advancement in the diplomatic service, Gay thought that he could not do
better than follow Pope's suggestion. Like the majority of men of
letters of his day, and not having the independence of spirit of Swift
and Pope, he hungered after a patron--a Minister might be good, but
Ministers go out of office, and a member of the reigning family would be
better. Remembering the kindly welcome given him at Hanover by the royal
lady who was now Princess of Wales, he had indulged in a dream that a
place would be offered him in her household. "Poor Gay is much where he
was, only out of the Duchess [of Monmouth]'s family and service,"
Arbuthnot wrote to Swift, October 19th, 1714. "He has some confidence in
the Princess and Countess of Picborough; I wish it may be significant to
him. I advised him to make a poem upon the Princess before she came
over, describing her to the English ladies; for it seems that the
Princess does not dislike that. (She is really a person that I believe
will give great content to everybody). But Gay was in such a grovelling
condition as to the affairs of this world, that his Muse would not stoop
to visit him."[13]

No proposal, however, being made to him, Gay, following the advice of
Pope and Arbuthnot, proceeded to remind the new Court of his existence,
and in November published "A Letter to a Lady, occasioned by the arrival
of Her Royal Highness "--the "Lady" being, it is generally assumed, Mrs.
Howard. In these verses he gave the assurance that he had desired the
elements to arrange for the Princess an agreeable passage to England:--

My strains with Carolina's name I grace.
The lovely parent of our royal race.
Breathe soft, ye winds, ye waves in silence sleep;
Let prosp'rous breezes wanton o'er the deep,
Swell the white sails, and with the streamers play,