Channel, possibly for the second time with the Pulteneys, but the only
record of this trip is to be found in the following letter:--


JOHN GAY TO THE HON. MRS. HOWARD.

Dijon, September 8th, 1719.

"If it be absolutely necessary that I make an apology for my not
writing, I must give you an account of very bad physicians, and a fever
which I had at Spa, that confined me for a month; but I do not see that
I need make the least excuse, or that I can find any reason for writing
to you at all; for can you believe that I would wish to converse with
you if it were not for the pleasure to hear you talk again? Then why
should I write to you when there is no possibility of receiving an
answer? I have been looking everywhere since I came into France to find
out some object that might take you from my thoughts, that my journey
might seem less tedious; but since nothing could ever do it in England I
can much less expect it in France.

"I am rambling from place to place. In about a month I hope to be at
Paris, and in the next month to be in England, and the next minute to
see you. I am now at Dijon in Burgundy, where last night, at an
ordinary, I was surprised by a question from an English gentleman whom I
had never seen before; hearing my name, he asked me if I had any
relation or acquaintance with _myself_, and when I told him I knew no
such person, he assured me that he was an intimate acquaintance of Mr.
Gay's of London. There was a Scotch gentleman, who all supper time was
teaching some French gentlemen the force and propriety of the English
language; and, what is seen very commonly, a young English gentleman