Book-bot.com - read famous books online for free

The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Volume IV by Theophilus Cibber
page 260 of 367 (70%)
humour with great success, particularly The Shepherd's Week, Trivia,
The What d'ye Call It, and The Beggars Opera, which was acted at the
Theatre in Lincoln's-Inn-Fields 1728. The author of the Notes on this
line of the Dunciad, b. iii. I. 326.

Gay dies unpensioned with a hundred friends;

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

Primores populi arripuit populumque tributim,

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 verses 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
DigitalOcean Referral Badge