. You may
then cause it to be borne in the hands of both sexes, no less in Britain
than it is in China, where it is ordinary for a mandarin to fan himself
cool after a debate, and a statesman to hide his face with it when he
tells a grave lie."[3] Again, on October 23rd, Pope wrote: "I shall go
into the country about a month hence, and shall then desire to take
along with me your poem of 'The Fan.'" The most ambitious as yet of
Gay's writings, there are few to-day, however, who will question the
judgment of Mr. Austin Dobson, "one of his least successful efforts,
and, though touched by Pope, now unreadable."

Gay had thus early a leaning to the theatre, where presently he was to
score one of his greatest successes, and he wrote "The Wife of Bath,"
which was produced at Drury Lane on May 12th, 1713. Steele gave it a
"puff preliminary" in No. 50 of the _Guardian_ (May 8th).

Gay was now become known as a man of letters, and had made many friends.
Johnson says: "Gay was the general favourite of the whole association of
wits; but they regarded him as a playfellow rather than as a partner,
and treated him with more fondness than respect."[4] There is some truth
in this view, but of the affection he inspired there is no doubt. To
know him was to love him. Wherein exactly lay his charm it is not easy
now to say; but his gentle good-nature and his utter helplessness seems
to have appealed to those of sterner mould. The extracts already given
from Pope's correspondence show the affection with which he was inspired
for his brother of the pen. Pope took him so completely under his
massive wing that he remarked later, "they would call him one of my
_eleves_."[5] Pope accepted the position, and introduced him to his
circle. He made him known to Swift, and that great man loved him as he
loved no other man; and to Parnell, Arbuthnot, Ford--the "joyous Ford"
of "Mr. Pope's Welcome from Greece"--and Bolingbroke, in all of whom he
inspired an affection, which endured through life. Parnell and Pope
wrote jointly to him, and while in 1714 Pope was still addressing him as
"Dear Mr. Gay," Parnell had already thrown aside all formality and
greeted him as "Dear Gay." His old schoolfellow, William Fortescue,
cleaved to him, and they were in such constant communication that when
Pope wanted to see Fortescue, it was to Gay he appealed to arrange a
meeting. The terms on which Gay was with the set is shown in Pope's
letter to him, written from Bin