"If Peachum's heart is hardened, sure you, sir, will have more
compassion on a daughter: I know the evidence is in your power.
How then can you be a tyrant to me?
"When he holds up his hand, arraign'd for his life,
O think of your daughter, and think I'm his wife!
What are cannons, or bombs, or clashing of swords?
For death is more certain by witnesses' words.
Then nail up their lips: that dread thunder allay;
And each month of my life will hereafter be May."
For more of Mr. Gay's moral dialogue I have not room.
In the year 1727, it was performed sixty-three nights successively,
and in the year 1791 retains its primitive attractions, and is become
what the Drury Lane diary styles a stock play.
That it is countenanced by the public is an apology for the managers:
"For they who live to please, must please to live;"
but that it should have the sanction of the Chamberlain is
astonishing.[215]
We are told in Mr. Boswell's _Johnson_, that when Gay showed this
opera to his patron, the late worthy Duke of Queensberry, his Grace's
observation was, "This is a very odd thing, Gay; it is either a very
good thing, or a very bad thing." It proved the former, beyond the
warmest expectations of the author or his friends; though Quin, whose
knowledge of the public taste cannot be questioned, was so doubtful
of its success, that he refused to play the part of Macheath, which
was therefore given to Walker. In the same volumes I learn that Dr.
Johnson did not apprehend that the performance of this opera had the
pernicious influence which is ascribed to it.[216] For the Doctor's
talents and virtues I have a reverence bordering upon idolatry: in
questions of morality he can seldom be contradicted, and without
the strongest conviction that in this point he is wrong, I should
tremble to dissent from his opinion; but my deductions are drawn
from examples that to me are conclusive. With three instances that
I had an accidental opportunity of seeing, I was very forcibly
impressed. Two boys, under nineteen years of age, children of worthy
and respectable parents, fled from their friends, and pursued courses
that threatened an ignominious termination to their lives. After much
search they were found engaged in midnight depredations, and in each
of their pockets was the _Beggars' Opera_.
A boy of seventeen, some years since tried at the Old Bailey for
what there was every reason to think his first offence, acknowledged
himself so delighted with the spirited and heroic character of
Macheath, that on quitting the theatre he laid out his last guinea
in the purchase of a pair of pistols, and stopped a gentleman on the
highway.[217]
The accumulation of similiar facts is not necessary. Those who think
that lively dialogue, and natural though vulgar repartee, can atone
for what gives new attractions to vice, will, I suppose, continue
to sanction this performance by attending the representation. If
anything could balance the baneful influence it is calculated to
disseminate, Gay must be allowed the praise of having attempted to
stem Italia's liquid stream, which at that time meandered through
every alley, street, and square in the metropolis; the honour of
having almost silenced the effeminate song of that absurd exotic,
Italian opera, which a little previous to this time was the grand
pursuit of the fashionable world. For to the dishonour of true
taste, to the disgrace of common sense, the discords and jarrings of
Cuzzoni, Faustina, and Senesino, excited as much attention, and were
entered into with as much party zeal, as were the political contests
between Lord Chatham and Sir Robert Walpole, or those still more
recent, between Mr. Charles Fox and Mr. William Pitt.[218]
The method Gay took to rout this army of unnatural auxiliaries
does great honour to his generalship. A new disorder had been
imported from the Continent, and like the plague which was wont to
be imported from Turkey, infected our capital. To lay an embargo
upon sound was impossible; to make an echo perform quarantine,
ridiculous!--he took a better mode, drew up song against sing-song,
and to the soft sonnetteering stanza of Italy, opposed the nervous
old ballad of Britain. He brought into the field the whole force
of three kingdoms, and took his tunes from the most popular songs
of the ancient bards of England, Scotland, and Wales. _Britons
strike home_ was the word; _Chevy Chase_ led the van, was followed
by a _Soldier and a Sailor_ singing _All Joy to great Cæsar_, and
chorussed by _Shenkin of a Noble Race_; when _An old Woman clothed
in Gray_, with a _Bonny Broom_ in her hand, swept the whole swarm
of buzzing caterpillars _Over the Hills and far away_. Goldoni's
opera, I VIAGGIATORI RIDICOLI TORNATI IN ITALIA,[219] was in a degree
realized.[220]
For Italian music, William Hogarth had about as much respect as John
Gay, and was therefore so well pleased with a subject which threw it
into ridicule, that he not only painted it three times, but has in
several of his miscellaneous prints made these senseless sounds one
great object of his satire.
The picture from which this is copied was painted in the year 1729,
for Mr. Rich of Covent Garden Theatre; at the sale of his effects
in 1762, it was purchased by the late Duke of Leeds,[221] and is
at this time (1806) in the collection of the noble peer who now
bears that title. When the late Duke permitted Messrs. Boydell to
copy it, the print was engraved by Mr. Blake. To these volumes
is annexed an outline descriptive of the characters, which it is
therefore unnecessary to enumerate in this page.[222] They afford a
good example of the dresses, and what was then called the dignified
manner, of the old school. That any woman should admire such a figure
as Mr. Walker in Macheath, must excite a degree of astonishment;
but to believe for a moment that so attractive a female as Miss
Fenton would choose such an Adonis,[223] must, even in the year 1727,
require a very large portion of dramatic faith. Her charms have
fascinated the Duke of Bolton: his eye is fixed on her face, and his
mind wholly engrossed by the contemplation of that beauty which he
afterwards made his own. Mr. Rich, and Mr. Cock the auctioneer, are
properly enough represented as totally inattentive to the scene.
The poet immediately behind them, saturated by public approbation,
pays no greater regard to the performance than is displayed by
the manager. It had made _Gay rich_, and _Rich gay_, and that was
sufficient.
As Hogarth was invariably faithful in delineating what he saw, I dare
believe the characters are represented as they were. Considered in
that point, without regard to other merit, it has quite as much value
as many groups of portraits which are published in this our day, and
denominated "Historical Pictures."
In the beginning of the year 1729, Hogarth painted for a Sir
Archibald Grant two original pictures, "The Committee,"[224] and the
"Beggars' Opera;" but though Sir Archibald paid half-price for them
at the time he gave the order, I cannot positively assert that they
were ever in his possession, for they afterwards got into the hands
of Mr. Huggins, at the sale of whose effects the latter was purchased
by Doctor Monkhouse, of Queen's College, Oxford. It has a frame with
a carved bust of Gay at the top. The late Horace Lord Orford had a
sketch of a scene in the same play.