Neither good nor bad, nor fool nor wise, They would not learn nor could advise; Without love, hatred, joy, or fear, They led a kind of--as it were; Nor wish'd nor cared, nor laugh'd nor cried: And so they lived, and so they died.] [Footnote 4: Swift: _Works_ (ed. Scott), XVII, p. 308.] [Footnote 5: Swift: _Works_ (ed. Scott), XVII, p. 319.] [Footnote 6: Swift: _Works_ (ed. Scott), XVII, p. 333] CHAPTER XII 1731 CORRESPONDENCE DEAN SWIFT TO JOHN GAY. Dublin, April 13th, 1731. "Your situation is an odd one. The Duchess is your treasurer, and Mr. Pope tells me you are the Duke's. And I had gone a good way in some verses on that occasion, prescribing lessons to direct your conduct, in a negative way, not to do so and so, etc., like other treasurers; how to deal with servants, tenants, or neighbouring squires, which I take to be courtiers, parliaments, and princes in alliance, and so the parallel goes on, but grew too long to please me."[1] JOHN GAY TO DEAN SWIFT. April 21st, 1731. "Since I have got over the impediment to a writer, of water drinking, if I can persuade myself that I have any wit, and find I have inclination, I intend to write; though, as yet, I have another impediment: for I have not provided myself with a scheme. Ten to one but I shall have a propensity to write against vice, and who can tell how far that may offend? But an author should consult his genius, rather than his interest, if he cannot reconcile them."[2] JOHN GAY TO DEAN SWIFT. Amesbury, April 27th, 1731. "When I was in town (after a bashful fit, for having writ something like a love-letter, and in two years making one visit), I writ to Mrs. Drelincourt, to apologise for my behaviour, and received a civil answer, but had not time to see her. They are naturally very civil: so that I am not so sanguine as to interpret this as any encouragement. I find by Mrs. Barber that she interests herself very much in her affair; and, indeed, from everybody who knows her, she answers the character you first gave me.... "You used to blame me for over-solicitude about myself. I am now grown so rich, that I do not think myself worth thinking on."[3] DEAN SWIFT TO JOHN GAY. Dublin, June 29th, 1731. "You are the silliest lover in Christendom. If you like Mrs. [Drelincourt], why do you not command her to take you? If she does not, she is not worth pursuing; you do her too much honour; she has neither sense nor taste, if she dares to refuse you, though she had ten thousand pounds.