ot stand by me. If nothing is to be done, _fiat voluntas Dei_. I
have writ to Lord Treasurer upon this subject, and having implored
your kind intercession, I promise you it is the last remonstrance of
this kind that I will ever make. Adieu, my lord; all honour, health,
and pleasure to you.

"Yours ever,

"MATT."

"PS.--Lady Jersey is just gone from me. We drank your healths
together in usquebaugh after our tea: we are the greatest friends
alive. Once more adieu. There is no such thing as the _Book of
Travels_ you mentioned; if there be, let friend Tilson send us more
particular account of them, for neither I nor Jacob Tonson can find
them. Pray send Barton back to me, I hope with some comfortable
tidings."--_Bolingbroke's Letters._

113 "I asked whether Prior's poems were to be printed entire; Johnson
said they were. I mentioned Lord Hales's censure of Prior in his
preface to a collection of sacred poems, by various hands, published
by him at Edinburgh a great many years ago, where he mentions 'these
impure tales, which will be the eternal opprobium of their ingenious
author'. JOHNSON: 'Sir, Lord Hales has forgot. There is nothing in
Prior that will excite to lewdness. If Lord Hales thinks there is,
he must be more combustible than other people.' I instanced the tale
of _Paulo Purganti and his Wife_. JOHNSON: 'Sir, there is nothing
there but that his wife wanted to be kissed, when poor Paulo was out
of pocket. No, sir, Prior is a lady's book. No lady is ashamed to
have it standing in her library.' "--BOSWELL'S _Life of Johnson_.

114 Gay was of an old Devonshire family, but his pecuniary prospects not
being great, was placed in his youth in the house of a silk-mercer
in London. He was born in 1688--Pope's year, and in 1712 the Duchess
of Monmouth made him her secretary. Next year he published his
_Rural Sports_, which he dedicated to Pope, and so made an
acquaintance, which became a memorable friendship.

"Gay," says Pope, "was quite a natural man,--wholly without art or
design, and spoke just what he thought and as he thought it. He
dangled for twenty years about a Court, and at last was offered to
be made usher to the young princess. Secretary Craggs made Gay a
present of stock in the South-Sea year; and he w