achieved than that by the production of _The Beggars’ Opera_. It defied
the prevailing taste; it went contrary to all the received canons
of art, it was as audacious as a play as it was musically. Hitherto
the Opera had been in the hands of Italians. The themes selected for
musical setting had been classic and mythological. Then came Gay,
taking his subject from the lowest class--gaol-birds; and discarding
all intricate and foreign music, set his songs to melodies familiar to
all from their cradles.
It was said of the deserted stalls and boxes at the Italian Opera
whilst Gay’s piece held the town, that he had made of the Italian the
veritable Beggars’ Opera.
Sir Robert Walpole was frequently the subject of Gay’s satire.
Nevertheless he attended the first performance, and sat in one of the
stage lounges. When Lockit sang--
When you censure the age,
Be cautious and sage,
Lest the courtiers offended should be.
If you mention _vice_ or _bribe_,
’Tis so pat to all the tribe,
That each cries--That was levelled at me!
Sir Robert observing that all eyes turned upon him at these lines,
parried the thrust by leading the applause. After an uninterrupted run
in London of sixty-three nights, and emptying the Italian Opera House,
the play spread into all the great towns of England, and was played in
many places thirty or forty times--in Bath and Bristol fifty times. It
made its progress into Wales, where it contributed some of its airs to
national Welsh melody, to Scotland and Ireland; and last of all it was
performed in Minorca.
Nor was its fame confined to the reading and representation alone, for
the card-table and the drawing-room shared with the theatre and the
closet in this respect; the ladies carried about the favourite songs
engraven on their fans, and screens were decorated with scenes from the
play.
Hogarth’s painting representing the first scene on the boards, with
noble dukes and earls on fauteuils upon the stage, is well known. His
portrait of Polly Fenton is in the National Gallery.
_The Beggars’ Opera_ was revived by Messrs. Gatti at Covent Garden
in the season 1878-9. On this occasion wrote _Punch_: “The house
was literally crammed from floor to ceiling by an audience whose
enthusiastic temperature increased in a graduated thermometrical scale,
the over-boiling point being reached at the back row of the upper
gallery; and this on a night when, in the stalls and boxes, wrappers,
furs, mantles, and ulsters were _de rigueur_ on account of the rigour
of the cold.... Let those who do not believe in a comic tenor see Sims
Reeves as Captain Macheath, and they will discover what magic there
is even in a refrain of ‘tol-de-lol, lol-de-rol, loddy,’ when given
by a tenor who is not impressed by the absurd traditional notion that
he is nothing if not sentimental. His acting of the celebrated song
‘How happy could I be with either’ is full of humour, and his change
of manner from ‘tol-de-rol’ in a tender tone, when addressed to the
gentle, confiding Polly, to the ‘tol-de-rol’ with a true Cockney
chick-a-leary twang when addressed to the vulgar Lucy Lockit, is a
clever idea, most artistically carried out; and then his dance up the
stage while singing, giving his last note good and true to the end in
spite of his unaccustomed exertion, as with a jump he seats himself
in a natural devil-may-care style upon the table, was followed by an
_encore_ so momentous that even he, the _anti-encorist_, was fain to
comply with the enthusiastic demand; so he repeated the two verses, the
dance, and the jump with as much freshness and vigour as though he had
not already sung six songs--snatches, more or less, it is true--and had
got ten more to follow.”
As a man, Gay was amiable and winning in manner. He had a
foible--indolence. Nevertheless he had saved several thousand pounds
at the time of his death, which occurred in the house of the Duke and
Duchess of Queensberry, in Burlington Gardens, in December, 1732, and
he was buried in Westminster Abbey.
And now, having done with the man, we come to his chair.
Rather over eighty years after the death of Gay some unpublished
poems of his were found in an old arm-chair which had belonged to the
poet, and after his death had been retained, with other relics, by
the surviving members of his family. The history was fully narrated
immediately after the discovery in a little book, called _Gay’s
Chair_, along with the life of the poet and a selection of the poems
discovered; some were too broad in humour for publication.
