sum realised by the initial set of performances was £5351, 15s. Of this Gay received for four author's nights-the third, sixth, ninth, and fifteenth-£693, 13s. 6d.1 He sold the copyright of the opera 2 (together with that of the Fables) for ninety guineas, and consequently made in all nearly eight hundred pounds. Rich made £4000. The actress who played Polly Peachum soon gained a remarkable reputation. Her name was Lavinia Fenton, and she afterwards became Duchess of Bolton. Frail as the weakest of Eve's daughters, she was at the same time generous and kind-hearted; she had plenty of wit and good sense, and although not beautiful, was of agreeable appearance and of pleasant manners. She had been the Duke of Bolton's mistress some years when he married her. She had no children after the legalisation of their union.

Two matters in connection with The Beggar's Opera call for brief comment-its success and its influence. The former was mainly due to two causes; the opera was the first specimen of a new species of composition, and it was well stored with satire. The satire, moreover, was not merely general: it was personal and particular. No one could fail to see that Robin of Bagshot-alias Whiff Bob, alias Carbuncle, alias Bob Booty-was designed to represent Sir Robert Walpole's unrefined manners, convivial habits, and

1 The receipts on these nights were as follows:-on the third, £162, 12s. 6d; on the sixth, £189, 11s. ; on the ninth, £165, 125.; and on the fifteenth, £175, 18s. (See an extract from Rich's Note Book, quoted in Notes and Queries, 1st Series, i. 178).

2 It was printed on the 14th February 1728 (Monthly Chronicle).

alleged robbery of the public. Macheath was provided in the play with both a wife and a mistress,1 to indicate to the public that Lady Walpole had a rival in Miss Skerrett. It has been asserted that Pope pointed the satire of some of the songs in the opera: this, however, he expressly disclaimed doing when interrogated by Spence. As he [Gay] carried it on he showed what he wrote to both of us [Pope himself and Swift], and we now and then gave a correction, or a word or two of advice; but it was wholly of his own writing."

2

There has been a good deal of controversy concerning the influence for evil, which, it is alleged, the piece has exercised. Dr. Herring (afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury), preached a sermon at court against it, which was answered by Swift in the third number of the Intelligencer; and, forty years after Gay's death, Sir John Fielding, the presiding magistrate at Bow Street, wrote to the managers of the Drury Lane and Covent Garden Theatres desiring them not to perform The Beggar's Opera, as it tended to increase the number of thieves. Mr. Colman's compliments to Sir John Fielding,' replied the ready

1 Macheath's 'How happy could I be with either, were t'other dear charmer away' is still a current commonplace. Hogarth painted several pictures of the 'twixt Polly-and-Lucy scene. The Duke of Leeds has one, Mr. Louis Huth another, and Mr. John Murray a third. In 1790 William Blake made a well-known engraving from one of them. Walker, who played Macheath, stands in the centre, while Lucy (Mrs. Egleton) pleads for him to the left, and Polly (Miss Fenton) to the right. Rich (the manager), the Duke of Bolton, and Gay are among the spectators. 2 Spence's Anecdotes, p. 56.

witted manager at Covent Garden, 'he does not think his the only house in Bow Street where thieves are hardened and encouraged, and will persist in offering the representation of that admirable satire, The Beggar's Opera.'1 There really exists little evidence upon which we are entitled to form any definite judgment one way or the other. Meanwhile, we shall not go far wrong if we adopt Dr. Johnson's opinion, that it is not possible for any one to imagine that he may rob with safety because he sees Macheath reprieved upon the stage.'"

The remarkable success of The Beggar's Opera naturally suggested to Gay the advisability of writing another piece of the same kind. He accordingly transported all the principal characters of the opera to the West Indian plantations, where their adventures were continued. The satire which marked The Beggar's Opera was even more pointed and more severe in its sequel, Polly, and this fact did not escape the attention of the authorities. 'It was on Saturday morning, December 7, 1728, that I waited upon the lord chamberlain,' says Gay: 'I desired to have the honour of reading the opera to his grace, but he ordered me to leave it with him, which I did, upon expectation of having it returned on the Monday following; but I had it not until Thursday, December 12, when I received it from his grace with this answer : "that it was not allowed to be acted, but commanded to be supprest." This was told me in general, without any reasons assigned, or

1 Genest, iii. 223.

2 Lives of the Poets (ed. Cunningham), ii. 292. VOL. I.

e

any charge against me of my having given any particular offence.' It is generally assumed, and probably with justice, that Sir Robert Walpole was at the bottom of the prohibition of Polly. 'He resolved,' says Lord Hervey, 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 Grafton's authority, as Lord Chamberlain, to put a stop to the representation of it. Accordingly this theatrical Craftsman was prohibited at every playhouse. '2

From the financial point of view-the point of view generally uppermost in Gay's mind-this prohibition was an excellent thing. Everybody naturally wanted to read the opera which the Government would not allow to be acted. It was printed, and copies were sold at extravagant prices and in immensely large numbers. Henrietta, Duchess of Marlborough (Congreve's eccentric friend), gave a hundred pounds for a single book. Dr. Arbuthnot, writing to Swift on March 19, 1729, declares that 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 banished from it for his sake; another great lady in danger of being chassée likewise; about seven or eight duchesses pushing forward, like the ancient circumcelliones in the church, who shall suffer martyrdom upon his 1 Preface to Polly.

2 Hervey's Memoirs, i. 120.

account first. He is the darling of the city. If he should travel about the country he would have hecatombs of roasted oxen sacrificed to him, since he became so conspicuous. . . . I hope he will get a good deal of money by printing his play; but I really believe he would get more by showing his person; and, I can assure you, this is the very identical John Gay whom you formerly knew and lodged with in Whitehall two years ago.' 1 The Duchess of Queensberry was requested to retire from the court on account of her having solicited subscriptions for Polly within the very precincts of St. James's Palace itself. Her husband at once resigned his appointments as Lord of the Bedchamber and Vice-Admiral of Scotland—a thing he would have done in any case, in consequence of a

Aitken's Life and Works of Arbuthnot, p. 125.

2 She took her leave in what Mr. Dobson calls 'a very saucy and characteristic letter,' addressed to King George. A transcript of it follows: '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 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.'-Johnson's Lives, ed. Cunningham, ii. 293 note.