on the minds of the people have fulfilled the prognostications of many that it would prove injurious to society. Rapine and violence have been gradually increasing ever since its first representation: the rights of property, and the obligation of the laws that guard it, are disputed upon principle. Every man's house is now become what the law calls it, his castle, or at least it may be said that, like a castle, it requires to be a place of defence; young men, apprentices, clerks in public offices, and others, disdaining the arts of honest industry, and captivated with the charms of idleness and criminal pleasure, now betake themselves to the road, affect politeness in the very act of robbery, and in the end become victims to the justice of their country: and men of discernment, who have been at the pains of tracing this evil to its source, have found that not a few of those, who, during these last fifty years have paid to the law the forfeit of their lives, have in the course of their pursuits been emulous to imitate the manners and general character of Macheath. -HAWKINS, SIR JOHN, 1776, A General History of the Science and Practice of Music, ch. cxc, p. 875.

Some

Often and often had I read Gay's "Beggar's Opera," and always delighted with its poignant wit and original satire, and if not without noticing its immorality, yet without any offence from it. years ago, I for the first time saw it represented in one of the London theatres; and such were the horror and disgust with which it impressed me, so grossly did it outrage all the best feelings of my nature, that even the angelic voice and perfect science of Mrs. Billington lost half their charms, or rather increased my aversion to the piece by an additional sense of incongruity. Then I learned the immense difference between reading and seeing a play.-COLERIDGE, SAMUEL TAYLOR, 1812, Omniana, ed. Ashe, p. 386.

It is indeed a masterpiece of wit and genius, not to say of morality. In composing it, he chose a very unpromising ground to work upon, and he has prided himself in adorning it with all the graces, the precision, and brilliancy of style. It is a vulgar error to call this a vulgar play. So far from it that I do not scruple to say that it appears to me one of the most refined productions in the language. The

elegance of the composition is in exact proportion to the coarseness of the materials: by "happy alchemy of mind," the author has extracted an essence of refinement from the dregs of human life, and turns its very dross into gold. The scenes, characters, and incidents are, in themselves, of the lowest and most disgusting kind: but, by the sentiments and reflections which are put into the mouths of highwaymen, turnkeys, their mistresses, wives, or daughters, he has converted this motley group into a set of fine gentlemen and ladies, satirists and philosophers. He has also effected this transformation without once violating probability, or "o'erstepping the modesty of nature.' In fact, Gay has turned the tables on the critics; and by the assumed license of the mock-heroic style, has enabled himself to do justice to nature, that is, to give all the force, truth, and locality of real feeling to the thoughts and expressions, without being called to the bar of false taste and affected delicacy.-HAZLITT, WILLIAM, 1818, Lectures on the English Poets, Lecture vi.

This piece has kept possession of the stage for upwards of a century. "Macheath" and "Polly" have been favourite parts with most of our principal vocal performers; and, when well represented, it has rarely failed to draw crowded audiences in every part of the kingdom. Its effects on public morals have been the subject of much discussion and controversy. Soon after its appearance it was praised by Swift, as a piece which placed all kinds of vice in the strongest and most odious light. Others, however, censured it, as giving encouragement not only to vice but to crime, by making a highwayman the hero, and dismissing him at last. unpunished. It was even said that its performance had a visible effect in increasing the number of this description. of freebooters. The celebrated police magistrate, Sir John Fielding, once told Hugh Kelly, the dramatist, on a successful run of the "Beggar's Opera," that he expected, in consequence of it, a fresh cargo of highwaymen at his office. Upon Kelly's expressing his surprise at this, Sir John assured him, that, ever since the first representation of that piece, there had been, on every successful run, a proportionate proportionate number of highwaymen

brought to the office, as would appear by the books any morning he chose to look over them. Kelly did so, and found the observation to be strictly correct. . Recently, however, the "Beggar's Opera" has been rarely performed. Whether this

has arisen from a growing sense of its impropriety, or from the want of fitting representatives of the hero and heroine, we shall not pretend to say. We believe that its licentiousness has contributed, no less than its wit and the beauty of its music, to the favour it has so long enjoyed: but it may be presumed that the time is come, or at least approaching, when its licentiousness will banish it from the stage, notwithstanding its wit and the beauty of its music.-HOGARTH, George, 1838, Memoirs of The Musical Drama, vol. II, pp. 50, 55.

We have seen the "Beggar's Opera" degraded from a pungent yet delicate satire upon the Walpoles and Pulteneys to an episode from the Newgate Calendar. Its humor had passed away; its songs had lost their savour; the actors mistook irony for earnest; we seemed to have fallen among thieves and longed to call for the police, and send them packing to Bow-street.-DONNE, WILLIAM BODHAM, 1854-58, Essays on the Drama, p. 139.