It appears that at a sale in 1818 of the effects of a man called
Clarke, who had kept an old-clothes and curiosity shop in Barnstaple,
an antique chair was disposed of. It is described as of mahogany, with
the seat, back, and arms stuffed, and covered with brown leather and
studded with brass nails. There was a long drawer under the seat, and
two other drawers were fixed on pivots so as to turn back under the
arms, and were fitted for writing materials, with a brass candlestick
attached to each and a wooden leaf for reading or writing. It was
knocked down for a few shillings, and being rather dilapidated, was
sent to Mr. Crook, cabinet-maker, to be repaired. Whilst doing this he
found that the drawer under the seat did not extend the full depth of
the seat, and that when this drawer was taken out it disclosed another
behind it. This concealed drawer was crammed with MSS. and paper. These
were submitted to inspection, and found to consist of some unpublished
poems, together with a variety of other documents and accounts.
This discovery caused much local sensation at the time. It was
ascertained that the chair had been purchased some years previously at
the sale of the effects of Mrs. Williams, a descendant of Catherine,
the poet’s sister, who had married Anthony Baller. She had come in for
Gay’s furniture as next-of-kin, and it was then considered as proved
beyond all reasonable doubt that it had been Gay’s property. Mr.
Henry Lee edited the poems, and they were published in 1820, with a
frontispiece representing the chair. Mr. Chanter says:--“Now all this
seems like a clever fiction introductory to a book, and indeed the idea
of finding papers in a concealed drawer or cabinet has been used so
often as to become threadbare. I have therefore taken pains to verify
the story, gaining further details from Mr. Crook himself, who is
still living, and, fiction-like as it appears, it is strictly and
literally true.”[19]
[Illustration: GAY’S CHAIR
DESCRIPTION:
Under the arms of the Chair are drawers, with the necessary implements
for writing; each drawer turns on a pivot, and has attached to it
a brass candlestick. The wooden leaf for reading or writing upon,
may be raised or depressed, or entirely let down, at the student’s
pleasure. Under the seat is a drawer for books or paper, and behind
it is the _concealed drawer_, in which were found the manuscripts;
it is curiously fastened by a small bolt, not perceivable till the
larger drawer is removed. The Chair is made of very fine grained, dark
coloured mahogany; the seat, back, and arms stuffed, and covered with
brown leather, ornamented with brass nails; the whole, considering
its antiquity, in pretty good repair, and admirably constructed for
meditative ease and literary application.]
One of the poems found in the chair is “The Ladies’ Petition to the
House of Commons,” the suffragettes of the day. It is founded on the
old ballad of “Nice Young Maidens.”
Here’s a pretty set of us
Nice young maidens.
Here’s a pretty set of us
All for husbands at a loss
But we cannot tarry thus,
Nice young maidens.
There is a Scottish version of the same, “Puir auld Maidens,” borrowed
from England.
Gay wrote:--
Sirs:--We, the maids of Exon-City,
The maids--good lack! the more’s the pity!
We humbly offer this petition
To represent our sad condition.
Which, once made known, our hope and trust is
Your honoured House will do us justice.
First you shall hear--but can’t you guess?--
The reason of our sad distress.
A maiden was designed by nature
A weakly and imperfect creature,
So liable to err and stray,
She wants a guide, requires a stay:
And then, so timorous of sprites,
She dreads to be alone at nights.
Say what she will, do what she can,
Her heart still gravitates to man.
As Mr. Chanter has pointed out, Gay has scarcely received due credit
for the number of proverbial couplets and sayings which have entwined
themselves in our daily language; for instance:--
When a lady’s in the case
You know all other things give place.
Those who in quarrels interpose,
Must often wipe a bloody nose.
Can Love be controll’d by advice?
While there’s Life there’s Hope.
If the heart of a man is depressed with cares,
The mist is dispelled when a woman appears.
The epitaph which Gay wrote for himself is a fit conclusion:--
Life is a jest, and all things show it;
I thought so once, but now--I know it.
BAMPFYLDE-MOORE CAREW
To _An Apology for the Life of Mr. Bampfylde-Moore Carew_, London,
n.d., but probably 1753, all the Lives of this disreputable man are
indebted. This was, in fact, his own autobiography, dictated by him
to some literary acquaintance, who put his adventures into shape and
padded them out with reflections and quotations from Shakespeare,
Horace, and mainly from Fielding’s _Tom Jones_.
