| From the mezzotint by Milvus after the portrait by William Aikman. | frontispiece |
| |
| facing page |
| SCENE FROM THE GENTLE SHEPHERD From the illustration by David Allan in the edition of 1788. | 31 |
| |
| BURLESQUE OF THE BEGGAR’S OPERA By William Hogarth. The opera is being performed at a fair. Ballad-sheets are on the wall to the left, and gallows in the background. The orchestra consists of a dulcimer, a hum-thrum (a bladder on a bowstring), a bag-pipe, a salt-box and other rude instruments. Harmony is flying from the scene and the following verse is appended to the picture: | 37 |
| Britons attend—view this harmonious stage,And listen to those notes which charm the age;Thus shall your taste in sounds and sense be shown,And Beggar’s Operas ever be your own. | |
| |
| SCENE FROM THE BEGGAR’S OPERA From William Hogarth’s picture, showing Macheath in Newgate and Polly and Lucy appealing for him. The fashionable audience of the first night are seen in the stage boxes. | 59 |
| |
| TITLE-PAGE OF POLLY From the octavo edition of 1729. | 81 |
| |
| TITLE-PAGE OF THE BEGGAR’S OPERA From the first edition, published in 1728. | 87 |
| |
| SCENE FROM THE BEGGAR’S OPERA From Francis Hayman’s frontispiece to the edition of 1765, showing Lucy, Macheath, and Polly with Peachum in the prison scene. The Newgate ‘Ordinary,’ or Chaplain, is in the background. (Act ii.) | 91 |
| |
| THE ENRAGED MUSICIAN By William Hogarth. Pietro Castrucci, the leader and first violin of the Italian Opera, is seen at the window. A playbill of The Beggar’s Opera is pasted on the wall and a ballad-singer is chanting the ballad The Ladies’ Fall. | 99 |
