o-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 surpass 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 Cassius, 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 L700, 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