University of Virginia Library

Scene 16.

To them, Enter PLAYER and BEGGAR.
PLAYER.

But, honest Friend, I hope you don't intend that Macheath shall be really executed.

BEGGAR.

. Most certainly, Sir.—To make the Piece perfect, I was for doing strict poetical Justice—Macheath is to be hang'd; and for the other Personages of the Drama, the Audience must have suppos'd they were all hang'd or transported.

PLAYER.

. Why then Friend, this is a downright deep Tragedy. The Catastrophe is manifestly wrong, for an Opera must end happily.

BEGGAR.

. Your Objection, Sir, is very just, and is easily remov'd. For you must allow, that in this kind of Drama, 'tis no matter how absurdly things are brought about—So—you Rabble there—run and cry, A Reprieve!107 —let the Prisoner be brought back to his Wives in Triumph.

PLAYER.

. All this we must do, to comply with the Taste of the Town.

BEGGAR.

. Through the whole Piece you may observe such a Similitude of Manners in high and low Life, that it is difficult to determine whether (in the fashionable Vices) the fine Gentlemen imitate the Gentlemen of the Road, or the Gentlemen of the Road, the fine Gentlemen.—Had the Play remain'd, as I at first intended, it would have carried a most excellent Moral. 'Twould have shown that the lower sort of People have their Vices in a degree as well as the Rich: And that they are punish'd for them.