London since 1705: ‘an exotick and irrational entertainment, which has been always
combated and always has prevailed’ (Johnson). In 1716 Swift had written to Pope:
‘a sett of Quaker-pastorals might succeed, if our friend Gay could fancy it .... Or
what think you of a Newgate pastoral, among the whores and thieves there?’
(Newgate prison held the cream of London’s vast criminal population.) Gay’s semi-
opera, the success of 1728, was performed more often than any play in the 18th
century.
For the 1723 season the castrato Senesino received £2000. Gay wrote to Swift:
‘People have now forgot Homer, and Virgil & Caesar, or at least they have lost their
ranks, for in London and Westminster in all polite conversations Senesino is daily
voted to be the greatest man that ever liv’d.’ In 1727 the sopranos Cuzzoni and
Faustina came to blows on the stage. In Gay’s mock-opera they become Polly
Peachum and Lucy Lockit, two of the wives of Macheath the highwayman. His song
‘How happy could I be with either / Were t’other dear charmer away’ was applied
to Sir Robert Walpole, his wife and his mistress. One of Gay’s thieves is Bob Booty,
a name which stuck to Walpole. Where Italian opera was noble, Gay’s is sordid; his
Peachum is based on Jonathan Wild the Thief-Taker.The Beggar’s Opera is far more
darkly satirical than Gilbert and Sullivan, but fashionable audiences were entranced
by Gay’s rogues and whores, and English folk-songs such as ‘Over the hills and far
away’.
Lady Mary Wortley Montagu
The career and writing ofLady Mary Wortley Montagu(1689–1762) illustrate her
age. Birth, beauty and wit made her a darling of society; she was also independent and
learned.Best remembered for her letters, she wrote political prose and a play, but was
first known for her verse. Her ballad ‘The Lover’ coolly advocates extramarital
discrimination, as had Pomfret in The Choice (1700). The ideal lover would be ‘No
pedant yet learnèd, not rakehelly gay / Or laughing because he has nothing to say, /
To all my whole sex obliging and free, / Yet never be fond of any but me .... / But
when the long hours of public are past / And we meet with champagne and a
chicke n at last,/ May every fond pleasure that hour endear ... .’ Lady Mary’s friend
Mary Astell had shown a reasoned disinterestedness in Some Reflections upon
Marriage (1700),questioning masculine assumptions. But Lady Mary’s Letters have
a particularly dry quality. Those from Turkey are celebrated.
To the Countess of Mar, from Adrianople, 1 April 1717:
I wish to God (dear sister) that you was as regular in letting me have the pleasure of
knowing what passes on your side of the globe as I am careful in endeavouring to
amuse you by the account of all I see that I think you care to hear of. [Gives details of
Turkish women’s clothes.] You may guess how effectually this disguises them, that
there is no distinguishing the great lady from her slave, and ‘tis impossible for the
most jealous husband to know his wife when he meets her, and no man dare either
touch or follow a woman in the street. [She ends:] Thus you see, dear sister, the
manners of mankind do not differ so widely as our voyage writers would make us
believe. Perhaps it would be more entertaining to add a few surprising customs of my
own invention, but nothing seems to me so agreeable as truth, and I believe nothing
so acceptable to you. I conclude with repeating the great truth of my being, dear
sister, etc.THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 197Lady Mary Wortley Montagu
Mary Pierrepont was the
daughter of the Duke of
Kingston, and cousin of Henry
Fielding. She learned Latin,
and knew Congreve, Prior and
Addison. Eloping with Edward
Montagu, MP, she shone at
Queen Anne’s Court, and was
friendly with Pope. Smallpox
ended her days as a beauty.
In 1716 she travelled to
Turkey with ambassador
Montagu. In London with Lord
Hervey (‘Sappho’ and ‘Sporus’
in Pope). She left her
husband, Montagu, in 1739
to follow an Italian, in vain;
she remained abroad twenty
years. Her daughter married
Lord Bute, later Prime
Minister.