Still, he began receiving modest recognition for his writing the mid-1710s, particularly with the long poem Trivia or the Art of Walking the Streets of London and the racy 1717 play Three Hours after Marriage (which raised a brief moral panic in London). But he was always ashamed to have survived through these connections rather than on literary merit alone, and he frequently mocked himself to this effect in his work. Thanks to his connections with the nobility, he even got to live rent-free in central London and become the Commissioner of the State Lottery. Fortunately, the Duchess of Monmouth, Earl of Clarendon, and Earl of Burlington were happy to employ him for most of his early career. He quickly realized that, whether he liked it or not, he could only make a living as a writer if he found a wealthy patron. Soon, Gay stared writing comic poems and plays for Hill’s newspaper The British Apollo. Instead, he went to work for his former schoolmate Aaron Hill, a London writer, publisher, and theater producer. He couldn’t afford university, so he became a silk merchant’s apprentice in London, but he found the profession uninteresting and quit after four years. After becoming an orphan on his 10th birthday, Gay went to live with his uncle, a local minister. And Gay based his plot on events taken from the popular press.John Gay was born to a prominent merchant family in the southwestern English town of Barnstaple. Wanting audiences to grasp the ironic lesson of each song instantly, Gay fitted new words to so-called ‘common’ tunes – that is, melodies already known to audiences, mainly through print. To this Gay added ad hominem attacks: Macheath and Peachum were alternately stand-ins for First Minister Robert Walpole, whose nickname ‘Great Man’ is also Macheath’s. These low characters’ dialogue apes that of the upper ranks whose privilege allows them to evade justice. Polly Peachum and Lucy Lockit, rivals for Macheath’s love, were proxies for the Italian opera stars Francesca Cuzzoni and Faustina Bordoni, who were popularly (but incorrectly) believed to hate each other. Gay took the name of Jenny Diver, who betrays Macheath, from London’s most infamous pickpocket. Crime boss Peachum represented the underworld kingpin Jonathan Wild, who publicly sold goods his gangs had stolen, sometimes back to their original owners. His antihero Macheath was based on the thief and bigamist Jack Sheppard, whose multiple partners and four prison escapes fascinated the public. Gay drew his characters from real-life criminals.

The Beggar's Opera by John Gay