Swift, of course, had often in his mind a visit to London--he admitted the temptation, but resisted it.

"I was three years reconciling myself to the scene, and the business to which fortune had condemned me, and stupidity was what I had recourse to,"[7] he had written to Gay from Dublin, January 8th, 1723.

"Besides, what a figure should I make in London, while my friends are in poverty, exile, distress, or imprisonment, and my enemies with rods of iron ?" At last, however, in March, 1726, he did come to London, and he was the guest of Gay, whom he subsequently referred to as "my landlord at Whitehall." He saw much of Gay.

"I have lived these two months past for the most part in the country, either at Twickenham with Mr.Pope, or rambling with him and Mr.Gay for a fortnight together.

Yesterday Lord Bolingbroke and Mr.
Congreve made up five at dinner at Twickenham,"[8] Swift wrote to Tickell from London on July 7th.