds to your stock, and then I shall be in less pain about you.
I know you can find dinners, but you love twelvepenny coaches too well,
without considering that the interest of a whole thousand pounds brings
you but half a crown a day:' and then Swift goes off from Gay to pay some
grand compliments to her Grace the Duchess of Queensberry, in whose
sunshine Mr. Gay was basking, and in whose radiance the Dean would have
liked to warm himself too.

But we have Gay here before us, in these letters--lazy, kindly, uncommonly
idle; rather slovenly, I'm afraid; for ever eating and saying good things;
a little, round, French abbe of a man, sleek, soft-handed, and
soft-hearted.

Our object in these lectures is rather to describe the men than their
works; or to deal with the latter only in as far as they seem to
illustrate the character of their writers. Mr. Gay's _Fables_, which were
written to benefit that amiable prince, the Duke of Cumberland, the
warrior of Dettingen and Culloden, I have not, I own, been able to peruse
since a period of very early yout