A play-bill on the wall describes the unaccountable run of that very popular and pernicious performance, The Beggar's Opera, to have been sixty-two nights. In a copy of this opera, published in 1729, the dramatis personæ are printed as here written; and the good fortune which followed Miss Fenton's attractions in Polly are universally known.
The figures are well grouped and judiciously characterized: those in the background have great force; but the boy with a drum is ill drawn, and the milk-pail is too large.
In the London Daily Post for November 24, 1740, is the following advertisement:—"Shortly will be published, a new print, called The Provoked Musician, designed and engraved by Mr. William Hogarth; being a companion to a print representing a Distressed Poet, published some time since. To which will be added, a third on painting, which will complete the set; but as this subject may turn upon an affair depending between the Right Hon. the Lord Mayor and the author, it may be retarded for some time."
Humphry Parsons was at that time Lord Mayor; but the business alluded to not being in the city records, must remain obscure until some one who knows more about it than I do shall explain it.
In Dr. Beattie's Essay on Laughter and Ludicrous Composition, quarto edition, p. 608, speaking of the modes of combination by which incongruous qualities may be presented to the eye or the fancy, so as to provoke laughter, he observes, that "this extraordinary group form a very comical mixture of incongruity and relation: of incongruity, owing to the dissimilar employment and appearances of the several persons, and to the variety of dissonance of their respective noises; and of relation, owing to their being all united in the same place, and for the same purpose of tormenting the poor fiddler. From the various sounds co-operating to this one end, the piece becomes more laughable than if their meeting were conceived to be without any particular destination; for the greater number of relations, as well as of contrarieties, that take place in any ludicrous assembly, the more ludicrous it will generally appear. Yet though this group comprehends not any mixture of meanness and dignity, it would, I think, be allowed to be laughable to a certain degree, merely from the juxtaposition of the objects, even though it were supposed to be accidental."
Of the immense fortunes realized by the Italian professors of music, we have many examples in this island; but the success of Lully, in France, was greater than any of his countrymen ever experienced here. He was by birth a Florentine. By his fiddle and his impudence, he raised himself from the Queen of France's kitchen to be chief of the band of music, and carried the art to a degree of perfection hitherto unknown in that kingdom. Louis XIV. gave him letters of nobility, and on his account enacted that the profession of music should consist with the quality of a gentleman. He died by excessive drinking, and left an immense fortune. The nobleman who had entertained him when he drank what proved his quietus, paying him a visit, "Ah! my lord," said his wife, with a deep sigh, "you are the last who made my husband drunk." Lully, who was dying, heard the remark, and had just voice enough left to add, "He shall be the first who makes me so again, when I get upon my legs!"
