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The mind loves to think that, perhaps, in Mr. Hayes's back parlour the gallant Turpin might have hob-and-nobbed with Mrs. Catherine; that here, perhaps, the noble Sheppard might have cracked his joke, or quaffed his pint of rum. Who knows but that Macheath and Paul Clifford may have crossed legs under Hayes's dinner-table?
Turpin and Bradshaw beset the Great North Road; Duval, Macheath, Maclean, and hundreds of notorious highwaymen infested Hounslow Heath, Finchley Common, Shooter's Hill, and all the approaches to the metropolis.
The Walker here mentioned was at that time a very young man, not over seventeen or eighteen years of age, and made his first hit in the "Non-juror." When the "Beggars' Opera" was subsequently brought out, the mighty Quin refused to play the highwayman, Macheath, and Walker willingly took the part and made therein the reputation of his life. But success turned his unsteady head.
Anti-Christ is the name they 'blasphemously' apply to the actual 'old chimera of a Pope. Puseyite Divines treat his Holiness with more tenderness; but even they boggle at his infallibility, and seem to occupy a position between the rival churches of Rome and England analogous to that of Captain Macheath when singing between two favourite doxies
His first appearance was made in the Twenty-fourth Stockbridge Biennial at the Bibury Club Meeting, when he won easily enough; but there were only four moderate animals behind him. A walk-over for the Troy Stakes followed, and then Macheath beat him easily enough for the Hurstbourne Stakes, though he finished in front of Adriana and Tyndrum.
Arthur seated upon a table, like Macheath in the play, in easy discourse with Mrs. Bolton and her daughter. "What! Mr. Bows? How d'you do, Bows!" cried out Pen, in a cheery, loud voice. "I was coming to see you, and was asking your address of these ladies." "You were coming to see me, were you, sir?" Bows said, and came in with a sad face, and shook hands with Arthur.
At the head of the list, in unapproachable beauty, stand his "Black-eyed Susan," "Storm," "Old Towler," and "Lads of the Village;" songs which few voices can attempt, and none dare hope to equal him in. Then, as operas, we had first his Macheath, a part in which, notwithstanding what has been said of his slovenly acting, I think him unequalled.
But Macheath took away all Pen's conceit on this head, not by demonstrating the folly of the lad's passion for an uneducated woman much his senior in years, but by exposing his absurd desire of gratifying his passion in a legitimate way. "Marry her," said he, "you might as well marry ," and he named one of the most notorious actresses on the stage. "She hadn't a shred of a character."
It must, however, be allowed, that in all large towns, however great may be the vigilance of the police, there still must be abundance of the followers of Macheath. Perhaps Paris most abounds in sharpers who cheat with finesse, and London in the number of pick-pockets and robbers.
Highwaymen and housebreakers seldom frequent the playhouse, or mingle in any elegant diversion; nor is it possible for any one to imagine that he may rob with safety, because he sees Macheath reprieved upon the stage.
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