play the like of which they had never seen?
There was also danger in the political allusions contained in many of
the verses. Sir Robert Walpole, England's most powerful minister of
state, had taken a box and would be present with a party of his friends.
What would _he_ think? A riot was not beyond the bounds of possibility.
The play might be suppressed. A prosecution for seditious proceedings
might follow. Anything might happen.

Meanwhile the house was packed. Every seat on each side of the stage
reserved for the "quality" was occupied. There was just room for the
actors and no more. The gallery was crammed with a mob--a host of
footmen prone to unruly behaviour, butchers from Clare Market ready to
applaud their favourite Jemmy Spiller, Covent Garden salesmen and
porters--a miscellaneous rabble that might easily become turbulent.

In the pit were well to do tradesmen and their wives cheek by jowl with
well seasoned playgoers who had seen every stage celebrity and every
famous tragedy and comedy for the past quarter of a century, who were
well versed in all the traditional "business" of the boards, who in fact
were the real critics to be pleased--or offended. Into the second row
Lancelot Vane had squeezed himself all expectation, with eyes and ears
for no one but Polly Peachum.

Gay's friends filled a box next to that occupied by the Duke of Argyll,
an enthusiastic patron of the stage. Gay himself was there supported on
either side by Pope, Dr. Arbuthnot, Bolingbroke and others. Dean Swift,
who had had so much to do with the inception of the opera and who had
contributed to it some of the most stinging verse, would have been
present had he not been in Ireland at the death-bed of his beloved
Stella, and so also would have been Congreve but that he was blind and
in feeble health.

It was seen at the very commencement that the audience was not disposed
to accept the innovations of the "Beggar's Opera" without protest. To
begin with there was no time-honoured prologue, and worse, there was no
preliminary overture. They could not understand the dialogue between a
player and the beggar, introduced as the author, with which the opera
opens. They grumbled loudly. They thought they were to be defrauded of
their usual music and they wouldn't allow the dialogue to proceed. Jack
Hall who as a comedian was acceptable all round was sent on by the
troubled manager to explain.

Hall advanced to the edge of the stage. There were n