Government to write up, in _The Freeholder_, the Hanoverian succession and Whig policy, and he was rewarded shortly after by a lucrative appointment. His social ambition led him to marry the Dowager Countess of Warwick, a haughty virago, who treated him more like a lackey than a husband. Both Addison and the countess were often to be seen at Leicester House. Pope, who had just had his famous quarrel with Addison, often came to Leicester House, and was on friendly terms with Mrs. Howard and many of the maids of honour. He was probably brought before the notice of the Princess of Wales by Lady Mary Wortley Montagu before she left for Constantinople. He had already achieved fame by his _Rape of the Lock_ and his _Pastorals_, and he had published the first four books of his translation of the _Iliad_. He was a Roman Catholic, had entered upon his career as a Tory with a leaning to Jacobitism; his patrons had been Oxford, Harcourt and Bolingbroke, all fallen statesmen now. But these things made no difference to Caroline, who quickly recognised the poet’s genius, and with her genius stood before every other consideration. Gay, the poet, found his way here too, careless, good-humoured, popular with every one. He had first made Caroline’s acquaintance at Hanover, whither he went as secretary to Lord Clarendon on his special mission just before the death of Queen Anne. He wrote to Swift from there, speaking of himself as strutting in silver and blue through the clipped avenues of Herrenhausen, perfecting himself in the diplomatic arts “of bowing profoundly, speaking deliberately, and wearing both sides of my long periwig before”. He was a very necessitous poet, always in difficulties, and he hit upon a plan of making a little money, and at the same time winning the favour of the Court. He wrote a long poem to the Princess of Wales, in which he mingled her praises with his necessities. The only practical result of this effusion was that Caroline went to Drury Lane to honour the first performance of Gay’s next effort, which he described as a tragi-comi-pastoral-farce, “_What d’ye call it?_” a burlesque on the plays of the time; it was a failure, notwithstanding this distinguished patronage. Gay at this time was a far greater social success than a literary one, and the maids of honour especially delighted in his sunny, cheery presence.