32 - - - 185 8 6

Therefore, when the run was interrupted, the attraction of the opera
was greater than it had been on any previous night, excepting the
6th, which was one of those set apart for the remuneration of the
author, when the receipt was 189l. 11s. The total sum realised by
the 32 successive performances was 5351l. 15s., of which, as we have
already shown, Gay obtained 693l. 13s 6d. To him it was all clear
profit; but from the sum obtained by Rich are, of course, to be
deducted the expenses of the company, lights, house-rent, &c.

The successful career of the piece was checked, as I have said, by
the intervention of benefits, and the manager would not allow it to
be repeated even for Walker's and Miss Fenton's nights, the Macheath
and Polly of the opera; but, in order to connect the latter with it,
when Miss Fenton issued her bill for _The Beaux's Stratagem_, on
29th April, it was headed that it was "for the benefit of Polly." An
exception was, however, made in favour of John Rich, the brother of
the manager, for whose benefit the _Beggar's Opera_ was played on
26th February, when the receipt was 184l. 15s. Miss Fenton was
allowed a second benefit, on the 4th May, in consequence, we may
suppose, of her great claims in connection with the _Beggar's
Opera_, and then it was performed to a house containing 155l. 4s.
The greatest recorded receipt, in its first season, was on the 13th
April, when, for some unexplained cause the audience was so numerous
that 198l. 17s. were taken at the doors.

After this date there appears to have been considerable fluctuation
in the profits derived from repetitions of the _Beggar's Opera_. On
the 5th May, the day after Polly Fenton's (her real name was