The "Beggar's Opera" was Gay's ruin. -THOMSON, KATHARINE (GRACE WHARTON), 1862, The Literature of Society, vol. II, p. 217.

The satire was purely the revenge of a disappointed courtier. Gay had accepted one office from the political Macheath, had long been a suppliant for another, and only talked of Bob Booty because he had not been allowed a larger share of the spoils.-ELWIN, WHITWELL, 1871, ed., The Works of Alexander Pope, vol. VII, p. 142, note.

Of all ballad-operas the first is easily the foremost, excepting only "The Duenna."-MATTHEWS, BRANDER, 1880, "Pinafore's" Predecessor, Harper's Magazine, vol. 60, p. 501.

The "Beggar's Opera" is, in fact, rather the parody of a comedy interspersed with songs than a true opera, but there are passages in it which, abating some necessary absurdity, are wholly in the comedy vein. The play is unfortunately too gross for a more liberal extract than has been given. In reading the "Beggar's

Opera," it is good to remember the wonderful success of the play in its own day. Phrases from it passed as catch-words in society, and its admirable songs were painted on ladies' fans.--CRAWFURD, OSWALD, 1883, ed., English Comic Dramatists, p. 204.

It was Polly, however, as impersonated by the fascinating Lavinia Fenton (in 1728), that made the success of "The Beggar's Opera." She dressed the part in the most simple manner, and the pathetic naïveté with which she delivered

the lines

For on the rope that hangs my dear
Depends poor Polly's life,

had such an effect that applause burst forth from every part of the house. The work had up to this moment gone but poorly. Its triumph was now assured, and the enthusiasm of the public went on increasing until the fall of the curtain. The opera soon made its way to Wales, Scotland, and Ireland. The principal songs were inscribed on fans and screens, and the enemies of foreign art boasted that "The Beggar's Opera" (which is really a semi-burlesque comedy, interspersed with songs set to popular tunes) had driven out the opera of the Italians. -EDWARDS, HENRY SUTHERLAND, 1888, The Prima Donna: Her History and Surroundings.

The present age would perhaps rank Gay lowest in that kind of writing in which, in his own time, he achieved a phenomenal success. The "Beggar's Opera" is very coarse homespun compared with the dainty fabrics which have come from the loom of Mr. W. S. Gilbert.-TOVEY, DUNCAN C., 1897, Reviews and Essays in English Literature, p. 115.

POLLY

1729

The Duchess of Queensberry is surprised and well pleased that the King has given her so agreeable a command as forbidding her the Court, where she never came for diversion, but to bestow a very great civility on the King and Queen. She hopes that by so unprecedented an order as this, the King will see as few as she wishes at his Court, particularly such as dare to think and speak truth. I dare not do otherwise, nor ought not; nor could I have imagined but that it would

have been the highest compliment I could possibly pay the King and Queen, to endeavour to support truth and innocence in their house.

-C. QUEENSBERRY.

P. S. Particularly when the King and Queen told me that they had not read Mr. Gay's play, I have certainly done right then to justify my own behaviour, rather than act like his Grace of Grafton, who has neither made use of truth, honour or judgment in this whole affair, either for himself or his friends.-QUEENSBERRY, CATHERINE HYDE, DUCHESS, 1728-9, Letter to Mr. Stanhope, Vice-Chamberlain, Feb. 27.

I suppose you will have some odd account of me, pray let me know what they say of me behind my back? The Duchess of Queensbury, to the great amazement of the admiring world, is forbid the Court, only for being solicitous in getting a subscription for Mr. Gay's sequel of the "Beggar's Opera," which the Court forbid being acted, on account that it reflected on the Government. The Duchess is a great friend of Gay's, and has thought him much injured; upon which, to make him some amends, for he is poor, she promised to get a subscription for his play if he would print it. She indiscreetly has urged the King and Queen in his behalf, and asked subscriptions in the drawing-room, upon which she is forbid the Court-a thing never heard of before to one of her rank: one might have imagined her beauty would have secured her from such treatment! The Vice-Chamberlain went with the message, and she returned the answer which I have enclosed.-PENDARVES, MRS. M., 1728-29, Letter to Mrs. Anne Granville, March 4, Life and Correspondence of Mrs. Delany, ed. Lady Llanover, vol. 1, p. 193.

The inoffensive John Gay is now become one of the obstructions to the peace of Europe, the terror of the ministers, the chief author of the "Craftsman," 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 (i. e. Duchess of Queensberry) banished from it for his sake; another great lady (Mrs. Howard, afterwards Countess of Suffolk) in danger of being chasée likewise; about seven or eight duchesses pushing

forward, like the ancient circumcelliones in the church, who shall suffer martyrdom on his account first. He is the darling of the city. I can assure you, this is the very identical Jno. Gay whom you formerly knew and lodged with in Whitehall two years ago. ARBUTHNOT, JOHN, 1728-29, Letter to Jonathan Swift, March 19.

