Col. But, my Lord, I forgot to ask you how you like my new clothes. Lord S. Why, very well, Colonel; only, to deal plainly with you, methinks the worst piece is in the middle. (Here a loud laugh, oft repeated.) Pray, is Miss Buxom married? I hear 'tis all over the town. Col. If she be'nt married, at least she's lustily promised. But is it certain that Sir John Blunderbuss is dead at last? Lord S. Yes, or else he's sadly wronged, for they have buried him. Miss. To make a fool ask, and you are the first. Nev. Well. I see one fool makes many. Miss. And you are the greatest fool of any. The Colonel spills his tea, and his hostess cheers him with the remark that it is as well done as if she had done it herself. But it is useless to quote any more-it is all quotation, and the whole day's entertainment makes a very good afternoon's reading. These "Polite Conversations" were not published till some years after the close of the period we are now considering, though perhaps we may take their author's word seriously enough to believe that he had been collecting material for them for many years past. But there is another satirical picture of Society at the close of George I.'s reign -shortly after the execution of Jonathan Wild-that took such an extraordinary hold on the public of all classes, and so influenced the art and literature of the succeeding decade or so, that, in spite of its subject being one of low life, it forms an important link between this chapter and the next-I mean "The Beggar's Opera." As this has not been performed now for nearly half a century, and as the present age is so taken up with what it is pleased to call "musical farce," it is perhaps worth calling to mind the outlines of this famous piece, that so roused the public interest in the humours of the criminal classes as exploited for satirical purposes. Peachum is the thieves' lawyer, and his daughter Polly furnishes the first development of the plot by letting out that she is married to Captain Macheath, the highwayman. Peachum questions her, and con B cludes by speaking his mind very plainly: "You know, Polly, I'm not against your toying and trifling with a customer in the way of business, or to get out a secret or so. But if I find out that you have play'd the fool and are married, you jade you, I'll cut your throat, hussy. Now you know my mind." Mrs. Peachum then bursts in-or out— "in a very great passion," with the following, set to the tune of "O London is a fine Town." "Our Polly is a sad slut! nor heeds what we have taught her; "I knew she was always a proud slut," she continues, “and now the wench hath played the fool and married, because forsooth she would do like the gentry. Can you support the expence of a husband, hussy, in drinking and gaming? Have you money enough to carry on the daily quarrels of man and wife about who shall squander most? If you must be married, could you introduce nobody into our family but a highwayman? Why, thou foolish jade, thou wilt be as ill used and as much neglected as if thou hadst married a Lord!" Peachum comes to the rescue with some very sage reflections. "Let not your anger, my dear, break through the rules of decency, for the Captain looks upon himself in the military capacity as a gentleman by profession. Besides what he hath already, I know he is in a fair way of getting [making money] or of dying; and both these ways, let me tell you, are most excellent chances for a wife." Mrs. Peachum, however, is not so easily consoled. "With Polly's fortune," she says, "she might well have gone off to a person of distinction. Yes, that you might, you pouting slut! All the hopes of the family are gone for ever and ever!" Polly, after a short ditty to the tune of "Grim King of the Ghosts," pathetically remarks, "I did not marry him (as 'tis the fashion) coolly and deliberately for honour or money. But, I love him." "Love him!" screams her mother, "worse and worse! I thought the girl had been better bred. Oh husband, husband! her folly makes me mad! My head swims! I'm distracted! I can't support myself. . . Oh!" (Faints.) The act closes with a charming love scene between Macheath and Polly, in which one of the ditties is, "Over the Hills and far away," while another contains this simple yet captivating couplet: "Polly. Fondly let me loll. Several of these old tunes survived-and possibly still survive in old-fashioned houses-in "The Lancers"; as, for instance, "If the heart of a man is deprest by care," which was the regular music for the "Ladies in the middle" figure. In the next act, Macheath is "lagged," and the unfortunate Lucy Lockit, the jailor's daughter, comes on the scene, with reproaches for Macheath's perfidy. Polly afterwards joins them, giving occasion to Macheath's ever remembered "How happy could I be with either But lol de rol," &c., which is shortly followed by Polly's Cease your funning." In the third act the plot thickens, as it should, and ditties to the tunes of "Happy Groves," "Of all the girls that are so smart,' Britons, strike home," "Chevy Chase," "Joy to great Cæsar," "Green Sleeves," and the like, follow in dazzling succession, till the curtain is rung down on "Lumps of Pudding." A chorus, consisting of a Beggar and a Player, then enter, and explain that poetical Justice must be done to make the piece perfect-"Macheath is to be hanged; and for the other personages of the drama, the audience must have supposed they were all either hanged or transported." But this was so fatal an objection that a general reprieve was ordered, and the conclusion of the whole matter was resolved thus by the Beggar"Through the whole piece you may observe such a similitude of manners in high and low life that it is difficult to determine whether (in the fashionable vices) the fine gentlemen imitate the gentlemen of the road, or the gentlemen of the road the fine gentlemen. Had the play remained as at first intended, it would have carried a most excellent moral. 'Twould have shown that the lower sort of people have their vices in a degree as well as the rich, and that they are punished for them." In the next chapter we shall see how this theme was worked out. CHAPTER II HOGARTH AND HIS TIMES THE extraordinary success of "The Beggar's Opera" seems almost, as I have already hinted, to have been the determining factor in the development of both art and literature during the next quarter of the century, a period that has somehow acquired the air of belonging almost exclusively to those two very brilliant but decidedly rough diamonds, Hogarth and Fielding. To pass from the age of The Spectator to the age of Reynolds is something like crossing the servants' quarters on one's way from the study to the drawing-room, and for the high-minded and fastidious the babble of loud and rather coarse voices is too much, and the general atmosphere too strong, to permit them to stay and make any acquaintance with the company whose quality and manners, it must be admitted, are hardly those of Sir Roger or Lord Chesterfield. That the passing-away of Addison and Steele or, for the matter of that, the execution of Jonathan Wild-had any cataclysmal effect on the general tone of society, or that even its outward appearances underwent any considerable change at this particular time, need hardly be supposed; it is merely that the individuality of Hogarth and Fielding was strong enough to dominate their period, and their brilliance to eclipse the lesser lights, just as the gentler spirits of Addison, Steele, and Pope illuminated the preceding period with a glow that even a firebrand like Swift rarely outshone. What Hogarth's career would have been but for his early success with "The Harlot's Progress," it is, of course, impossible to say; but, as it happened, that was the great turning point, and, before he was old or experienced enough to decide for himself whether he should remain an engraver of popular prints, or a painter of people's likenesses, decided for him that he was to be both, and a great deal |