great energy in collecting a large quantity of information upon
the original production of The Beggar's Opera in 1728 and its subsequent history, as well as upon Lavinia Fenton, who was supposed to have been a principal cause of its success, and who subsequently became the Duchess of Bolton. The story is not of a very enthralling character, and leads through some of the more dubious paths of early eighteenth-century history. A number of amusing stories and odd scraps of information turn up among the rest ; as, for instance, the account of a book called Les Chats, written in 1728 by a Dutchman, "who gravely states that he has been assured by musical connoisseurs that the song of cats could be rendered exactly by modern musicians, especially in regard to recitative," and also "contends that cats by their lightness are wonderfully qualified to perform a ballet." The Beggar's Opera was performed at intervals for a century and a half after its original production, the last performance having taken place on November 3rd, 188l, with Sims Reeves as Captain Macheath.
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