joy and surprise, I received a letter from Carlingford in Ireland, which informed us, that, after many perils, you were safely landed there. Had the oysters been good, it would have been a comfortable refreshment after your fatigue. We compassionated you in your travels through that country of desolation and poverty in your way to Dublin; for it is a most dreadful circumstance, to have lazy dull horses on a road where there are very bad or no inns. When you carry a sample of English apples next to Ireland, I beg you would get them either from Goodrich or Devonshire. Pray who was the clergyman that met you at some distance from Dublin? because we could not learn his name. These are all the hints we could get of your long and dangerous journey, every step of which we shared your anxieties and all that we have now left to comfort us, is to hear that you are in good health.
But why should we tell you what you know already? The queen's[1] family is at last settled, and in the list I was appointed gentleman usher to the princess Louisa, the youngest princess; which, upon account that I am so far advanced in life, I have declined accepting[2]; and I have endeavoured, in the best manner I could, to make my excuses by a letter to her majesty. So now all my expectations are vanished; and I have no prospect, but in depending wholly upon myself, and my own conduct. As I am used to disappointments, I can bear them; but as I can have no more hopes, I can no more be dis-
- ↑ Queen Caroline, consort of king George II.
- ↑ This appointment was treated by all the friends of Gay, as a great indignity; and he is said to have felt the disappointment very severely and was too much dejected on the occasion.