The book has two dedications, the first is from the “Historiographer
to Mr. Bamfylde-Moore Carew” to Justice Fielding. The second is “To
the Public” from Bampfylde himself. The dedication to Henry Fielding
is by no means complimentary, and one strain of thought runs through
the whole _Apology_. It shows that Bampfylde-Moore Carew was not such
a scoundrel as was Tom Jones the hero of Fielding’s novel; and in that
attempt the author does not fail.
It will not be possible here to do more than give an outline of the
life of this King of the Beggars; the original deserves to be read by
West-countrymen, on account of the numerous references to the gentry of
the counties of Devon, Cornwall, and Somerset that it contains. It is
somewhat amusing in the _Apology_ to notice how Carew insists on being
entitled Mr. on almost every occasion that his name is mentioned by the
biographer. The book reveals at every page the vanity and self-esteem
of this runaway from civilized life, as it does also his utter
callousness to truth and honesty. He relates his frauds and falsehoods
with unblushing effrontery, glorying in his shame. There have always
been persons who have rebelled against the restraints of culture, and
have reverted to a state of savagery more or less. Nowadays there are
the colonies, to which those who are energetic and dislike the bonds of
civilization at home can fly and live a freer life, one also simpler.
And this desire, located in many hearts, to be emancipated from
limitations and ties that are conventional, is thus given an opening
for fulfilment. It may be but a temporary outburst of independence, but
with some, unquestionably, like Falstaff, there is a “kind of alacrity
in sinking.”
Bampfylde-Moore Carew broke all ties when a boy, and remained a
voluntary outcast from society to his death.
“Mr. Carew was born in the Month of July, 1693”--even at birth he
is Mister--“and never was there known a more splendid Appearance of
Gentlemen and Ladies of the first Rank and Quality at any Baptism in
the West of England than at his.” He was the son of the Rev. Theodore
Carew, rector of Bickleigh, near Tiverton.
[Illustration: Bampfylde-Moore Carew.
King /OF THE/ Beggars]
At the age of twelve, Bampfylde was sent to Tiverton school, “where he
contracted an intimate Acquaintance with young Gentlemen of the first
Rank in Somersetshire, Devonshire, Cornwall, and Dorsetshire.” Here
he and other boys kept a pack of hounds, and as these, with Carew and
others behind them, once gave chase to a deer strayed from Exmoor over
standing corn, so much damage was done that the farmers complained to
the headmaster. Bampfylde was too great a coward to wait and take his
whipping. He ran away from school and sheltered among some gipsies.
He contracted such a love for their vagrant life, and such satisfaction
from the applause he got for thefts that manifested low cunning, that
nothing would induce him to abandon their mode of life and return to
civilization. Here is the description of the hero, as sent forth into
the world with Mr. Carew’s sanction:--
“The Stature of our Hero is tall and majestic, his Limbs strong
and well proportioned, his Features regular, his Countenance open
and ingenuous, bearing all those characteristical Marks which
Physiognomists assert denote an honest and good-natured Mind; and tho’
Hardships, and even Age itself (he being now sixty) have made some
Alterations in his Features, yet we venture to compare his Countenance
with Mr. Thomas Jones’s, tho’ the Author of that Gentleman’s Life
asserts he is the finest Figure he ever beheld.”
He was an adept at all sorts of disguises. Sometimes he postured
as a shipwrecked seaman and begged for relief, sometimes he was a
householder whose dwelling had been destroyed by fire, sometimes,
dressed in little more than a blanket, he acted the madman. Then he
was a Kent farmer, whose lands had been overflowed by the tide. The
only trade he acquired was that of rat-catching. In this, “our Hero,
by his close Application, soon attained so considerable a Knowledge
in his Profession, that he practised it with Success and Applause, to
the great Advantage of the Public in general, not confining the good
Effects of his Knowledge to his own Community only, but extending
them universally to all Sorts of People wheresoever they were wanted;
for though the Mendicants are in a constant State of Hostility with
all other People, and Mr. Carew was as alert as any one in laying all
Manner of Schemes and Stratagems to carry off a Booty from them, yet
he thought, as a Member of the grand Society of Human Kind, he was
obliged to do them all the Good in his Power, when it was not opposite
to the Interest of that particular Community of which he was a Member.”
