a great many fatirical, or, if I may be allowed to fay fo, envious remarks on the fuccefs of the Beggar's Opera. The Dean very frankly owned, he did not think Mr. Pope was fo candid to the merits of other writers as he ought to have been. This female editor of anecdotes informs her readers (and many fhe had when her little volumes came out) that Swift fhewed her a letter he had lately received from Pope, filled, fays fhe, with low and ungentlemanlike reflections on Gay and his new and noble patrons. She told the Dean, fhe was forry to read it, for fhe had reafon now to think, there was no fuch thing as a fincere friend in the world. "Why, replies Swift, authors are as jealous of their prerogatives as Kings (“ bear like a Turk no brother near the throne," fays Pope, who borrowed the allufion from Lord Bacon, when be applied it to Addison) and can no more endure a rival in the empire of wit, than a monarch in his dominions." Is this an authorefs of an Atalantis, or is fhe only a Caffandra, delivering difagreeable truths? Pope read over several of Gay's pieces, with the

pen

pen of correction in his hand, before they were fent to the prefs; and he is known to have affifted him in two of his productions. It is evident from the papers of Mr. Spence (which were generously intrusted by the Duke of Newcastle to the ufe of the last biographer of our poets) that Swift fuggested the firft hint that gave rife to the Beggar's Opera, to which Pope and he contributed fomething. The fong of "Virgins are like the fair flower in its luftre" (imitated, if not improved from Catullus and Ariosto) is ascribed to him. It is no wonder this performance was so much commended by Swift and Pope, as they both had a hand in it. We are often more happy in adoption than creation. All the imitations of the Beggar's Opera are poor things; Gay's own fecond part of Polly not excepted. What Ariofto fays of Zerbino may be pronounced of Gay, with regard to this performance:

"When Nature made him fhe destroy'd the mould."

Gay took ample revenge on the court, and flung himself and his wit and humour into the hands of its enemies. This Opera,

which alfo was meant as a burlefque on Italian Operas, continued a fashionable fatire against courtiers. The neglect of the minifter to accommodate Gay with a handfome place was as pernicious to the men at the helm, as Mazarine's refufal of a regiment to prince Eugene, to the interefts of Lewis XIV. according to Voltaire. This piece has done no fervice to the cause of morality. The fongs, which have the ftings of lampoons, were applied to the most melodious tunes that could be found. On the ftage, in the streets, and at the table, they had a marvellous effect on the ear, and on the paffions. The effect was fo uncommon, that the obfervation in the mouth of one of the interlocutors in Fletcher of Saltoun's celebrated Converfation-piece, feems not to be quite a rant, that, "if a man were permitted to make all the ballads, he need not care who should make the laws of a nation;" for manners controul laws. Though it has been faid of this opera an hundred times, it must be faid once more, that, "it made Gay rich, and Rich gay." There is more fatire than

comedy

comedy in the Three Hours after Marriage, in which Pope affifted Gay to ridicule Foffil Woodward. The indifcretion of Cibber. in raising a laugh, in the character of Bayes, on a scene in that play, which Pope took to himself, incurred the indignation of our poet, and placed the Laureate, in fulness of time, on the throne of the Dunces, in the room of Theobald, much to the disadvantage of the Dunciad. Every body felt the confequence of enraging the Lion. Our poet gave warning first, and made good his promife, to punish every animal that infulted him. Take it in his own couplet:

"Whoe'er offends, at fome unlucky time
Slides into verfe, and hitches-in a rhyme."

The party zeal that Cibber difplayed in his Nonjuror (which made his fortune) helped to fet the poetical combuftibles of our Twickenham bard on fire. Thus began his abhorrence of the men of the theatre, whom he meant to wound through the fides of Cibber; for he confiders him, as

"Knight of the fhire to reprefent them all."

Bet

Of

Betterton, and Booth, and Wilks, had had their hour upon the ftage, and were gone. their fucceffors he was either afhamed (to be their terror was referved for Churchill) or he had received disobligations from them. By this time he certainly had given up all thoughts of writing for the theatre, if he ever entertained any. Perhaps at this time he meditated the epic poem in honour of his own country. Of the gentlemen of the Sock and Bufkin he was glad to fay,

"The players and I are luckily no friends." In the first edition it was,

"Cibber and I, &c."

and he meant to continue his diflike, when he wrote,

"Unelbow'd by a gamefter, pimp, or player."

It does not appear that Pope frequented the theatres in the last years of his life. But, according to Mr. Davies (the entertaining biographer of Mr. Garrick) Lord Orrery prevailed upon him to fee Garrick (at Goodman's-fields playhouse) when he broke out, as it has been. applied to Waller, like the Irish rebellion,

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