at minister
was demonstratively convinced, and publickly owned his conviction,
that Mr. Gay was not the author, but having laid under the suspicion,
it seemed very just that he should suffer the punishment, because in
this most reformed age the virtues of a great minister are no more to
be suspected, than the chastity of Caesar's wife.' The dean then tells
us, that our author in this piece has, by a turn of humour entirely
new, placed vices of all kinds in the strongest, and most odious
light, and thereby done eminent service both to religion and morality.
'This appears from the unparalleled success he has met with; all
ranks, parties, and denominations of men, either crowding to see his
Opera, or reading it with delight in their closets; even ministers of
state, whom he is thought most to have offended, appearing frequently
at the Theatre, from a consciousness of their own innocence, and
to convince the world how unjust a parallel, malice, envy and
disaffection to the government have made.----In this happy performance
of Mr. Gay, all the characters are just, and none of them carried
beyond nature, or hardly beyond practice. It discovers the whole
system of that commonwealth, or that imperium in imperio of iniquity
established among us, by which, neither our lives, nor our properties
are secure, either in highways, or in public assemblies, or even in
our own houses; it shews the miserable lives and constant fate of
those abandoned wretches; for how small a price they sell their souls,
betrayed by their companions, receivers, and purchasers of those
thefts and robberies. This comedy contains likewise a satire, which
though it doth by no means affect the present age, yet might have been
useful in the former, and may possibly be so in ages to come, I mean
where the author takes occasion of comparing those common robbers of
the public, and their several stratagems of betraying, undermining,
and hanging each other, to the several acts of politicians in the time
of corruption. This comedy likewise exposes, with great justice, that
unnatural taste for Italian music among us, which is wholly unsuitable
to our Northern climate, and the genius of the people, whereby we
are overrun with Italian effeminacy. An old gentleman said to me many
years ago, when the practice of an unnatural vice grew so frequent in
London, that many were prosecuted for it; he was sure it would be
the forerunner of Italian operas and singers, and then we wo