I expect nothing and am likely to get nothing."[14] At last, in the spring, the volume appeared, with the imprint of J.Tonson and J.Watts, and with this dedication: "To His Highness William Duke of Cumberland these new Fables, invented for his amusement, are humbly dedicated by His Highness's most faithful and most obedient servant, John Gay." * * * * * Gay, of course, expected some reward for this courtier-like attention to the son of the Prince and Princess of Wales, and the poet and his friends again believed that his future was assured when they heard that Her Royal Highness had said, or at least was reported to have said, that she should "take up the hare"-- an allusion to the "Fable" of "The Hare and Many Friends":-- A Hare who in a civil way, Complied with ev'ry thing, like Gay, Was known by all the bestial train, Who haunt the wood, or graze the plain.
Her care was never to offend.
And ev'ry creature was her friend.
On June 12th, 1727, George I.died, and Gay felt sure that at last the hour had struck when the "place" so long and diligently sought, would be bestowed on him.

The new Queen did not, indeed, forget him; she did what in his eyes was far worse, she offered him the sinecure post of Gentleman Usher to the Princess Louisa,[15] then two years old, with a salary of L200 a year.

Gay's disappointment was bitter, and for a person usually so placid, his indignation tremendous.

What ground for hope he had had, he, as Dr.Johnson has said, "had doubtless magnified with all the wild expectation and vanity,"[16] "The Queen's family is at last settled," Gay wrote bitterly to Swift on October 22nd, "and in the list I was appointed Gentleman Usher to the Princess Louisa, the youngest Princess, which, upon account that I am so far advanced in life, I had declined accepting, and have endeavoured, in the best manner I could, to make my excuses by a letter to her Majesty.

So now all my expectations are vanished and I have no prospect, but in depending wholly upon myself and my own conduct.