Among the remarkable occurrences of this winter, I cannot help relating that of the Duchess of Queensberry being forbid the Court, and the occasion of it. One Gay, a poet, had written a ballad opera, which was thought to reflect a little upon the Court, and a good deal upon the Minister. It was called "The Beggar's Opera," had a prodigious run, and was so extremely pretty in its kind, that even those who were most glanced at in the satire had prudence enough to disguise their resentment by chiming in with the universal applause with which it was performed. Gay, who had attached himself to Mrs. Howard and been disappointed of preferment at Court, finding this couched satire upon those to whom he imputed his disappointment succeeded so well, wrote a second part to this opera, less pretty but more abusive, and so little disguised that Sir Robert Walpole resolved, rather than suffer himself to be produced for thirty nights together upon the stage in the person of a highwayman, to make use

of his friend the Duke of Gafton's authority, as Lord Chamberlain, to put a stop to the representation of it. Accordingly, this theatrical Craftsman was prohibited at every playhouse. Gay, irriated at this bar thrown in the way both of his interest and his revenge, zested the work with some supplemental invectives, and resolved to print it by subscription. The Duchess of Queensberry set herself at the head of this undertaking, and solicited every mortal that came in her way, or in whose way she could put herself, to subscribe. To a woman of her quality, proverbially beautiful, and at the top of the polite and fashionable world, people were ashamed to refuse a guinea, though they were afraid to give it. Her solicitations were so universal and so pressing, that she came even into the Queen's apartment, went round the Drawing-room, and made even the King's servants contribute to the printing of a thing which the King had forbid being acted. The King, when

he came into the Drawing-room, seeing her Grace very busy in a corner with three or four men, asked her what she had been doing. She answered, "What must be agreeable, she was sure, to anybody so humane as his Majesty, for it was an act of charity, and a charity to which she did not despair of bringing his Majesty to contribute." Enough was said for each to understand the other. Most

people blamed the Court upon this occasion. What the Duchess of Queensberry did was certainly impertinent; but the manner of resenting it was thought impolitic.HERVEY, LORD, 1729, Letter to Swift, Hervey's Memoirs, vol. 1, chap. vi.

Which brought in more money to Gay from its not having been allowed to get on the stage than its brilliant predecessor had done after all its unexampled run. The measure of Walpole's wrath was filled by the knowledge that a piece was in preparation in which he was to be held. up to public ridicule in the rudest and most uncompromising way. Walpole acted with a certain boldness and cunning. The play was brought to him, was offered for sale to him. This was an audacious attempt at black-mailing; and at first it appeared to be successful. Walpole agreed to the terms, bought the play, paid the money, and then proceeded at once to make the fact that such a piece had been written, and but for his payment might have been played, an excuse for the introduction of a measure to put the whole English stage under restriction, and to brand it with terms of shame. He picked out carefully all the worst passages, and had them copied, and sent round in private to the leading members of all parties in the House of Commons, and appealed to them to support him in passing a measure which he justified in advance by the illustrations of dramatic licentiousness thus brought under their own eyes. By this mode of action he secured beforehand an amount of support which made the passing of his Bill a matter of almost absolute certainty. Under these favorable conditions he introduced his Playhouse Bill.-MCCARTHY, JUSTIN, 1884, A History of the Four Georges, vol. II, chap. 27.

It may be interesting to note that "Polly" was first seen upon the stage at the Haymarket Theatre on June 19, 1777.

A few new songs were upon that occasion introduced, and portions of the dialogue were here and there omitted. But the alterations were not material. Polly Peachum was played by a "gentlewoman (her first appearance)." "Perhaps the most remarkable thing about this remarkable première was the fact that the Duchess of Queensbury, though extremely old she died in the following monthattended it. "Polly" was played at the Haymarket again in 1782, and at Drury Lane in 1813.-UNDERHILL, JOHN, 1893, ed., the Poetical Works of John Gay, vol. 1, p. lx.

It is an exceedingly nasty piece, not unworthy of one of the three authors who between them produced that filthiest and most stupid of farces, "Three Hours After Marriage."-BIRRELL, AUGUSTINE, 1894, Essays about Men, Women and Books, p. 117.

GENERAL

When fame did o'er the spacious plains
The lays, she once had learn'd, repeat;
All listen'd to the tuneful strains,

And wonder'd who could sing so sweet. 'Twas thus:-The Graces held the lyre,

Th' harmonious frame the Muses strung, The Loves and Smiles composed the choir, And Gay transcribed what Phoebus sung. -GARTH, SAMUEL, 1719? To Mr. Gay on his Poems.

I grieve to be outdone by Gay In my own humorous biting way. -SWIFT, JONATHAN, 1731, On the Death of Dr. Swift.

