1727
"THE BEGGAR'S OPERA"
The opera to which allusion is made in Mrs. Howard's letter of October,
1727, was "The Beggar's Opera," upon which Gay had been actively engaged
for some time past, and which was then nearing completion. "You
remember," Gay wrote to Swift, October 22nd, 1727, "you were advising me
to go into Newgate to finish my scenes the more correctly. I now think I
shall, for I have no attendance to hinder me; but my opera is already
finished."[1] To which Swift replied from Dublin on November 27th: "I am
very glad your opera is finished, and hope your friends will join the
readers to make it succeed, because you are ill-used by others."[2]
It was natural that Swift should be especially interested in "The
Beggar's Opera," because the first suggestion of it had come from Swift
in a letter to Pope, written as far back as August 30th, 1716[3] "Dr.
Swift had been observing once to Mr. Gay, what an odd pretty sort of
thing a Newgate Pastoral might make," Pope once remarked. "Gay was
inclined to try at such a thing for some time, but afterwards thought
it would be better to write a comedy on the same plan. This was what
gave rise to 'The Beggar's Opera.' He began on it, and when first he
mentioned it to Swift, the Doctor did not much like the project. As he
carried it on, he showed what he wrote to both of us; and we now and
then gave a correction, or a word or two of advice; but it was wholly of
his own writing. When it was done neither of us thought it would
succeed. We showed it to Congreve, who, after reading it over, said: 'It
would either take greatly or be damned confoundedly."[4]
Dilatory as Gay always was, he contrived to finish his opera by about
the end of the year. "John Gay's opera is just on the point of
delivery," Pope wrote to Swift in January, 1728. "It may be called,
considering its subject, a jail-delivery. Mr. Congreve, with whom I have
commemorated you, is anxious as to its success, and so am I. Whether it
succeeds or not, it will make a great noise, but whether of claps or
hisses I know not. At worst, it is in its own nature a thing which he
can lose no reputation by, as he lays none upon it."[5] Not only Swift,
Pope, and Congreve were doubtful as to the opera's chance of success.
Colley Cibber refused it for Drury Lane Theatre, and even when it was
accepted by John Rich for his theatre in Lincoln's Inn Fields, Quin had
such a poor opinion of it, that he refused the part of Captain Macheath.
Very sound was the judgment of Rich, immortalised by Pope in "The
Dunciad" (Book III, lines 261-264):--
Immortal Rich! how calm he sits at ease,
'Midst snows of paper, and fierie tale of pease;
And proud his Mistress's orders to perform,
Rides in the whirlwind, and directs the storm;
and the opera, to repeat a well-known _mot_ of the day, "made Gay
rich and Rich gay."
"The Beggar's Opera" was produced on January 29th, 1728, with the
following cast:--
_Peachum_ ... ... ... ... ... MR. HIPPISLEY
_Lockit_ ... ... ... ... ... MR. HALL
_Macheath_ ... ... ... ... ... MR. WALKER
_Filch_ ... ... ... ... ... MR. CLARK
_Jemmy Twitcher_... ... ... ... MR. H. BULLOCK
_Mrs. Peachum_ ... ... ... ... MRS. MARTIN
_Polly Peachum_ ... ... ... ... Miss FENTON
_Lucy Lockit_ ... ... ... ... MRS. EGLETON
_Diana Trapes_ ... ... ... ... MRS. MARTIN
At the first performance the fate of the opera hung for some time in the
balance. Quin is recorded as having said that there was a disposition to
damn it, and that it was saved by the song, "O ponder well! be not
severe!" the audience being much affected by the innocent looks of
Polly, when she came to those two lines which exhibit at once a painful
and ridiculous image--
O ponder well! be not severe!
