r
engaged) your company would be the greatest pleasure to us in the
world. Talk not of expenses: Homer shall support his children. I beg
a line from you, directed to the Post-house in Bath. Poor Parnell is
in an ill state of health.

"Pardon me if I add a word of advice in the poetical way. Write
something on the King, or Prince, or Princess. On whatsoever foot
you may be with the court, this can do no harm. I shall never know
where to end, and am confounded in the many things I have to say to
you, though they all amount but to this, that I am, entirely, as
ever,

"Your," &c.

Gay took the advice "in the poetical way", and published _An Epistle
to a Lady, occasioned by the arrival of her Royal Highness the
Princess of Wales_. But, though this brought him access to Court,
and the attendance of the Prince and Princess at his farce of the
_What d'ye, call it?_ it did not bring him a place. On the accession
of George II, he was offered the situation of Gentleman Usher to the
Princess Louisa (her Highness being then two years old); but "by
this offer", says Johnson, "he thought himself insulted."

118 Gay was a great eater.--As the French philosopher used to prove his
existence by _cogito, ergo sum_, the greatest proof of Gay's
existence is, _edit, ergo est_--CONGREVE, _in a Letter to Pope_
(_Spence's Anecdotes_).

119 Swift indorsed the letter--"On my dear friend Mr. Gay's death;
received Dec. 15, but not read till the 20th, by an impulse
foreboding some misfortune."

"It was by Swift's interest that Gay was made known to Lord
Bolingbroke, and obtained his patronage."--SCOTT'S _Swift_, vol. i,
p. 156.

Pope wrote on the occasion of Gay's death, to Swift, thus:--

"[Dec. 5, 1732.]

"One of the dearest and longest ties I have ever had is broken all
on a sudden by the unfortunate death of poor Mr. Gay. An
inflammatory fever carried him out of this life in three days.... He
asked of you a few hours before when in acute torment by the
inflammation in his bowels and breast.... His sisters, we suppose,
will be his heirs, who are two widows.... Good God! how often are we
to die before we go quite off this stage? In every friend we lose a
part of ourselves, and the best part. God keep those we have l