Wealth & Money Quote by John Gay

Money is the great laundering machine: it takes a “rogue” and presses him into something passable as a “gentleman.” John Gay’s line lands with the smooth sting of Augustan satire, the kind that smiles while it cuts. The phrasing “nowadays” is doing quiet work here, pretending to observe a new development while implying the rot has been there all along. Gay isn’t shocked that roguery exists; he’s amused that society pretends it cares, right up until the rogue gets rich.

The intent is less moral instruction than exposure. “Fit company” reframes virtue as a social credential, not a character trait. If the dinner table accepts you, you must be decent enough. “Any gentleman” widens the indictment: the supposedly refined class isn’t merely tolerant of corruption, it’s available for hire by it. The line “my dear” adds a private, intimate texture that sharpens the public critique; Gay is talking like a friend, but he’s really diagnosing a system.

Context matters: Gay is writing in an early 18th-century Britain obsessed with commerce, speculation, and status mobility, where financial success could outmuscle lineage. The Beggar’s Opera era is full of gentlemen who behave like criminals and criminals who mimic gentlemen, a world where manners are performance and morality is brand management. The subtext is bleakly contemporary: society’s contempt isn’t reserved for roguery, but for roguery that fails. Get rich, and your sins stop being sins; they become “enterprise.”