For on the Rope that hangs my Dear
Depends poor Polly's Life.[6]
Pope, too, and the rest of Gay's friends were present. "We were all at
the first night of it, in great uncertainty of the event; till we were
very much encouraged by hearing the Duke of Argyll, who sat in the
next box to us, say: "It will do--it must do!--I see it in the eyes of
them," he said. "This was a good while before the first act was over,
and so gave us ease soon; for the Duke (besides his own good taste)
has a more particular knack than any one now living, in discovering
the taste of the public. He was quite right in this, as usual, the
good nature of the audience appeared stronger and stronger every set,
and ended in a clamour of applause."[7]
The success of the opera was due to many causes. Some liked it for its
barely veiled allusions on politicians. "Robin of Bagshot, _alias_
Gorgon, _alias_ Bluff Bob, _alias_ Carbuncle, _alias_ Bob Booty," was
very obviously intended for Walpole and his "dear charmers" for his
wife and Molly Skerrett. It may well be believed that the song, "How
happy could I be with either" brought down the house; and the
highwayman must have evoked a hearty laugh with--
And the statesman, because he's so great,
Thinks his trade as honest as mine.
Certainly the songs had much to do in the matter of pleasing the
audience. As a literary work, "The Beggar's Opera" has no great claims,
but there is a spontaneous humour about it that has charm. But it was
the _milieu_ that, acting on the hint thrown out years before by Swift,
Gay chose that appealed to the public taste. Highwaymen and women of the
town are not romantic figures, but Gay made the highwaymen handsome and
lively, and the women of the town beautiful and attractive, and over
them all he cast a glamour of romance and sentimentalism. Even Newgate
seemed a pleasing place, for in this fantasy the author was careful to
omit anything of the horrors of a prison in the early eighteenth
century. Gay, in fact, did for the stage with "The Beggar's Opera" what,
a century later Bulwer Lytton and Harrison Ainsworth did for the reading
public with "Ernest Maltravers," "Jack Sheppard," and the rest.
The morality of the opera was much discussed. Swift took the field, and
wrote in its favour in the _Intelligencer_ (No. 3):--
"It is true, indeed, that Mr. Gay, the author of this piece, has been
somewhat singular in the course of his fortune, for it has happened that
after fourteen years attending the Court, with a large stock of real
merit, a modest and agreeable conversation, a hundred promises, and five
hundred friends, he has failed of preferment, and upon a very weighty
reason. He lay under the suspicion of having written a libel, or
lampoon, against a great minister. It is true, that great minister was
demonstratively convinced, and publicly owned his conviction, that Mr.
Gay was not the author; but having lain under the suspicion, it seemed
very just that he should suffer the punishment; because in this most
reformed age, the virtues of a prime minister are no more to be
suspected than the chastity of Cæsar's wife.
"It must be allowed, that 'The Beggar's Opera' is not the first of Mr.
Gay's works, wherein he has been faulty with regard to courtiers and
statesmen. For, to omit his other pieces, even in his 'Fables,'
published within two years past, and dedicated to the Duke of
Cumberland, for which he was promised a reward, he has been thought
somewhat too bold upon the courtiers. And although it be highly probable
he meant only the courtiers of former times, yet he acted unwarily, by
not considering that the malignity of some people might misinterpret
what he said to the disadvantage of present persons and affairs.
"But I have now done with Mr. Gay as a politician and shall consider him
henceforth only as the author of 'The Beggar's Opera,' wherein he has,
by a turn of humour entirely new, placed vices of all kinds in the
strongest and most odious light, and thereby done eminent service, both
to religion and morality. This appears from the unparalleled success he
has met with. All ranks, parties, and denominations of men, either
crowding to see his opera, or reading it with delight in their closets;
even Ministers of State, whom he is thought to have most offended (next
to those whom the actors represented) appear frequently at the theatre,
from a consciousness of their own innocence, and to convince the world
how unjust a parallel, malice, envy, and disaffection to the Government
have made.
"I am assured that several worthy clergymen in this city went privately
to see 'The Beggar's Opera' represented; and that the fleering coxcombs
in the pit amused themselves with making discoveries, and spreading the
names of those gentlemen round the audience.
