“I am assured that several worthy clergymen in this city went privately to see ‘The Beggar’s Opera’ represented; and that the fleering coxcombs in the pit amused themselves with making discoveries, and spreading the names of those gentlemen round the audience.

“I shall not pretend to vindicate a clergyman who would appear openly in his habit at the theatre, with such a vicious crew as might probably stand round him, at such comedies and profane tragedies as are often represented.  Besides, I know very well, that persons of their function are bound to avoid the appearance of evil, or of giving cause of offence.  But when the Lords Chancellors, who are Keepers of the King’s Conscience; when the Judges of the land, whose title is reverend; when ladies, who are bound by the rules of their sex to the strictest decency, appear in the theatre without censure; I cannot understand why a young clergyman, who comes concealed out of curiosity to see an innocent and moral play, should be so highly condemned; nor do I much approve the rigour of a great prelate, who said, ’he hoped none of his clergy were there.’  I am glad to hear there are no weightier objections against that reverend body, planted in this city, and I wish there never may.  But I should be very sorry that any of them should be so weak as to imitate a Court chaplain in England, who preached against ’The Beggar’s Opera,’ which will probably do more good than a thousand sermons of so stupid, so injudicious, and so prostitute a divine.

“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 the highways, or in public assemblies, or even in our own houses.  It shows the miserable lives, and the constant fate, of those abandoned wretches:  for how little they sell their lives and souls; betrayed by their whores, their comrades, and the receivers and purchasers of those thefts and robberies.  This comedy contains likewise a satire, which, without enquiring whether it affects the present age, may possibly be useful in times to come; I mean, where the author takes the occasion of comparing the common robbers of the public, and their various stratagems of betraying, undermining and hanging each other, to the several arts of the politicians in times of corruption....

“Upon the whole, I deliver my judgment, that nothing but servile attachment to a party, affectation of singularity, lamentable dulness, mistaken zeal, or studied hypocrisy, can have the least reasonable objection against this excellent moral performance of the celebrated Mr. Gay.”