Life And Letters Of John Gay (1685-1732) Part 11

"'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 d.u.c.h.ess of Marlborough and Mr. Congreve; for I have no expectation of receiving any favours from the Court. The d.u.c.h.ess of Queensberry is in Wilts.h.i.+re, 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 surpa.s.s 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 Ca.s.sius, 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 d.u.c.h.ess 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 diminis.h.i.+ng; 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 a.s.sociation under this t.i.tle.]

[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.]

CHAPTER IX