"I shall not pretend to vindicate a clergyman who would appear openly
in his habit at the theatre, with such a vicious crew as might probably
stand round him, at such comedies and profane tragedies as are often
represented. Besides, I know very well, that persons of their function
are bound to avoid the appearance of evil, or of giving cause of
offence. But when the Lords Chancellors, who are Keepers of the King's
Conscience; when the Judges of the land, whose title is reverend; when
ladies, who are bound by the rules of their sex to the strictest
decency, appear in the theatre without censure; I cannot understand why
a young clergyman, who comes concealed out of curiosity to see an
innocent and moral play, should be so highly condemned; nor do I much
approve the rigour of a great prelate, who said, 'he hoped none of his
clergy were there.' I am glad to hear there are no weightier objections
against that reverend body, planted in this city, and I wish there never
may. But I should be very sorry that any of them should be so weak as to
imitate a Court chaplain in England, who preached against 'The Beggar's
Opera,' which will probably do more good than a thousand sermons of so
stupid, so injudicious, and so prostitute a divine.
"In this happy performance of Mr. Gay, all the characters are just, and
none of them carried beyond nature, or hardly beyond practice. It
discovers the whole system of that commonwealth, or that _imperium in
imperio_ of iniquity established among us, by which neither our lives
nor our properties are secure, either in the highways, or in public
assemblies, or even in our own houses. It shows the miserable lives, and
the constant fate, of those abandoned wretches: for how little they sell
their lives and souls; betrayed by their whores, their comrades, and the
receivers and purchasers of those thefts and robberies. This comedy
contains likewise a satire, which, without enquiring whether it affects
the present age, may possibly be useful in times to come; I mean, where
the author takes the occasion of comparing the common robbers of the
public, and their various stratagems of betraying, undermining and
hanging each other, to the several arts of the politicians in times of
corruption....
"Upon the whole, I deliver my judgment, that nothing but servile
attachment to a party, affectation of singularity, lamentable dulness,
mistaken zeal, or studied hypocrisy, can have the least reasonable
objection against this excellent moral performance of the celebrated Mr.
Gay."
Of course, if "The Beggar's Opera" is taken as irony, there is really
nothing at all to be said against it; but the majority of any audience
do not understand irony, and to many the whole thing seemed vicious, an
approval of vice, and even an incitement to wrong-doing. Dr. Herring,
afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury, preached against the Opera in, it
is said, Lincoln's Inn Chapel, and censured it as giving encouragement
not only to vice but to crimes, by making a highwayman the hero and
dismissing him at last unpunished. In the Preface to Dr. Herring's
"Sermons," it is added that "several street-robbers confessed in Newgate
that they raised their courage at the playhouse by the songs of
Macheath."[8] Others certainly shared the views of the clergyman. When
on September 15th, 1773, at the Old Bailey, fifteen prisoners were
sentenced to death, forty to transportation, and eight to a whipping, it
is recorded that the magistrate, Sir John Fielding, "informed the Bench
of Justices that he had last year written to Mr. Garrick concerning the
impropriety of performing 'The Beggar's Opera,' which never was
represented without creating an additional number of real thieves,"[9]
and that to this effect he not only wrote to Garrick at Drury Lane
Theatre, but also to Colman at Covent Garden Theatre. "Mr. Colman's
compliments to Sir John Fielding," the latter replied, "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.'"[10] Sir John Hawkins, Chairman
of the Middlesex Bench of Justices, also held the view that the Opera
was harmful, and in 1776, wrote: "Rapine and violence have been
gradually increasing since its first representation."[11] Dr. Johnson
took a saner view, and one that was subsequently supported by Sir Walter
Scott, and is generally accepted to-day. "Both these decisions are
surely exaggerated," he wrote in reference to the opinions expressed by
Swift and Dr. Herring. "The play, like many others, was plainly written
only to divert, without any moral purpose, and is therefore likely to do
good; nor can it be conceived, without more speculation than life
requires or admits, to be productive of much wit. Highwaymen and
housebreakers seldom frequent the playhouse or mingle in any elegant
diversion; nor is it possible for anyone to imagine that he may rob as
safely because he sees Macheath reprieved upon the stage."[12] And
again, he said: "I do not believe that any man was ever made a rogue by
being present at its representation. At the same time I do not deny that
it may have some influence by making the character of a rogue familiar
and in some degree pleasing."[13]
The success of the piece was immense, and its vogue tremendous. "The
famous 'Beggar's Opera' appeared upon the stage early in the ensuing
season; and was received with greater applause than was ever known:
besides being acted in London sixty-three nights without interruption,
and renewed the next season with equal applause, it spread into all the
great towns of England; was played in many places to the thirtieth and
fortieth time; and at Bath and Bristol fifty times," wrote the anonymous
editor of the 1760 edition of Gay's plays.
