tale of Florizel and Perdita. The dramatic
form of this poem is only an accident, but it doubtless suggested an
experiment of a different kind to the most playful of London wits. Gay's
"Newgate Pastoral" of _The Beggar's Opera_ (1728), in which the amusing
text of a burlesque farce was interspersed with songs set to popular
airs, caught the fancy of the town by this novel combination, and became
the ancestor of a series of agreeable productions, none of which,
however, not even its own continuation, _Polly_ (amazingly successful in
book form, after its production was forbidden by the lord chamberlain),
have ever rivalled it in success or celebrity. Among these may be
mentioned the pieces of I. Bickerstaffe[244] and C. Dibdin.[245] The
opera in England, as elsewhere, thus absorbed what vitality remained to
the pastoral drama, while to the ballet and the pantomime (whose glories
in England began at Covent Garden in 1733, and to whose popularity even
Garrick was obliged to defer) was left (in the 18th century at all
events) the inheritance of the external attractions of the mask and the
pageant.

Comedy. Burlesque.

The Licensing Act.

In the face of such various rivalries it is not strange that comedy,
instead of adhering to the narrow path which Steele and others had
marked out for her, should have permitted herself some vagaries of her
own. Gay's example pointed the way to a fatally facile form of the comic
art; and burlesque began to contribute its influence to the decline of
comedy. In an age when party-government was severely straining the
capabilities of its system, dramatic satire had not far to look for a
source of effective seasonings. The audacity of H. Fielding, whose
regular comedies (original or adapted) have secured no enduring
remembrance, but whose love of parody was afterwards to suggest to him
the theme of the first of the novels which have made his name immortal,
accordingly ventured in two extravaganzas[246] (so we should call them
in these days) upon a larger admixture of political with literary and
other satire. A third attempt[247] (which never reached the stage)
furnished the offended minister, Sir Robert Walpole, with the desired
occasion for placing a curb upon the licence of the theatre, such as
had already been advocated by a representative of its old civic
adversaries. The famous act of 1737 asserted no new principle, but
converted into legal power the customary authority hither exerc