The devotion of Gay's friends survived his death, and they vied with one another in paying tribute to his memory. "As to himself, he knew the world too well to regret leaving it; and the world in general knew him too little to value him as they ought,"[21] the Duchess of Queensberry wrote to Swift on February 21st, 1733; and, later, she addressed herself to Lady Suffolk from Amesbury, on September 28th, 1734: "I often want poor Mr. Gay, and on this occasion extremely. Nothing evaporates sooner than joy untold, or even told, unless to one so entirely in your interest as he was, who bore at least an equal share in every satisfaction or dissatisfaction which attended us. I am not in the spleen, though I write thus; on the contrary, it is a sort of pleasure to think over his good qualities: his loss was really great, but it is a satisfaction to have once known so good a man." Her affection endured until the end. Although she was then a very old woman, when "Polly" was produced at the Haymarket Theatre on June 19th, 1777, nothing would content her but she must be present. Within a few weeks, on the following July 17th, she passed away. Lord Bathurst, too, deplored the loss of Gay; he of whom the poet had written in "Mr. Pope's Welcome from Greece":-- Bathurst impetuous, hastens to the coast. Whom you and I strive who shall love the most. "Poor John Gay!" he wrote to Swift on March 29th, 1733. "We shall see him no more; but he will always be remembered by those who knew him, with a tender concern." Arbuthnot, who also had had tribute paid him in "Mr. Pope's Welcome from Greece":-- Arbuthnot there I see, in physic's art, As Galen learned or famed Hippocrate; Whose company drives sorrow from the heart As all disease his medicines dissipate. knew him well and loved him deeply. "We have all had another loss of our worthy and dear friend, Mr. Gay," he wrote to Swift on January 13th, 1733. "It was some alleviation of my grief to see him so universally lamented by almost everybody, even by those who knew him only by reputation. He was interred at Westminster Abbey, as if he had been a peer of the realm; and the good Duke of Queensberry, who lamented him as a brother, will set up a handsome monument upon him. These are little affronts put upon vice and injustice, and is all that remains in our power. I believe 'The Beggar's Opera,' and what he had to come upon the stage, will make the sum of the diversions of the town for some time to come."[22] By virtue of their fame, towering high above the rest of the select band of Gay's dearest friends, were Pope and Swift:-- Blest be the great! for those they take away, And those they left me; for they left me Gay,