"The ladies carried about with them the favourite songs of it in fans,
and houses were furnished with it in screens.... The person who acted
Polly, till then obscure, became all at once the favourite of the town;
her pictures were engraved and sold in great numbers; her life written;
books of letters and verses to her published, and pamphlets made even of
her sayings and jests. Furthermore, it drove out of England, for that
season, the Italian opera, which had carried all before it for several
years."[14] According to Richard's account book, the opera ran at the
theatre in Lincoln's Inn Fields for sixty-two (not sixty-three) nights,
of which thirty-two nights were in succession, and these thirty-two
performances realised the total sum of £5,351, Gay's share amounting to
£693.[15] Swift, who was always anxious that Gay should do as well as
possible, wrote to Pope on March 5th: "I hope he [Gay] does not intend
to print his Opera before it is acted; for I defy all your subscriptions
to amount to eight hundred pounds, and yet I believe he lost as much
more, for want of human prudence."[16] The advice, however, came too
late, for Gay had already sold the copyright of the "Fables" and "The
Beggar's Opera" for ninety guineas. The opera was published on February
14th, 1728.
Gay was in these days the happiest man in the world. His play was
successful, he was making money, and he had had his little dig at
Walpole. "John Gay ... is at present so employed in the elevated airs of
his Opera ... that I can scarce obtain a categorical answer ... to
anything," Pope wrote to Swift in February, "but the Opera succeeds
extremely, to yours and my extreme satisfaction, of which he promises
this post to give you a full account."[17]
JOHN GAY TO DEAN SWIFT.
Whitehall, February 15th, 1728.
"I have deferred writing to you from time to time, till I could give you
an account of 'The Beggar's Opera.' It is acted at the playhouse in
Lincoln's Inn Fields with such success that the playhouse has been
crowded every night. To-night is the fifteenth time of acting, and it is
thought it will run a fortnight longer. I have ordered Motte[18] to send
the play to you the first opportunity. I have made no interest, neither
for approbation or money: nor has anybody been pressed to take tickets
for my benefit: notwithstanding which, I think I shall make an addition
to my fortune of between six and seven hundred pounds. I know this
account will give you pleasure, as I have pushed through this precarious
affair without servility or flattery.
"As to any favours from great men, I am in the same state you left me,
but I am a great deal happier, as I have no expectations. The Duchess of
Queensberry has signalised her friendship to me upon this occasion in
such a conspicuous manner, that I hope (for her sake) you will take care
to put your fork to all its proper uses, and suffer nobody for the
future to put their knives in their mouths. Lord Cobham says, I should
have printed it in Italian over against the English, that the ladies
might have understood what they read. The outlandish (as they now call
it) Opera has been so thin of late, that some have called it the
Beggar's Opera, and if the run continues, I fear I shall have
remonstrances drawn up against me by the Royal Academy of
Music."[19][20]
DEAN SWIFT TO JOHN GAY.
Dublin, February 26th, 1728.
