THE GLOBE, THE BEGGAR'S OPERA; AND MISS HUGHES. TO THE
EDITOR OF THE SPECTATOR,
DEAR SPEC.—What say you to the Globe, and the Beggar's Opera S Are you ase severe a censor on ladies' legs as your moral contemporary ? Do you think. the firmament would fall, or the crack in St. Plink yawn a yard wider, weree bliss Heusi es to insert her ankles into a pair of pantaloons? Your eontern-L porary has a great many good quitlities, but he is given a little to schooling.. He is strong in negations. The smallest matter cannot pass through his fingers- without being turned over and objected to. Such a nil admirari plan may be- philosophic—it is by no means pleasant. For my part. I like to be set agape now and then. The learned editor of the Herald says a little stupidity is not amiss in. a newspaper ;• and I agree with him. The GAbe is always so correct!—catch tripping, if you can. There is, however, a shade of difference between not wrong, and right, which he does not seem at ail times sufficiently to attend to Why should not JAcK REEVES, the prince, the king, nay the very emperor of mock-heroics, play Polly Peacknnz ? Hat he not the \-ery voice of a prima donna ? Is there one of the tribe that can roulade with more effect ? Is not JACK a very model for a gaoler's daughter—a game-provoking eye, a gin-sipping- lip, a twig-me-here dimple. an arm-filling corporation, and prig-awing fist ? He will—he must produce a prodigious sensation. Why might not Miss HIOHES play Filch to such aPolly ? VEsTRIS plays Mae/math—is the part of a highwayman more. suited to female modesty than that of a pickpocket ? Does Miss HUGHES object to act the part of a common thief? I write my next inquiry with fear and trem- bling—is Miss ficonns in-kneed or bandy ?—But it is quite naughty to reverse- the Beggar's Opera ! it is an abomination—and the abomination is the greater that the Beggar's Opera, even when played straight-forward, is no great shakes !' ' Fur the sake of Miss Hughes ! for the sake of the English Drama !! for the sake of English good feeling ! ! !" stop the play, quoth a stockbroker in the Times, who signs "T. IL" i. e. Three per Cents Reduced. A pretty combination,, in truth! And who is Miss Hi:enss, that by the mouthpiece of her friends and her own seeks to identify her pretty person with the maintenance of the English drama ? A fourth-rate singer, and a no-rate actress, making a. racket about acceding to an arrangement that Miss STEPIIF.SS, not to speak of a host of her predecessors and contemporaries, never hesitated to go into, where the pleasure of the public or the calls of the manager required it.. The intervention of the Lord Chamberlain must be invoked to stop the profa- nation; and the newspapers must cant about the immorality of an actress dis- playing a pair of indifferent legs I admit that little Coves cv is rather too short for Macheath—but what is the whole affair? An opera, with whose moralities and decencies it is no sacrilege to take a little liberty, turned into a farce, in order to indulge John Etill with one hearty laugh before the grand season of theatri- cals is over. The conduct of the Globe in sermonizing on the subject, I shall not denominate canting, as some have done—it is infinitely less respectable than cant* tug, it is asinine. But if the conduct of the G'oie is barely endurable, the con,- duct of Miss II cones is beyond all tolerance. Who the deuce cares whether she act or not ? Were the pretty dear to put finger in eye and quit the stage to-- morrow, what blank would she create ? I know nothing about Miss HUGHES. in. private life—but be she as good as I believe her to be, females as respectable ire birth, education, connexions, and conduct, have put on inexpressibles without , scruple and without censure. If she imagine that the eyes of the whole metro. - polis are fixed on her and her punctilios, she is egregiously mistaken. Even a s an advertisement, the scheme is hopeless. The day fur such a mode of puller y
is gone by, We live in strange times. I thought that, with the settling of .e
Catholic question, the back of this anus »timbals had been fairly broken • but Miss Mown, T. R., and the Globe have contrived—and it was no easy task— "To To add something new to this wonderful year."
Ever thine, dear SPEC.
Costr4ON SetesE.
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