Secret Comment: The Diaries of Gertrude Savile 1721-1757. Based on a transcript by Dorothy Hooper.

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Diary entry 29^th January 1728

Tent morn. Proposed going to ‘Beggar’s Opera’; the 1st night of acting at Lincolnsin Fields. Aunt agreed to it. The House very full in great expectation from the odd Title but it was impossible to expect anything so odd and out of the way. There was an Overture, (no Prologue nor Epelogue), and songs like an Opera but no Recative [recitative]. The tunes were old Ballads with words put to them proper to the Plott or argument of the Opera, so apropos and well addabted to the design and to the Tunes wether sad, angry or merry, as showed both a good Poett and Musisian. The Top Charicters were Highwaymen and Common Whores and very exactly drawn and yet manag’d so as to be inofencive and very witty (which one woud think impossible); full of Sater [satire] upon higher Charicters – indeed upon almost all Vices, with a little too much turn upon Politicks. In the whole it was wonderfully entertaining and instructive, tho’ the Subject was so Low. Home past 10. Bed 12. Not Happy.

excerpt from 'Secret Comment: The Diaries of Gertrude Savile 1721-1757. Based on a transcript by Dorothy Hooper.' pp. 100 (179 words)

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