and opposed other passages to them, from Addison's and Steele's plays. These were aggravated in the same manner that they had served his, and appeared worse. Had it been published, it would have made Mr. Addison appear ridiculous, which he could bear as little as any man. I therefore prevailed upon him not to print it, and have the manuscript now by me.-The same.

A fortnight before Addison's death, Lord Warwick came to Gay, and pressed him in a very particular manner to go and see Mr. Addison, which he had not done for a great while. Gay went, and found Addison in a very weak way. Addison received him in the kindest manner, and told him, that “he had desired this visit to beg his pardon; that he had injured him greatly; but that if he lived, he should find that he would make it up to him." Gay, on his going to Hanover, had great reasons to hope for some good preferment; but all those views came to nothing. It is not impossible but that Mr. Addison might prevent them, from his thinking Gay too well with some of the

former ministry. He did not at all explain himself in what he had injured him; and Gay could not guess at any thing else in which he could have injured him so considerably. The same.

Gay was quite a natural man, wholly without art or design; and spoke just what he thought, and as he thought it.-The

same.

He dangled for twenty years about a court, and at last was offered to be made usher to the young Princesses.-The same.

Secretary Craggs made Gay a present of stock in the South Sea year, and he was worth 20,000l.; but lost it all again.-The

same.

Gay got about 4007. by the first Beggars' Opera, and eleven or twelve hundred by the second.-The same.

He was a negligent and a bad manager. Latterly the Duke of Queensbury took his money into his keeping, and let him have only what was necessary out of it; and as he lived with them, he could not have

occasion for much. He died worth upwards of 3000l.-The same.

Gay was a good-natured man and a little poet.-Lady M. W. Montagu.

Lydia, in Lady Mary's poems, is almost wholly Gay's, and is published as such in his works. There are only five or six lines new, set by that lady. It was that which gave the hint, and she wrote the other five eclogues to it.-Mr. Pope.

The little copy of verses on Ditton and Whiston, in the third volume of the Miscellanies, was writ by Gay.-The same.

GARTH.

Garth talked in a less libertine manner than he had been used to do about the three last years of his life. He was rather doubtful and fearful than religious. It was usual for him to say, that if there was any such thing as religion, it was among the Roman catholics. He died a papist (as I was assured by Mr. Blount, who carried the father to him in his last hours); probably

from the greater efficacy we give the sacraments. He did not take any care of himself in his last illness; and had talked for three or four years as one tired of living. In short, I believe he was willing to let it go.-The same.

When Dr. Garth had been for a good while in a bad state of health, he sent one day for a physician with whom he was particularly intimate, and conjured him by their friendship, and by every thing that was most sacred, if there was any thing more sacred, to tell him sincerely whether he thought he should be able to get rid of his illness or not. His friend, thus conjured, told him, that he thought he might struggle on with it perhaps for some years, but that he much feared he could never get the better of it entirely. Dr. Garth thanked him for his dealing so fairly with him; turned the discourse to other things, and talked very cheerfully all the rest of the time he staid with him. As soon as he was gone, he called for his servant, said he was a good deal out of order, and then sent him for a surgeon to bleed him. Soon

after he sent for a second surgeon by a different servant, and was bled in the other arm. He then said he wanted rest, and when every body had quitted the room, he took off the bandages and lay down with a design of bleeding to death. His loss of blood made him faint away, and that stopped the bleeding. He afterwards sunk into a sound sleep; slept all the night, waked in the morning without his usual pains; and said, that if it would continue so, he would be content to live on. In his last illness he did not use any remedies, but let his distemper take its course. The former I have heard more than once from his own mouth.-Mr. Townly. [Who added, that the doctor was the most agreeable companion he ever knew.]

CONGREVE. VANBRUGH. FARQUHAR. None of our writers have a freer, easier way for comedy than Etheridge and Vanbrugh. "Now we have named all the best of them," (after mentioning those two, Wycherly, Congreve, Fletcher, Jonson, and Shakspeare).—Mr. Pope.