this case he, with unusual energy, sat down to reply to his detractors.
"Mr. Addison and his friends had exclaimed so much against Gay's 'Three
Hours After Marriage' for obscenities, that it provoked him to write 'A
Letter from a Lady in the City to a Lady in the Country' on that
subject," so runs a passage in Spence's Anecdotes of Pope. "In it he
quoted the passages which had been most exclaimed against, and opposed
other passages to them from Addison's and Steele's plays. These were
aggravated in the same manner that they served his, and appeared worse.
Had it been published it would have made Addison appear ridiculous,
which he could bear as little as any man. I therefore prevailed upon
Gay not to print it, and have the manuscript now by me."[11] In Spence's
Anecdotes there is another passage bearing on the same matter: "A
fortnight before Addison's death, [12] Lord Warwick [13] came to Gay and
pressed him in a very particular manner 'to go and see Mr. Addison,'
which he had not done for a great while. Gay went, and found Addison in
a very weak way. He received him in the kindest manner and told him,
'that he had desired this visit to beg his pardon, that he had injured
him greatly, but that if he lived he should find that he would make it
up to him.' Gay, on his going to Hanover, had great reason to hope for
some good preferment; but all his views came to nothing. It is not
impossible but that Mr. Addison might prevent them, from his thinking
Gay too well with some of the great men of the former Ministry. He did
not at all explain himself, in which he had injured him, and Gay could
not guess at anything else in which he could have injured him so
considerably."[14] It seems, however, more probable that Addison really
had in mind the part he had taken in connection with "Three Hours After
Marriage." Two critical publications, "A Complete Key to 'Three Hours
After Marriage,'" and "A Letter to John Gay, Concerning his late Farce,
entitled a Comedy," annoyed Gay; while Pope, too, and, in a minor
degree, Arbuthnot, were attacked for their share in the farce. John