temper, nay, I think I may rather say I have it on me. Not the
divine looks, the kind favours, and the expressions of the divine
Duchess, who, hereafter, shall be in the place of a queen to me--nay,
she shall be my queen--nor the inexpressible goodness of the Duke, can
in the least cheer me. The Drawing-room no more receives light from
those two stars. There is now what Milton says is in hell--darkness
visible. Oh, that I had never known what a Court was! Dear Pope, what a
barren soil (to me so) have I been striving to produce something out of.
Why did I not take your advice before my writing Fables for the Duke,
not to write them! It is my very hard fate I must get nothing, write for
them or against them. I find myself in such a strange confusion and
depression of spirits that I have not strength enough even to make my
will, though I perceive by many warnings I have no continuing city here.
I begin to look upon myself as one already dead, and desire, my dear Mr.
Pope, whom I love as my own soul, if you survive me, as you certainly
will, that you will, if a stone should mark the place of my grave, see
these words put upon it:--

Life is a jest, and all things show it,
I thought so once, but now I know it,

with what more you may think proper. If anyone should ask how I could
communicate this after death, let it be known, it is not meant so, but
my present sentiment in life. What the bearer brings besides this
letter, should I die without a will, which I am the likelier to do, as
the law will settle my small estate much as I should do so myself, let
it remain with you, as it has long done with me, the remembrance of a
dead friend; but there is none like you, living or dead."

Both Swift and Pope remained faithful to Gay, and in their
correspondence there are many allusions to him. "Mr. Gay," wrote Swift
to Pope, "is a scandal to all lusty young fellows with healthy
countenances; and, I think, he is not intemperate in a physical sense. I
am told he has an asthma, which is a disease I commiserate more than
deafness, because it will not leave a man quiet either sleeping or
waking."[1]

JOHN GAY TO DEAN SWIFT.

From the Duke of Queensberry's,
Burlington Gardens.
March 18th, 1729.

"I am but just recovered from the severest fit of sickness that ever
anybody had who escaped death. I was several times given up by the
physicians, and everybody that attended me; and upon my recovery was
judged to be in so ill