other reason; if they do not promote him, they will spoil the conclusion of one of my satires, where having endeavoured to correct the taste of the town in wit and criticism, I end thus,
But what avails to lay down rules for sense?
In George's reign these fruitless lines were writ,
When Ambrose Philips was preferred for wit!
Our friend Gay is used as the friends of tories are by whigs, and generally by tories too. Because he had humour, he was supposed to have dealt with Dr. Swift; in like manner as when any one had learning formerly, he was thought to have dealt with the devil. He puts his whole trust at court in that lady[1] whom I described to you, and whom you take to be an allegorical creature of fancy: I wish she really were riches for his sake; though as for yours, I question whether (if you knew her) you would change her for the other?
Lord Bolingbroke had not the least harm by his fall, I wish he had received no more by his other fall; lord Oxford had none by his. But lord Bolingbroke is the most improved mind since you saw him, that ever was improved without shifting into a new body, or being: paulo minus ab angelis[2]. I have often imagined to myself, that if ever all of us meet again, after so many varieties and changes; after so much of the old world and of the old man in each of us has been altered, that scarce a single thought of the one, any more than a single atom of the other, remains just the same; I have fancied, I say, that
- ↑ Mrs. Howard.
- ↑ A little lower than angels.
