During 1713 Gay wrote such trifles as papers on "Reproof and Flattery,"
and "Dress," which were printed in the _Guardian_ on March 24th and
September 21st respectively; and some verses, "Panthea," "Araminta," "A
Thought on Eternity," and "A Contemplation on Night," which appeared in
Steele's "Poetical Miscellany." A more ambitious work was "The Fan,"
which had occupied him during the earlier part of the year. He was
greatly interested in its composition, and corresponded with Pope while
it was being written. "I am very much recreated and refreshed with the
news of the advancement of 'The Fan,' which I doubt not will delight the
eye and sense of the fair, as long as that agreeable machine shall play
in the hands of posterity," Pope wrote to him, August 23rd, 1713: "I am
glad your Fan is mounted so soon, but I would have you varnish and glaze
it at your leisure, and polish the sticks as much as you can. You may
then cause it to be borne in the hands of both sexes, no less in Britain
than it is in China, where it is ordinary for a mandarin to fan himself
cool after a debate, and a statesman to hide his face with it when he
tells a grave lie."[3] Again, on October 23rd, Pope wrote: "I shall go
into the country about a month hence, and shall then desire to take
along with me your poem of 'The Fan.'" The most ambitious as yet of
Gay's writings, there are few to-day, however, who will question the
judgment of Mr. Austin Dobson, "one of his least successful efforts,
and, though touched by Pope, now unreadable."

Gay had thus early a leaning to the theatre, where presently he was to
score one of his greatest successes, and he wrote "The Wife of Bath,"
which was produced at Drury Lane on May 12th, 1713. Steele gave it a
"puff preliminary" in No. 50 of the _Guardian_ (May 8th).

Gay was now become known as a man of letters, and had made many friends.
Johnson says: "Gay was the general favourite of the whole association of