Carew kept a watchful eye on the papers, and so soon as he heard of
a disaster anywhere, he at once assumed the disguise of one who had
suffered in this disaster, and appealed for relief. To assist him in
his deception, he produced letters authenticating his story, forged
by himself in the name of magistrate and nobleman, clergy and country
gentlemen of good repute.
It next occurred to him that it would serve his purpose if he made a
voyage to Newfoundland, so as to be able the better to personate an
unfortunate sailor who had been wrecked on his way home. He went there
accordingly and picked up all the local knowledge he could, the names
of the merchants and dealers and agents there, and returned. At once he
figured in the character of a seaman lost in a vessel homeward bound,
sometimes belonging to Poole, sometimes to Dartmouth, at other times
to other ports, and under such and such commander, according as the
newspapers gave accounts of such accidents.
“If the Booty he got before under this character was considerable, it
was much more so now; for being able to give a very exact Account of
Newfoundland, he applied with great Confidence to Masters of Vessels,
and Gentlemen well acquainted with those Parts; so that those whom
before his Prudence would not permit him to apply to, now became his
greatest benefactors, as the perfect Account he gave of the Country
engaged them to give Credit to all he asserted, and made them very
liberal in his Favour.”
But his very worst act was committed shortly after this. He went in a
collier from Dartmouth to Newcastle, and there he fell in love with a
Miss Grey, daughter of a respectable surgeon-apothecary of the town. He
pretended to be mate of the collier, and the captain was not ashamed
to corroborate this statement. He gained the young lady’s affections,
and as the father naturally objected to such a match, he induced the
unfortunate girl to elope with him and come to Dartmouth, where only
did she find out that he was a professional mumper or beggar, and
that his only respectable trade was that of rat-catcher. But she had
taken an irrevocable step in running away with him, and she consented
to marry him, and the ceremony was performed at Bath, where for a few
weeks they lived in high style, till his money was gone, when he was
obliged again to return to his impositions and frauds. From Bath the
young couple went to Porchester, where they were kindly received by an
uncle of Bampfylde, and he most urgently strove to turn the scoundrel
from his mode of life, promising that if he would reform, he and the
family would obtain for him some situation in which he could earn his
livelihood in an honest manner, and live in a way befitting his birth.
But this did not suit Carew. He employed his time with his uncle, who
was a clergyman, in studying his demeanour, manner of speech, etc., and
leaving him supplied himself with cassock, bands, a black gown, and
started “mumping” as a Jacobite incumbent of Aberystwyth, who had been
ejected from the living for his political sentiments, and “this and his
thorough Knowledge of those Persons whom it was proper to apply to,
made this stratagem succeed even beyond his own expectations.”
He, however, exchanged his disguise; for having heard that a vessel
containing many Quakers bound for Philadelphia had been cast away
on the coast of Ireland, he laid aside gown, cassock, and bands, and
assumed the garb and language and address of a Quaker. “His countenance
was now demure; the words You and Sir he seemed to hold in abomination;
his Hat was moved to none; for though under Misfortunes, he would
not think of bowing the knee to Baal.” Thus equipped he preyed very
successfully on the Friends. He even went to a great meeting of Quakers
from all parts at Thorncombe, in Dorset, and induced the Friends there
to make a considerable contribution for the relief of this member of
the sect who had fallen into such distress through the wreck.
His effrontery, his cunning, his utter unscrupulousness gained him such
credit among the gipsies that on the death of Claude Patch, who had
reigned previously over the canting crew, he was elected King of the
Beggars, and thenceforth drew from the whole community a certain income.
At last he was arrested, tried at the quarter sessions at Exeter, and
transported to Maryland, where he was sold to a planter. As he tried to
escape, an iron collar with a handle to it was riveted about his neck.
He again escaped; this time he succeeded in getting among the Indians,
who relieved him of his collar. He stole a canoe from his benefactors,
and in it made his way to Newcastle in Pennsylvania. There he wandered
about, pretending to be a Quaker, being everywhere well received by the
fraternity till he came to Derby, where Mr. Whitefield was preaching
and drawing crowds. He attended Whitefield’s meetings, pretended to be
a converted character, sought the preacher out, imposed on him, got
from him money, and departed for Philadelphia, and thence made his
way to New London, where resided two sisters of Sir John Davie, of
Creedy Park, near Crediton. They were married there, and their sons
were timber merchants. They were greatly delighted to see a man who
could inform them about their family, and he raised vain hopes in their
mind that “they were near heirs to a fine estate near Crediton.” So
completely were they taken in by him that they gave him money and a
letter to their relative Humphry Davie, recommending Carew to his good
offices. Carew embarked at New London for England. He was, however,
much afraid of being pressed for the Navy on approaching England. To
avoid this he pricked his breast and arms with a needle, rubbed in bay
salt and gunpowder, feigned to be very ill and to be light-headed.
