Some verses (and those not always the same) engraved on a separate piece of copper are found under the first impressions. For example, under the earliest impressions of 1724: "Could now dumb Faustus, to reform the age, Conjure up Shakspeare's or Ben Jonson's Ghost, They'd blush for shame, to see the English stage Debauch'd by fool'ries, at so great a cost. "What would their manes say, should they behold Monsters and masquerades, where useful plays Adorn'd the fruitful theatre of old, And rival wits contended for the bays?" Under another impression: "Long has the stage productive been Of offsprings it could brag on, But never till this age was seen A windmill and a dragon. "O Congreve! lay thy pen aside, Shakspeare, thy works disown, Since monsters grim, and nought beside, Can please this senseless town." I have been the more particular in describing this plate, as it appears to have been the first which Hogarth published on his own account, and respecting which he pathetically says: "I had to encounter a monopoly of printsellers, equally mean and destructive to the ingenious; for the first plate I published, called 'The Taste of the Town,' in which the reigning follies were lashed, had no sooner begun to take a run, than I found copies of it in the print-shops vending at half price, while the original prints were returned to me again; and I was thus obliged to sell the plate for whatever these pirates pleased to give me, as there was no place of sale but their shops. Owing to this and other circumstances, by engraving, until I was near thirty, I could do little more than maintain myself; but even then I was a punctual paymaster." BEGGARS' OPERA BURLESQUED. [Illustration: BEGGARS' OPERA BURLESQUED.] This plate seems at once to represent the exhibition of _The Beggars' Opera_, and the rehearsal of an Italian one. In the former, all the characters are drawn with the heads of different animals: as Polly with a cat's; Lucy with a sow's; Macheath with that of an ass; Lockit, and Mr. and Mrs. Peachum, with those of an ox, a dog, and an owl. In the latter, several noblemen appear conducting the chief female singer forward on the stage; and perhaps are offering her money, or protection from a figure that is rushing towards her with a drawn sword.