can be; continually acting, and houses crammed, and the lord lieutenant several times there laughing his heart out. I did not understand that the scene of Locket and Peachum's quarrel was an imitation of one between Brutus and Cassius, till I was told it. I wish Macheath, when he was going to be hanged, had imitated Alexander the Great when he was dying: I would have had his fellow-rogues desire his commands about a successor, and he to answer, Let it be the most worthy, &c. We hear a million of stories about the opera, of the applause at the song, "That was levelled at me," when two great ministers were in a box together, and all the world staring at them[1]. I am heartily glad your opera hath mended your purse, though perhaps it may spoil your court.
Will you desire my lord Bolingbroke, Mr. Pulteney, and Mr. Pope, to command you to buy an annuity with two thousand pounds? that you may laugh at courts, and bid ministers
Ever preserve some spice of the alderman, and prepare against age and dulness, and sickness, and coldness or death of friends. A whore has a resource left, that she can turn bawd; but an old decayed poet is a creature abandoned, and at mercy, when he can find none. Get me likewise Polly's mezzotinto[2]. Lord, how the schoolboys at West-
- ↑ Some of these songs that contained the severest satire against the court were written by Pope; particularly,
"Thro' all the Employments of Life,"
and also,
"Since Laws were made," &c.
- ↑ This was miss Lavinia Fenton. She afterward became duchess of Bolton. She was very accomplished; was a most agreeable
