that placed all kinds of vice in the ftrangest and most odious light; but others, and among them Dr. Herring, afterwards archbishop of Canterbury, cenfured it as giving encouragement not only to vice but to crimes, by making a highwayman the hero, and difmiffing him at last unpunished. It has been even said that after the exhibition of the Beggar's Opera the gangs of robbers were evidently multiplied.

Both thefe decifions are furely exag

gerated.

The play, like many others,. was plainly written only to divert, without any moral purpose, and is therefore not likely to do good; nor can it be conceived, without more fpeculation than life requires or admits, to be productive

of

of much evil.

Highwaymen and housebreakers feldom frequent the playhouse, or mingle in any elegant diverfion; nor is it poffible for any one to imagine that he may rob with fafety, becaufe he fees Macheath reprieved upon the stage.

This objection however, or some other rather political than moral, obtained fuch prevalence, that when Gay produced a fecond part under the name of Polly, it was prohibited by the Lord Chamberlain; and he was forced to recompenfe his repulfe by a fubfcription, which is faid to have been fo liberally bestowed, that what he called oppreffion ended in profit. The publication was fo much favoured, that

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B 3

though

though the first part gained him four hundred pounds, near thrice as much was the profit of the fecond.

He received yet another recompenfe for this fuppofed hardship, in the affectionate attention of the duke and dutchefs of Queensbury, into whofe house he was taken, and with whom he paffed the remaining part of his life. The * duke, confidering his want of economy, undertook the management of his money, and gave it to him as he wanted it. But it is fuppofed that the discountenance of the Court funk deep into his heart, and gave him more difcontent than the applaufes or tenderness of his friends could overpower. He foon fell into his old

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diftem.

diftemper, an habitual colick, and lan

guished, though with many intervals of ease and cheerfulness, till a violent fit at laft feized him, and hurried him to the grave, as Arbuthnot reported, with more precipitance than he had ever known. He died on the fourth of December 1732, and was buried in Weftminster Abbey. The letter which brought an account of his death to Swift was laid by for fome days unopened, because when he received it he was impreft with the preconception of fome misfortune.

After his death was publifhed a fecond volume of Fables more political than the former. His opera of Achilles was acted, and the profits were given to two widow fifters, who inherited what he left, B 4

as

as his lawful heirs; for he died without

a will, though he had gathered three thousand pounds. There have appeared likewise under his name a comedy called the Diftreft Wife, and the Rehearsal at Gotham, a piece of humour.

The character given him by Pope is this, that he was a natural man, without defign, who spoke what he thought, and just as he thought it; and that he was of a timid temper, and fearful of giving offence to the great; which caution however, fays Pope, was of no avail.

As a poet, he cannot be rated very high. He was, as I once heard a female critick remark, of a lower order. He had not in any great degree the mens divinior, the dignity of genius. Much

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+ Spence.

how