Page:The lives of the poets of Great Britain and Ireland to the time of Dean Swift - Volume 4.djvu/262

252 The author of the Notes on this line of the Dunciad, b. iii. l. 326.

obſerves that this opera was a piece of ſatire, which hits all taſtes and degrees of men, from thoſe of the higheſt quality to the very rabble. “That verſe of Horace

could never be ſo juſtly applied as in this caſe. The vaſt ſucceſs of it was unprecedented, and almoſt incredible. What is related of the wonderful effects of the ancient muſic, or tragedy, hardly came up to it. Sophocles and Euripides were leſs followed and famous; it was acted in London ſixty three days uninterrupted, and renewed the next ſeaſon with equal applauſe. It ſpread into all the great towns of England, was played in many places to the thirtieth and fortieth time; at Bath and Briſtol fifty. It made its progreſs into Wales, Scotland and Ireland, where it was performed twenty-four days together. It was laſtly acted in Minorca. The fame of it was not confined to the author only; the ladies carried about with them the favourite ſongs of it in fans; and houſes were furniſhed with it in ſcreens. The girl who acted Polly, ’till then obſcure, became all at once the favourite of the town, her pictures were engraved, and ſold in great numbers; her life written; books of letters and verfes to her publiſhed; and pamphlets made even of her ſayings and jeſts. Furthermore, it drove out of England, for that ſeaſon, the Italian Opera, which had carried all before it for ten years; that idol of the nobility and the people, which Mr. Dennis by the labours