It was suspected that he had small-pox, and as such, when an officer
came on board to see what men were there, he escaped. As ill with
small-pox, he was put ashore at Bristol, where he speedily threw off
all appearance of sickness, made the best of his way to a mumpers’
resort at Mile Hill, and had a carouse. He then made his way to Exeter,
where he fell in with the captain who had conveyed him to Maryland, and
who was vastly astonished to find that Carew had returned home as soon
as or sooner than himself.
He now resumed his old mode of begging under false pretences.
“One day as he was begging in the town of Maiden Bradley, from Door
to Door, as a shipwrecked Seaman, he saw on the other side of the
Street a mendicant Brother Sailor in a Habit as forlorn as his own,
a begging for God’s sake, just like himself; who seeing Mr. Carew,
crossed over the way and came up to him, and in the canting Language
asked him where he was last Night; what Road he was going; then whether
he would brush into a Boozing-ken and be his Thrums, _i.e._ go into
the Alehouse and spend his Threepence with him. To this he consented
and away they go, where, in the Series of their Conversation, they ask
each other various Questions concerning the Country, the charitable and
uncharitable Families, the moderate and severe Justices, the good and
queer Corporations, etc., those that would and would not suffer begging
in their Territories. The new Acquaintance of Mr. Carew’s asked him if
he had been to Sir Edward Seymour’s? He answered Yes, and had received
his Alms.
“The next Day they beg the Town, one on one Side of the Street, the
other on the other, each on his own separate Story. They then proceeded
to the Houses of several Gentlemen in that Neighbourhood; among others
they came to Lord Weymouth’s, where it was agreed that Mr. Carew should
be the Spokesman. Upon their coming up to the House the Servants bid
them begone, for should Lord Weymouth come and detect them in any
Falsehood, he would horsewhip them without Mercy.
“Our Travellers, however, were not the least daunted hereat. Therefore
they went up to the Kitchen Door and Mr. Carew broke the Ice, telling
the deplorable Story of their Misfortune in his usual lamentable
Tone. At length the Housekeeper gave them the greatest Part of a cold
Shoulder of Mutton, half a fine Wheaten Loaf, and a Shilling, but did
it with great Haste and Fear, lest my Lord should see her. Of the
Butler they got a Copper of good Ale, and then departed.
“Having got at some Distance from the House, there arose a Dispute who
should carry the Victuals, both being loth to encumber themselves with
it, as having neither Wife nor Child near to give it to. Mr. Carew was
for throwing it into the Hedge, but the other urged that it was both
a Sin and a Shame to waste good Victuals in that Manner; so they both
agreed to go to the ‘Green Man,’ about a Mile from my Lord’s, and there
exchange it for Liquor. At this Alehouse they tarried some time, and
snacked the Arget, that is, shared the Money which they had that Day
gotten; then, after a parting Glass, each went his separate Way.
“The Reader cannot but be surprised, when we assure him that this
Mendicant Companion of his was _no less a Person than my Lord Weymouth
himself_, who, being desirous of sounding the Tempers and Dispositions
of the Gentlemen, and other Inhabitants of his Neighbourhood, put
himself into a Habit so vastly beneath his Birth and Fortune. Nor was
this the first Time that this great Nobleman had metamorphosed himself
into the despicable Shape and Character of a Beggar. He took especial
Care to conceal it even from his own Family, one Servant only, in whose
Secresy he greatly confided, being entrusted therewith.”
This Lord Weymouth was Thomas Thynne, born 1710, who succeeded to the
title of Viscount Weymouth in 1714, and died in 1751.
So soon as Carew and his companion had parted company, Lord Weymouth
slipped home by a private way, divested himself of his disguise, and
calling for his servants said that he had been informed that two
mendicant sailors had visited his house, that they were impostors, and
he ordered two of his men to mount their horses and bring them before
him.