As far as modest pride allow'd;
Rejects a servile usher's place,
And leaves St. James's in disgrace.

Two years later he returned to the attack in "An Epistle to Mr. Gay ":--

How could you, Gay, disgrace the Muse's train,
To serve a tasteless Court twelve years in vain!
Fain would I think our female friend sincere,
Till Bob,[20] the poet's foe, possess'd her ear.
Did female virtue e'er so high ascend,
To lose an inch of favour for a friend?
Say, had the Court no better place to choose
For thee, than make a dry-nurse of thy Muse?
How cheaply had thy liberty been sold,
To squire a royal girl of two years old:
In leading strings her infant steps to guide,
Or with her go-cart amble side by side!

It is a little difficult at this time of day to understand Swift's
indignation. Gay was already in the enjoyment of a sinecure of £150 a
year; he was offered another of £200 a year--for the post of
Gentleman-Usher involved no duties save occasional attendance at Court,
and to this the poet had shown himself by no means averse. A total gift
of £350 a year for nothing really seems rather alluring to a man of
letters, and it is difficult to understand why Gay refused the offer,
unless it was, as the editors of the standard edition of Pope's
Correspondence suggest: "The affluent friends who recommended Gay to
reject the provisions were strangers to want, and with unconscious
selfishness they thought less of his necessities than of venturing their