PRIOR, GAY AND POPE.
179
"Beggar's Opera"[1] and in its wearisome continuation (where the verses are to the full as pretty as in the
- ↑ "Dr Swift had been observed once to Mr. Gay, what an odd pretty sort of thing a Newgate Pastoral might make. Gay was inclined to try at such a thing, for some time, but afterwards thought it would be better to write a comedy on the same plan. This was what give rise to the 'Beggar's Opera.' He began on it, and when he first mentioned it to Swift, the Doctor did not much like the project. As he carried it on, he showed what he wrote to both of us: and we now and then gave a correction, or a word or two of advice: but it was wholly of his own writing. When it was done, neither of us thought it would succeed. We showed it to Congreve, who, after reading it over, said, 'it would either take greatly or be damned confoundedly.' We were all at the first night of it, in great uncertainty of the event; till we were very much encouraged by overhearing the Duke of Argyle, who sat in the next box to us, say, 'it will do—it must do!—I see it in the eyes of them!' This was a good while before the first act was over, and so
"'How can they say that Nature
Has nothing made in vain;
Why then beneath the water
Should hideous rocks remain?
No eyes the racks discover
That dirk beneath the deep,
To wreek the wandering lover,
And leaye the maid to weep?"
Has nothing made in vain;
Why then beneath the water
Should hideous rocks remain?
No eyes the racks discover
That dirk beneath the deep,
To wreek the wandering lover,
And leaye the maid to weep?"
"All melancholy lying,
Thus wail'd she for her dear:
Repay'd each blast with sighing,
Each hillow with a fear;
When o'er the white wave stooping,
His floating corpse she spy'd;
Then, like a lily drooping,
She bow'd her head, and died."
A Ballad, from the "What-d'ye call it."
Thus wail'd she for her dear:
Repay'd each blast with sighing,
Each hillow with a fear;
When o'er the white wave stooping,
His floating corpse she spy'd;
Then, like a lily drooping,
She bow'd her head, and died."
A Ballad, from the "What-d'ye call it."
"What can be prettier than Gay's ballad, or rather Swift's, Arbuthnot's, Pope's, and Gay's, in the 'What d'ye call it.' 'T'was when the seas were roaring?' I have been well informed, that they all contributed,"—Cowper to Unwin, 1783.