"I wonder whether you begin to taste the pleasures of independency; or
whether you do not sometimes leer upon the Court, _sculo retorto_? Will
you now think of an annuity when you are two years older, and have
doubled your purchase-money? Have you dedicated your opera, and got the
usual dedication fee of twenty guineas? Does W[alpole] think you
intended an affront to him in your opera? Pray God he may, for he has
held the longest hand at hazard that ever fell to any sharper's share,
and keeps his run when the dice are charged. I bought your Opera to-day
for sixpence--a cussed print. I find there is neither dedication nor
preface, both which wants I approve; it is the _grand gout_."
JOHN GAY TO DEAN SWIFT.
March 20th, 1728.
"'The Beggar's Opera' has been acted now thirty-six times, and was as
full the last night as the first; and as yet there is not the least
probability of a thin audience; though there is a discourse about the
town, that the directors of the Royal Academy of Music design to solicit
against its being played on the outlandish opera days, as it is now
called. On the benefit day of one of the actresses, last week, they were
obliged to give out another play, or dismiss the audience. A play was
given out, but the people called for 'The Beggar's Opera'; and they were
forced to play it, or the audience would not have stayed.
"I have got by all this success between seven and eight hundred pounds,
and Rich (deducting the whole charge of the house) has cleared already
near four thousand pounds. In about a month I am going to the Bath with
the Duchess of Marlborough and Mr. Congreve; for I have no expectation
of receiving any favours from the Court. The Duchess of Queensberry is
in Wiltshire, where she has had the small-pox in so favourable a way
that she had not above seven or eight on her face; she is now perfectly
recovered.
"There is a mezzotinto print published to-day of Polly, the heroine of
'The Beggar's Opera,' who was before unknown, and is now in so high
vogue that I am in doubt whether her fame does not surpass that of the
Opera itself."[21]
* * * * *
Pope and Swift were keenly interested in Gay's triumph, and in their
correspondence are many references to the piece. "Mr. Gay's Opera has
been acted near forty days running, and will certainly continue the
whole season," Pope wrote to Swift, March 23rd, 1728. "So he has more
than a fence about his thousand pounds; he will soon be thinking of a
fence about his two thousand. Shall no one of us live as we would wish
each other to live? Shall he have no annuity, you no settlement on this
side, and I no prospect of getting to you on the other?"[22]
DEAN SWIFT TO JOHN GAY.
Dublin, March 28th, 1728.
"We have your opera for sixpence, and we are as full of it _pro modulo
nostro_ as London can be; continually acting, and house crammed, and the
Lord-Lieutenant several times there, laughing his heart out. I wish you
had sent me a copy, as I desired to oblige an honest bookseller. It
would have done Motte no harm, for no English copy has been sold, but
the Dublin one has run prodigiously.
"I did not understand that the scene of Lockit and Peachum's quarrel was
an imitation of one between Brutus and Cassius, till I was told it.
"I wish Macheath, when he was going to be hanged, had imitated
Alexander the Great, when he was dying. I would have had his
fellow-rogues desire his commands about a successor, and he to answer,
'Let it be the most worthy,' etc.
"We hear a million of stories about the Opera, of the encore at the
song, 'That was levell'd at me,' when two great ministers were in a box
together, and all the world staring at them.
"I am heartily glad your Opera has mended your purse, though perhaps it
may spoil your Court.
"I think that rich rogue, Rich, should in conscience make you a present
of two or three hundred guineas. I am impatient that such a dog, by
sitting still, should get five times more than the author.
"You told me a month ago of £700, and have you not yet made up the
eighth? I know not your methods. How many third days are you allowed,
and how much is each day worth, and what did you get for copy?
"Will you desire my Lord Bolingbroke, Mr. Pulteney, and Mr. Pope, to
command you to buy an annuity with two thousand pounds? that you may
laugh at Courts, and bid Ministers 'hiss, etc.'--and ten to one they
will be ready to grease you when you are fat.
