amanuensis, which you know is no idle charge. I have read about half Virgil, and half Spenser's Fairy Queen. I still despise court preferments, so that I lose no time upon attendance on great men; and still can find amusement enough without quadrille, which here is the universal employment of life.
I thought you would be glad to hear from me, so that I determined not to stir out of my lodgings till I had answered your letter: and I think I shall very probably hear more of the matter which I mention in the first paragraph of this letter as soon as I go abroad; for I expect it every day. We have no news as yet of Mr. Stopford[1]: Mr. Rollinson told me he shall know of his arrival, and will send me word. Lord Bolingbroke has been to make a visit to sir William Wyndham. I hear he is returned, but I have not seen him. If I had been in a better state of health, and Mrs. Howard[2] were not to come to town to morrow, I would have gone to Mr. Pope's to day, to have dined with him there on Monday.
You ask me how to address to lord B, when you are disposed to write to him. If you mean lord Burlington, he is not yet returned from France, but is expected every day. If you mean lord Bathurst, he is in Gloucestershire, and makes but a very short stay; so that if you direct to one of them in St. James's Square, or to the other at Burlington-house in Piccadilly, your letter will find
- ↑ Dr. James Stopford, fellow of Trinity college, Dublin; and advanced to the bishoprick of Cloyne, in February, 1753.
- ↑ Afterward countess of Suffolk, from whom Gay at this time had expectations.
