First published in 1726 Language English | Country England Publisher Mist's Weekly Journal | |
The Ballad of Molly Mogg (first published as "Molly Mogg, or the Fair Maid of the Inn") is a poem written by John Gay with contributions from Alexander Pope and Dean Swift. It is written about Molly Mogg, the beautiful barmaid at the Rose Inn, Wokingham, England.
Contents
Background
In the early 18th century, Gay, Swift and Pope were regular customers to the Rose Inn public house in Wokingham, which was run by John Mogg (though John Timbs identifies the public house as the Rose Inn in Covent Garden) On one visit, they were forced to stay in the inn longer than planned due to a storm. To pass the time, they wrote verses about Molly, the attractive eldest daughter of the landlord. The poem alludes to the melancholy mood of Edward Standen, the heir to Arborfield Manor and customer of the inn, who had fallen in love with (and was repeatedly rejected by) Molly.
Molly was born in 1699 and never married, despite her beauty. She died a spinster at the age of 67 in 1766. Her death record named her as "Mary Mogg" and described her as "advanced in years but in her youth a celebrated beauty and toast, possessed of a good fortune that she has left among her relations". Her only brother had no son, so when Molly died the Mogg family name ended. Edward Standen died in 1730 at the age of 27.
Legacy
The poem was first published in 1726 in Mist's Weekly Journal, and was described as having been "writ by two or three men of wit, upon the occasion of their lying at a certain Inn at Ockingham, where the daughter of the House was remarkably pretty, and whose name was Molly Mog."
The Welsh ballad "Gwinfrid Shones" (published in 1733) also mentions Mogg:
Some sing Molly Mogg of the Rose,
And call her the Oakingham belle;
Whilst others does ferces compose,
On beautiful Molle Lapelle.
Molly Mogg's, a public house in London's Soho district (at the junction of Old Compton Street and Charing Cross Road) is named after Mogg.