"Poets no longer shall submit their plays
To learned Cibber's gilded withered bays;
To such a judge the labour'd scene present,
Whom sensible and pretty won't content:
But to thy theatre with pleasure bear
The comic laughter and the tragic tear."
[4] The original Macheath. He used, however, to perform the heroes, particularly Alexander. From these lines it appears that Massanello, was a favourite part with him. From Chetwood's History of the Stage, p. 141, I learn that Walker had contracted the two parts of Durfey's Massanello into one piece, which was acted with success at Lincoln's-Inn Fields.
[5] The original Lockit, who was also celebrated for his performance of Serjeant Kite.
[6] The grammar and spelling of this line are truly Hogarthian.
[7] "A noted preacher near Lincoln's-Inn playhouse has taken notice of the Beggar's Opera in the pulpit, and inveighed against it as a thing of very evil tendency." Mist's Weekly Journal, March 30, 1728.
3. The Beggar's Opera. The title over it is in capitals uncommonly large.
Brittons attend—view this harmonious stage,
And listen to those notes which charm the age.
Thus shall your tastes in sounds and sense be shown,
And Beggar's Op'ras ever be your own.
No painter or engraver's name. The plate seems at once to represent the exhibition of The Beggar's Opera, and the rehearsal of an Italian one. In the former, all the characters are drawn with the heads of different animals; as Polly, with a Cat's; Lucy, with a Sow's; Macheath, with an Ass's; Lockit, and Mr. and Mrs. Peachum, with those of an Ox, a Dog, and an Owl. In the latter, several noblemen appear conducting the chief female singer forward on the stage, and perhaps are offering her money, or protection from a figure that is rushing towards her with a drawn sword. Harmony, flying in the air, turns her back on the English playhouse, and hastens toward the rival theatre. Musicians stand in front of the former, playing on the Jew's-harp, the salt-box, the bladder and string, bagpipes, &c. On one side are people of distinction, some of whom kneel as if making an offer to Polly, or paying their adorations to her. To these are opposed a butcher, &c. expressing similar applause. Apollo, and one of the Muses, are fast asleep beneath the stage. A man is easing nature under a wall hung with ballads, and shewing his contempt of such compositions, by the use he makes of one of them. A sign of the star, a gibbet, and some other circumstances less intelligible, appear in the back ground.
4. The same. The lines under it are engraved in a different manner from those on the preceding plate. Sold at the Print-Shop in The Strand, near Catherine Street.