Book-bot.com - read famous books online for free

Life And Letters Of John Gay (1685-1732) by Lewis Melville
page 95 of 221 (42%)
spleen against the Court."

* * * * *

Swift, unable effectively to vent his anger on Caroline, chose to regard
Mrs. Howard as the cause of the mortification of his friend. Mrs.
Howard, however, not only had nothing to do with the offer of the place
of Gentleman-Usher to Gay, the patronage being directly in the Queen's
hands, but, as has been indicated, was unable to secure for him, or
anyone else, a place at Court of any description. Certainly she was in
blissful ignorance of having given offence, for as Gay wrote to the Dean
so late as February 15th, 1728: "Mrs. Howard frequently asks after you
and desires her compliments to you."

All the matters affected not a whit the relations between Mrs. Howard
and Gay; against her he had no ill-feeling, and their correspondence
continued on the same lines of intimacy as before.


THE HON. MRS. HOWARD TO JOHN GAY.

October, 1727.

"I hear you expect, and have a mind to have, a letter from me, and
though I have little to say, I find I don't care that you should be
either disappointed or displeased. Tell her Grace of Queensberry I don't
think she looked kindly upon me when I saw her last; she ought to have
looked and thought very kindly, for I am much more her humble servant
than those who tell her so every day. Don't let her cheat you in the
pencils; she designs to give you nothing but her old ones. I suppose she
DigitalOcean Referral Badge