Page:Devonshire Characters and Strange Events.djvu/501

Rh by him rejected with contempt. Congreve read it over and said, "It will either take greatly or be damned confoundedly."

The play was, however, accepted by Rich, and produced at Lincoln's Inn Fields Theatre. When brought on the stage on the first night, 29 January, 1727-8, Gay's friends sat in great uncertainty of the event, till they were vastly encouraged by overhearing the Duke of Argyll, who sat in the next box, say: "It will do—it must do! I see it in the eyes of them!" When Polly Peachum sang her pathetic appeal to her parents—

and this, to the air of "The Babes in the Wood," familiar to the entire audience from their nurseries, the effect was magical. The audience broke into a roar of applause, and the success of the play was established.

The plot of the piece was thin and poor, but the people were refreshed, and rejoiced to hear again the old familiar notes of English music. There were sixty-nine airs in The Beggars' Opera, and nearly every one was an old English ballad or song air. Gay was not himself a musician, but he had his head full of old ballads and their airs, most, doubtless, picked up about Barnstaple or Bideford, and he set to the tunes words suitable to his characters and the dialogue, and then got a German named Pepusch to note them down for him and write a simple orchestral accompaniment and an overture. The author, according to Mace, got the entire receipts of four nights, amounting in the aggregate to £693 13s. 6d., whereas Rich, the manager, after the piece had been performed thirty-six times,