divine[10].

In this happy performance of Mr. Gay, all the characters are just, and
none of them carried beyond nature, or hardly beyond practice. It
discovers the whole system of that commonwealth, or that _imperium in
imperio_ of iniquity, established among us, by which neither our lives,
nor our properties are secure, either in the highways, or in public
assemblies, or even in our own houses. It shews the miserable lives, and
the constant fate of those abandoned wretches; for how little they sell
their lives and souls; betrayed by their whores, their comrades, and the
receivers and purchasers of these thefts and robberies. This comedy
contains likewise a satire, which, although it doth by no means affect
the present age, yet might have been useful in the former, and may
possibly be so in ages to come. I mean where the author takes occasion of
comparing those common robbers to robbers of the public;[11] and their
several stratagems of betraying, undermining, and hanging each other,[12]
to the several arts of politicians in times of corruption.

This comedy likewise exposeth with great justice, that unnatural taste
for Italian music among us,[13] which is wholly unsuitable to our
northern climate, and the genius of the people, whereby we are over-run
with Italian effeminacy, and Italian nonsense. An old gentleman said to
me, that many years ago, when the practice of an unnatural vice grew so
frequent in London, that many were prosecuted for it, he was sure it
would be a forerunner[14] of Italian operas, and singers; and then we
should want nothing but stabbing or poisoning, to make us perfect
Italians.

Upon the whole, I deliver my judgment, that nothing but servile
attachment to a party, affectation of singularity, lamentable dullness,
mistaken zeal, or studied hypocrisy, can have the least reasonable
objection against this excellent moral performance of the celebrated Mr.
Gay.

[Footnote 1: See title in note above, p. 313. [T.S.]]

[Footnote 2: "He will go among the people, and will draw a crowd
together." [T.S.]]

[Footnote 3: Gay's "The Beggar's Opera" was produced by Rich at the
Theatre Royal in Lincoln's Inn Fields, January 29th, 1727/8, and
published in book form in 1728. It was shortly afterwards performed in
Dublin, Bath, and other places. [T.S.]]

[Footnote 4: Writing to Pope, May 10th, 1728, Swift says: "Mr. Gay's
Opera has been acted here twenty times, and my lord lieutenant tells me
it is very w