e cry was loudest I thought that if the
thing had been written by another I should have deemed the town in some
measure mistaken; and, as to your apprehension that this may do us
future injury, do not think it; the Doctor [Arbuthnot] has a more
valuable name than can be hurt by anything of this nature, and yours is
doubly safe. I will, if any shame there be, take it all to myself, as
indeed I ought, the notion being first mine, and never heartily approved
of by you.... I beg of you not to suffer this, or anything else, to hurt
your health. As I have publicly said that I was assisted by two friends,
I shall still continue in the same story, professing obstinate silence
about Dr. Arbuthnot and yourself."[10]

The publication in book form of "Three Hours After Marriage" by Lintott,
who paid L16 2s. 6d. for the copyright, a few days after the production,
did nothing to arrest the torrent of abuse. "Gay's play, among the rest,
has cost much time and long suffering to stem a tide of malice and
party, that certain authors have raised against it," Pope wrote to
Parnell. Amongst those foremost among the attackers was Addison, who
perhaps had not forgotten or forgiven the parody of some of the lines in
his play "Cato," which was introduced by Gay in "The What D'ye Call It."
Gay, the most easy-going of men, was always stirred by criticism, and in
this case he, with unusual energy, sat down to reply to his detractors.
"Mr. Addison and his friends had exclaimed so much against Gay's 'Three
Hours After Marriage' for obscenities, that it provoked him to write 'A
Letter from a Lady in the City to a Lady in the Country' on that
subject," so runs a passage in Spence's Anecdotes of Pope. "In it he
quoted the passages which had been most exclaimed against, and opposed
other passages to them from Addison's and Steele's plays. These were
aggravated in the same manner that they served his, and appeared worse.
Had it been published it would have made Addison appear ridiculous,
which he could bear as little as any man. I therefore prevailed upon
Gay not to print it, and have the manuscript now by me."[11] In Spence's
Anecdotes there is another passage bearing on the same matter: "A
fortnight before Addison's death, [12] Lord Warwick [13] came to Gay and
pressed him in a very particular manner 'to go and see Mr. Addison,'
which he had not done for a great while. Gay went, and found Addison in
a very weak way. He received him in the kindest manner