“Polly,”

“Polly,” in Weekly Journal or British Gazetteer, May 4, 1728.

This poem is an example of the kind of popular response that The Beggar’s Opera generated.

SIR,

If you will give the following Lines on the Beggar’s Opera a Place in your Journal, you will oblige your old merry Correspondent

QUIBUS.

As wise Physicians try their utmost Skill
With Pulse and Urine, e’re they write the Bill,
Gay, our bright Author, in a Study brown,
Had felt the Constitution of the Town,
And finding stupid Dulness the Disease,
He wrote the Beggar’s Opera, to please.
Sated with Tragick Strains, and Comick Wit,
Our Taste has here an Entertainment fit:
Two Villains Daughters for a Thief contend,
And warbling Notes with dismal Ditties blend.
Pick-pockets, Newgate Sharpers, ’Squires o’th’Pad,
Turnkeys, Bauds, Whores to our Diversions add.
As Wit appears with Life, when in Extremes,
Our Author fell upon the meanest Themes,
With hemlock Roots he bound his soaring Muse,
And in the lowest Life a Path did chuse,
A Path, where Criticks scarce will deign to tread;
There he’s secure,—and for the Beaux light head,
His Play’s design’d, as Pendulum of Lead.
Observe th’ Effects of half a Nation’s Folly;
Gay thus commenc’d a Wit; an Angel, Polly.