"It is true, indeed, that Mr. Gay, the author of this piece, has been
somewhat singular in the course of his fortune, for it has happened that
after fourteen years attending the Court, with a large stock of real
merit, a modest and agreeable conversation, a hundred promises, and five
hundred friends, he has failed of preferment, and upon a very weighty
reason. He lay under the suspicion of having written a libel, or
lampoon, against a great minister. It is true, that great minister was
demonstratively convinced, and publicly owned his conviction, that Mr.
Gay was not the author; but having lain under the suspicion, it seemed
very just that he should suffer the punishment; because in this most
reformed age, the virtues of a prime minister are no more to be
suspected than the chastity of Cæsar's wife.

"It must be allowed, that 'The Beggar's Opera' is not the first of Mr.
Gay's works, wherein he has been faulty with regard to courtiers and
statesmen. For, to omit his other pieces, even in his 'Fables,'
published within two years past, and dedicated to the Duke of
Cumberland, for which he was promised a reward, he has been thought
somewhat too bold upon the courtiers. And although it be highly probable
he meant only the courtiers of former times, yet he acted unwarily, by
not considering that the malignity of some people might misinterpret
what he said to the disadvantage of present persons and affairs.

"But I have now done with Mr. Gay as a politician and shall consider him
henceforth only as the author of 'The Beggar's Opera,' wherein he has,
by a turn of humour entirely new, placed vices of all kinds in the
strongest and most odious light, and thereby done eminent service, both
to religion and morality. This appears from the unparalleled success he
has met with. All ranks, parties, and denominations of men, either
crowding to see his opera, or reading it with delight in their closets;