"I hope your new Duchess will treat you at the Bath, and that you will
be too wise to lose your money at play.
"Get me likewise Polly's mezzotinto.
"Lord, how the schoolboys at Westminster and university lads adore you
at this juncture! Have you made as many men laugh as ministers can make
weep."
* * * * *
Colley Cibber, in his "Apology" said that "Gay had more skilfully
gratified the public taste than all the brightest authors that ever
wrote before him," and although this was undoubtedly a piece of friendly
exaggeration, it is a fact that John Gay was now a personage. "Mr. Gay's
fame continues; but his riches are in a fair way of diminishing; he is
gone to the Bath," Martha Blount wrote to Swift, May 7th;[23] and two
months later, with great pride, Gay told Swift, "My portrait mezzotinto
is published from Mrs. Howard's painting."[24] Indirectly, he secured
further notoriety when, in the summer, Lavinia Fenton, who had played
the heroine in the Opera, ran away with a Duke. "The Duke of Bolton, I
hear," he wrote to Swift from Bath, "has run away with Polly Peachum,
having settled £400 a year on her during pleasure, and upon disagreement
£200 a year."[25] She had played in the whole sixty-three performances
of the Opera, the forty-seventh performance being set aside for her
benefit. The sixty-third performance took place on June 19th, and that
was her last appearance on the boards of a theatre. In 1751, shortly
after the death of his wife, the Duke married her, she being then about
forty-three, and he sixty-six.[26]
[Footnote 1: Swift: _Work_ (ed. Scott), XVII, p. 157.]
[Footnote 2: _Ibid_., XVII, p. 162.]
[Footnote 3: _See_ p. 41 of this work.]
[Footnote 4: Spence: _Anecdotes_ (ed. Singer), p. 159.]
[Footnote 5: Pope: _Works_ (ed. Elwin and Courthope), VII, p. 111.]
[Footnote 6: Boswell: _Life of Johnson_ (ed. Hill), II, p. 368.]
[Footnote 7: Spence: _Anecdotes_, p. 159.]
[Footnote 8: Dr. Herring: _Sermons_ (1763), p. 5.]
[Footnote 9: _Annual Register_ (1773), I, p. 132.]
[Footnote 10: Genest: _History of the Stage_, III, p. 223.]
[Footnote 11: _History of Music_, V, p. 317.]
[Footnote 12: _Lives of the Poets_ (ed. Hill), III, p. 278.]
[Footnote 13: Boswell: _Life of Johnson_ (ed. Hill), II, p. 367.]
[Footnote 14: _Plays Written by Mr. John Gay: With an Account of the
Life and Writings of the Author_ (1760), VIII.]
[Footnote 15: _Notes and Queries_, First Series, I, 178.]
[Footnote 16: Swift: _Works_ (ed. Scott), XVII, p. 216.]
[Footnote 17: Swift: _Works_ (ed. Scott), XVII, p. 165.]
[Footnote 18: Benjamin Motte, the bookseller.]
[Footnote 19: The managers and patrons of the Italian Opera, with the
King at their head, had formed themselves into an association under this
title.]
[Footnote 20: Swift: _Works_ (ed. Scott), XVII, p. 176.]
[Footnote 21: Swift: _Works_ (ed. Scott), XVII, p. 180.]
[Footnote 22: _Ibid_., XVII, p. 183.]
[Footnote 23: Swift: _Works_ (ed. Scott), XVII, p. 176.]
[Footnote 24: _Ibid_., XVII, p. 189.]
[Footnote 25: _Ibid_., XVII, p. 188.]
[Footnote 26: "The Beggar's Opera" has been revived many times. The last
and most successful revival was produced by Mr. Nigel Playfair in June,
1920. At the moment of going to press the first anniversary of the
revival has just been celebrated. A copy of the programme of the first
performance of this revival is printed, by kind permission of Mr.
Playfair, on page 162 of this work.]