"John Gay, I may say with vanity, owes his life, under God, to the unwearied endeavours and care of your humble servant; for a physician who had not been passionately his friend could not have saved him," he wrote.

"I had, besides my personal concern for him, other motives of my care.

He is now become a public person, a little Sacheverell; and I took the same pleasure in saving him, as Radcliffe did in preserving my Lord Chief Justice Holt's wife, whom he attended out of spite to her husband, who wished her dead.
"The inoffensive John Gay is now become one of the obstructions to the peace of Europe, the terror of Ministers, the chief author of the _Craftsmen_, and all the seditious pamphlets which have been published against the Government.

He has got several turned out of their places; the greatest ornament of the Court [the Duchess of Queensberry] banished from it for his sake; another great lady [Mrs.Howard] in danger of being _chasee_ likewise; about seven or eight Duchesses pushing forward, like the ancient circumcelliones in the Church, who shall suffer martyrdom upon his account at first.

He is the darling of the City.