Gay was a good-natured man, and a little poet.-MONTAGU, LADY MARY WORTLEY, 1740-41, Spence's Anecdotes, ed. Singer, p. 176.

As to his genius it would be superfluous to say any thing here, his works are in the hands of every reader of taste, and speak for themselves; we know not whether we can be justified in our opinion, but we beg leave to observe, that all of Gay's performances, his "Pastorals" seem to have the highest finishing; they are perfectly Doric; the characters and dialogue are natural and rurally simple; the language is admirably suited to the persons, who appear delightfully rustic.-CIBBER, THEOPHILUS, 1753, Lives of the Poets, vol. IV. p. 259.

As a poet, he cannot be rated very high. He was, as I once heard a female critick remark, "of a lower order." He had not in any great degree the mens divinior the

dignity of genius. Much however must be allowed to the author of a new species of composition, though it be not of the highest kind. We owe to Gay the Ballad Opera; a mode of comedy which at first was supposed to delight only by its novelty, but has now by the experience of half a century been found so well accommodated to the disposition of a popular audience, that it is likely to keep long possession of the stage. Whether this new drama was the product of judgment or of luck, the praise of it must be given to the inventor; and there are many writers read with more reverence, to whom such merit or originality cannot be attributed. JOHNSON, SAMUEL, 1779-81, Gay, Lives of the English Poets.

Oh! what monster mentions Gay? We wish all fame to the memory of him and his panegyrist Sir William Jones. But his "Pastorals" are about as bad as his "Beggar's Opera"-vulgar both—if vulgarity there ever were on earth-in town or country and we have been miserably awakened from our dream of the Golden Age.-WILSON, JOHN, 1833, Spenser, Blackwood's Magazine, vol. 34, p. 833.

Mr. Gay's "Fables," which were written to benefit that amiable Prince, the Duke of Cumberland, the warrior of Dettingen and Culloden, I have not, I own, been able to peruse since a period of very early youth; and it must be confessed that they did not effect much benefit upon the illustrious young Prince, whose manners they were intended to molify, and whose natural ferocity our gentle-hearted Satirist perhaps proposed to restrain. But the six pastorals called the "Shepherd's Week," and the burlesque poem of "Trivia," any man fond of lazy literature will find delightful, at the present day, and must read from beginning to end with pleasure. They are to poetry what charming little Dresden china figures are to sculpture: graceful, minikin, fantastic; with a certain beauty always accompanying them. The pretty little personages of the pastoral, with gold clocks to their stockings, and fresh satin ribbons to their crooks and waistcoats and boddices, dance their loves to a minuet-tune played on a bird-organ, approach the charmer, or rush from the false one daintily on their redheeled tiptoes, and die of despair or rapture, with the most pathetic little

grins and ogles; or repose, simpering at each other, under an arbour of pea-green crockery; or piping to pretty flocks that have just been washed with the best Naples in a stream of Bergamot.THACKERAY, WILLIAM MAKEPEACE, 1853, The English Humourists of the Eighteenth Century.

In Gay, as well as with them, unvarnished and sensual drollery has its sway. The people of the north, who are great eaters, always liked country fairs. The vagaries of toss-pots and gossips, the grotesque outburst of the popular and animal mind, put them into good humour. One must be genuinely a worldling or an artist, a Frenchman or an Italian, to be disgusted with them. They are the product of the country, as well as meat and beer let us try, in order that we may enjoy them, to forget wine, delicate fruits, to give ourselves blunted senses, to become in imagination compatriots of such men. We have become used to the pictures of these drunken clods, which Louis XIV. called "baboons," to these red cooks who scrape their horse-radish, and to the like scenes. Let us get used to Gay; to his poem "Trivia, or the Art of Walking the Streets of London;" to his advice as to dirty gutters, and shoes "with firm, well-hammer'd soles; his description of the amours of the goddess Cloacina and a scavenger, whence sprang the shoeblacks. He is a lover of the real, has a precise imagination, does not see objects on objects on a large scale, but singly, with all their outlines and surroundings, whatever they may be, beautiful or ugly, dirty or clean.-TAINE, H. A., 1871, History of English Literature, tr. Van Laun, vol. II, bk. iii, ch. vii, p. 216.

Mr. Dobson fails to emphasize fully many of the characteristics which gave Gay a unique position in his own age, and leaves others entirely unnoticed. Chief among these characteristics were a form of versification, especially in the couplet, far less rigid and artificial than that employed by any of his contemporaries; a sense of real humour; and, lastly, a feeling for the country and country life not to be found again till the appearance of "The Seasons."-STRACHEY, ST. LOE, 1883, The Academy, vol. 23, p. 3.

Gay is yet a figure in English letters. As a song-writer he has still a claim on