essively. The ladies carried about with them the favourite songs of
it in fans, and houses were furnished with it in screens. The fame of
it was not confined to the author only. The person who acted Polly, till
then obscure, became, all at once, the favourite of the town; her
pictures were engraved, and sold in great numbers; her life written,
books of letters and verses to her published, and pamphlets made even of
her sayings and jests. Furthermore, it drove out of England, for that
season, the Italian opera, which had carried all before it for ten
years."

Of this performance, when it was printed, the reception was different,
according to the different opinion of its readers. Swift commended it
for the excellence of its morality, as a piece that "placed all kinds of
vice in the strongest and most odious light;" but others, and among them
Dr. Herring, afterwards archbishop of Canterbury, censured it, as giving
encouragement not only to vice, but to crimes, by making a highwayman
the hero, and dismissing him, at last, unpunished. It has been even
said, that, after the exhibition of the Beggars' Opera, the gangs of
robbers were evidently multiplied.

Both these decisions are surely exaggerated. The play, like many others,
was plainly written only to divert, without any moral purpose, and is,
therefore, not likely to do good; nor can it be conceived, without more
speculation than life requires or admits, to be productive of much evil.
Highwaymen and housebreakers seldom frequent the playhouse, or mingle in
any elegant diversion; nor is it possible for any one to imagine that he
may rob with safety, because he sees Macheath reprieved upon the stage.

This objection, however, or some other, rather political than moral,
obtained such prevalence, that when Gay produced a second part, under
the name of Polly, it was prohibited by the lord chamberlain; and he was
forced to recompense his repulse by a subscription, which is said to
have been so liberally bestowed, that what he called oppression ended in
profit. The publication was so much favoured, that though the first
part gained him four hundred pounds, near thrice as much was the profit
of the second[33].

He received yet another recompense for this supposed hardship in the
affectionate attention of the duke and dutchess of Queensberry, into
whose house he was taken, and with whom he passed the remaining part of
his life. The duke, considering his want of economy, underto