Swift and Pope still cherished the
belief that the wit of Atterbury and his allies had triumphed over the
ponderous learning of the pedant. Arbuthnot, whom Swift had introduced
to Pope as a man who could do everything but walk, was an amiable and
accomplished physician. He was a strong Tory and high churchman, and
retired for a time to France upon the death of Anne and the overthrow of
his party. He returned, however, to England, resumed his practice, and
won Pope's warmest gratitude by his skill and care. He was a man of
learning, and had employed it in an attack upon Woodward's geological
speculations, as already savouring of heterodoxy. He possessed also a
vein of genuine humour, resembling that of Swift, though it has rather
lost its savour, perhaps, because it was not salted by the Dean's
misanthropic bitterness. If his good humour weakened his wit, it gained
him the affections of his friends, and was never soured by the
sufferings of his later years. Finally, John Gay, though fat, lazy, and
wanting in manliness of spirit, had an illimitable flow of good-tempered
banter; and if he could not supply the learning of Arbuthnot, he could
give what was more valuable, touches of fresh natural simplicity, which
still explain the liking of his friends. Gay, as Johnson says, was the
general favourite of the wits, though a playfellow rather than a
partner, and treated with more fondness than respect. Pope seems to have
loved him better than any one, and was probably soothed by his
easy-going, unsuspicious temper. They were of the same age; and Gay, who
had been apprenticed to a linendraper, managed to gain notice by his
poetical talents, and was taken up by various great people. Pope said of
him that he wanted independence of spirit, which is indeed obvious
enough. He would have been a fitting inmate of Thomson's Castle of
Indolence. He was one of those people who consider that Providence is
bound to put food into their mouths without giving them any trouble;
and, as sometimes happens, his draft upon the general system of things
was honoured. He was made comfortable by various patrons; the Duchess of
Queensberry petted him in his later years, and the duke kept his money
for him. His friends chose to make a grievance of the neglect of
Government to add to his comfort by a good place; they encouraged him to
refuse the only place offered as not sufficiently dignified; and he even
became something of a martyr when his _Polly_, a se