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HOW could you, Gay, disgrace the Muse's train,
To serve a tasteless court twelve years in vain[2]!
Fain would I think our female friend[3] sincere,
Till Bob, the poet's foe, possess'd her ear.
Did female virtue e'er so high ascend,
To lose an inch of favour for a friend?
Say, had the court no better place to choose
For thee, than make a drynurse of thy Muse?
How cheaply had thy liberty been sold,
To squire a royal girl of two years old;
In leading-strings her infant steps to guide,
Or with her go-cart amble side by side!
But princely Douglas, and his glorious dame,
Advanc'd thy fortune, and preserv'd thy fame.
Nor will your nobler gifts be misapply'd,
When o'er your patron's treasure you preside:
The world shall own, his choice was wise and just,
For sons of Phœbus never break their trust.
Not love of beauty less the heart inflames
Of guardian eunuchs to the sultan's dames,
Their passions not more impotent and cold,
Than those of poets to the lust of gold.
- ↑ The dean, having been told by an intimate friend, that the duke of Queensberry had employed Mr. Gay to inspect the accounts and management of his grace's receivers and stewards (which however proved to be a mistake), wrote this Epistle to his friend.
- ↑ See the libel on Dr. Delany and lord Carteret, p. 3. of this volume.
- ↑ The countess of Suffolk.
