CHAPTER VIII

1727

"THE BEGGAR'S OPERA"


The opera to which allusion is made in Mrs. Howard's letter of October,
1727, was "The Beggar's Opera," upon which Gay had been actively engaged
for some time past, and which was then nearing completion. "You
remember," Gay wrote to Swift, October 22nd, 1727, "you were advising me
to go into Newgate to finish my scenes the more correctly. I now think I
shall, for I have no attendance to hinder me; but my opera is already
finished."[1] To which Swift replied from Dublin on November 27th: "I am
very glad your opera is finished, and hope your friends will join the
readers to make it succeed, because you are ill-used by others."[2]

It was natural that Swift should be especially interested in "The
Beggar's Opera," because the first suggestion of it had come from Swift
in a letter to Pope, written as far back as August 30th, 1716[3] "Dr.
Swift had been observing once to Mr. Gay, what an odd pretty sort of
thing a Newgate Pastoral might make," Pope once remarked. "Gay was
inclined to try at such a thing for some time, but afterwards thought
it would be better to write a comedy on the same plan. This was what
gave rise to 'The Beggar's Opera.' He began on it, and when first he
mentioned it to Swift, the Doctor did not much like the project. As he
carried it on, he showed what he wrote to both of us; and we now and
then gave a correction, or a word or two of advice; but it was wholly of