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 Beggar's 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. He received yet another recompense for this supposed
hardship, in the affectionate attention of the Duke and Duchess 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,
undertook the management of his money, and gave it to him as he wanted
it. But it is supposed that the discountenance of the Court sunk deep
into his heart, and gave him more discontent than the applauses or
tenderness of his friends could overpower. He soon fell into his old
distemper, an habitual colic, and languished, though with many intervals
of ease and cheerfulness, till a violent fit at last seized him and
carried him to the grave, as Arbuthnot reported, with more precipitance
than he had ever known. He died on the 4th of December, 1732, and was
buried in Westminster Abbey. The letter which brought an account of
his death to Swift, was laid by for some days unopened, because when he
received it, he was impressed with the prec