power, he is then at best but in a circumstance to be hated, and in a condition to be hanged for serving their ends. So many a Minister has found it." "I can only add a plain uncourtly speech," Pope wrote again to Gay ten days later. "While you are nobody's servant you may be anybody's friend, and, as such, I embrace you in all conditions of life. While I have a shilling you shall have sixpence, nay, eightpence, if I can contrive to live upon a groat." But if Pope took the matter calmly, Swift, on the other hand, completely lost his temper and wrote as if voluntary attendance at Court made it obligatory upon the Queen to provide for the courtier. DEAN SWIFT TO JOHN GAY. Dublin, November 27th, 1727. "I entirely approve your refusal of that employment, and your writing to the Queen. I am perfectly confident you have a firm enemy in the Ministry. God forgive him, but not till he puts himself in a state to be forgiven. Upon reasoning with myself, I should hope they are gone too far to discard you quite, and that they will give you something; which, although much less than they ought, will be (as far as it is worth) better circumstantiated; and since you already just live, a middling help will make you just tolerable. Your lateness in life (as you so soon call it) might be improper to begin the world with, but almost the eldest men may hope to see changes in a Court. A Minister is always seventy; you are thirty years younger; and consider, Cromwell did not begin to appear till he was older than you."[18] * * * * * Swift could not forgive the Court for the offer, Mrs. Howard for not exerting her influence to get a better post for her protégé. "I desire my humble service to Lord Oxford, Lord Bathurst, and particularly to Miss Blount, but to no lady at Court. God bless you for being a greater dupe than I. I love that character too myself, but I want your charity," he wrote to Pope, August 11th, 1729; but Pope replying on October 9th said: "The Court lady[19] I have a good opinion of. Yet I have treated her more negligently than you would do, because you will like to see the inside of a Court, which I do not ... after all, that lady means to do good and does no harm, which is a vast deal for a courtier." * * * * * More than once Swift took up his pen to avenge his friend for the slight that he considered had been passed upon him. In "A Libel on the Rev. Mr. Delany and His Excellency Lord Cartaret," he wrote in 1729:-- Thus Gay, the hare with many friends. Twice seven long years the Court attends; Who, under tales conveying truth, To virtue form'd a princely youth; Who paid his courtship with the crowd, As far as modest pride allow'd; Rejects a servile usher's place, And leaves St. James's in disgrace. Two years later he returned to the attack in "An Epistle to Mr. Gay ":--