gether. If, as I believe, the Air of a better Clime, as the fouthern Part of France, may be thought useful for your Recovery, thither I would go with you infallibly; and it is very probable we might get the Dean with us, who is in that abandoned State already which I shall shortly be, as to other Cares and Duties. Dear Gay be as chearful as your Suff'rings will permit: God is a better Friend than a Court: Even any honest Man is better. I promise you my entire Friendship in all Events, heartily praying for your Recovery.

Your, &c.

P. S. Do not write, if you are ever so able: The Doctor tells me all.

This was not an unexpected Turn to Mr. Pope, who knew the Uncertainty, Inftability, and strange quick Turns of Courts, neither should Mr. Gay have taken it so much to Heart, feeing he had been promised and disappointed so many Times. When he was in France, a young Prince was born here, and Mr. Pope thereon writes to him, Nov. 8, 1718. The Poftcript is a Proof of our Affertion.

I

Have no Story to tell you worth your Hearing; you know I am no Man of Intrigue; but the Dutchefs of Hamilton has one which the fays is worth my Hearing, that relates to Mr. Pulteney and yourfelf; and which she promises, if you won't tell me, fhe will, Her Grace has won in a Raffle a very fine Tweezer-cafe; at the Sight of which, my Tweezercafe, and all other Tweezer-cafes on the Globe bide their diminish'd Heads.

That Dutchefs, Lord Warwick, Lord Stanhope, Mrs. Bellenden, Mrs. Lepell, and I can't tell who elfe, had your Letters: Dr. Arbuthnot and I expect

VOL. II.

I

to be treated like Friends. I would fend my Service to Mr. Pulteney, but that he is out of Favour at Court, and make fome Compliment to Mrs. Pulteney, if the is a Whig. My Lord Burlington tells me she has as much outfhin'd all the French Ladies, as fhe did the English before: I am forry for it, because it will be detrimental to our holy Religion, if heretical Women should eclipfe thofe Nuns and orthodox Beauties, in whofe Eyes alone lie all the Hopes we can have, of gaining fuch fine Gentlemen as you to our Church.

Your, &c.

P. S. I wish you Joy of the Birth of the young Prince, because he is the only Prince we have, from whom you have had no Expectations and no Difappointments.

In this Letter, we obferve Mrs. P-l--t-n-y mentioned with Respect and Efteem, but she altering her Carriage, and becoming fuperfelious as fhe grew great, and prodigious haughty, though only a Glafs-man's Daughter, was left to her own dear Vanity and Ambition, by Mr. Gay and Mr. Pope too, though not without a Memorandum :

With scornful Mien, and various Tofs of Air,
Fantastick, vain, and infolently fair;
Grandeur intoxicates her giddy Brain,
She looks Ambition, and fhe moves Difdain.
Far other Carriage grac'd her Virgin Life,
But charming Gumley's loft in P-lt-y's Wife:
Not greater Arrogance in him we find,
And this Conjunction fwells at last her Mind.
O could the Sire, renown'd in Glafs, produce
One faithful Mirrour for his Daughter's Ufe,

Wherein

Wherein fhe might her haughty Errors trace,
And by Reflection learn to mend her Face;
The wonted Sweetness to her Form reftore,
Be what she was, and charm Mankind once more.

Now we must speak no more of Mr. Gay at Court, nor in Favour with any that ow'd any Dependance to it: Yet was he not left without Friends; the Duke and Dutchefs of Queensberry took him to their kind and noble Protection, and he was encourag'd as well by the great Reputation, as well as Profit he had receiv'd from the Beggars Opera, to write a Sequel to it. The Beggars Opera had indeed met with incredible Succefs, much of which was owing to the Squibs that were thrown at the Court, and many of which, of right appertain❜d to Mr. Pope. The Song of Peeachum, the Thief-catcher, was offer'd to the Publick, as follows:

Τ

HRO' all the Employments of Life
Each Neighbour abuses his Brother,
Whore and Rogue they call Husband and Wife,
All Profeffions be-rogue one another.
The Prieft calls the Lawyer a Cheat,
The Lawyer be-knaves the Divine,
And the Statesman because he's fo great,
Thinks his Trade as honeft as mine.

This, before it was alter'd by Mr. Pope, was not fo sharp, the two laft Lines only faying:

And there's many arrive to be Great,

By a Trade not more honeft than mine.

And the Song of Mackeath after his being taken,

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SINCE

INCE Laws were made for every Degree,

SIN

I wonder we han't better Company
Upon Tyburn Tree, &c.

Was wholly added by Mr. Pope, after Mr. Gay had . given it the finishing Hand, as was moft of the fatirical Part upon the Court, and the Courtiers, which makes a very confiderable Part of the Opera.

a

Mr. Pope encourag'd Mr. Gay to write the Sequel, and to write it still more fevere against the Court, which Counsel, though not the best, he took, and being patroniz❜d as he was, feem'd to be alfo without Fear or Apprehension of meeting with a Repulse from Power.

The Sequel was finifh'd, and nam'd after the favourite Character in the Beggars Opera, POLLY; in which Opera, we are fully perfuaded, are as many Lines of Mr. Pope's as Mr. Gay's: It was given into the Hands of Mr. Rich, who had conceiv'd Hopes of great Gain from it, which muft unavoidably have enfued; but Mr. Gay, to his no fmall Surprize, receiv'd Notice from my Lord Chamberlain, to bring to him the Opera, for his Perufal, which was accordingly done, and when, after fome Time, he was waited on for it to be return'd to the Houfe, he told Mr. Gay, that for feveral Reasons, he did not think proper for it to be acted, and accordingly prohibited it Nothing was left now but to publish it, and firft, to soften here and there an Expreffion, to cause the lefs Reafon to appear for its being fupprefs'd.

It wanted the natural Turn of the Beggars Opera, and feems upon the Whole, to mean little more than a fresh Satire, levell'd at the fame Place as the Beggars Opera was. Those who had taken Mr. Gay

into Protection, ftill upheld him, yet he could not bear this (to him) fo very great a Difappointment, and on this Subject, not long after, he writes to Mr. Pope, who was fo deeply concern'd at it, that he (being ill before) was made so much worse as to keep his Chamber many Weeks. Mr. Gay's Letter was thus:

Dear Mr. Pope,

MY

my Di

me.

Y Melancholy increafes, and every Hour threatens me with fome Return of ftemper; nay, I think I may rather fay I have it on Not the divine Looks, the kind Favours and Expreffions of the divine Dutchefs, who hereafter fhall be in Place of a Queen to me, (nay, fhe fhall be my Queen) nor the inexpreffible Goodness of the Duke, can in the least chear me. The DrawingRoom no more receives Light from those two Stars. There is now what Milton fays is in Hell, Darkness vifible. O that I had never known what a Court was! Dear Pope, what a barren Soil (to me fo). have I been ftriving to produce fomething out of! Why did I not take your Advice before my writing Fables for the Duke, not to write them? Or rather, to write them for some young Nobleman? It is my very hard Fate, I must get nothing, write for them or against them. I find myself in such a strange Confufion and Depreffion of Spirits, that I have not Strength even to make my Will; though I perceive, by many Warnings, I have no continuing City here. I begin to look upon myself as one already dead; and defire, my dear Mr. Pope, (whom I love as my own Soul) if you furvive me, (as you certainly will) that you will, if a Stone should mark the Place of my Grave, see these Words put on it:

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Life