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.