A Book of Burlesque: Sketches of English Stage Travestie and Parody

The melodrama of the last half-century has received due attention at the hands of the stage satirists. Buckstone's "Green Bushes," for example, had its comic counterpart in H. J. Byron's "Grin Bushes," performed at the Strand in 1864. It was Byron, too, who burlesqued Boucicault's "Colleen Bawn," under the title of "Little Eily O'Connor" (Drury Lane, 1861). The story of Rip Van Winkle, made so popular in England by Mr. Jefferson, has been handled in the spirit of travestie both by Mr. Reece (at the Folly in 1876) and by Mr. H. Savile Clarke (in 1880). "The Lights o' London" suggested "The De-lights of London" (1882), which we owed to the co-operation of Messrs. Mackay, Lennard, and Gordon. After "The Silver King" came "Silver Guilt," a clever piece by Mr. Warham St. Leger, in which, at the Strand in 1883, Miss Laura Linden imitated Miss Eastlake to admiration. In like manner, after "Claudian" came the diverting "Paw Claw-dian" of Mr. Burnand, which, at Toole's in 1884, gave Miss Marie Linden the opportunity of emulating (as Almi-i-da) her sister's success. In this piece Mr. Toole, as Claudian, and E. D. Ward, as Coal-Holey Clement, were particularly amusing. "Chatterton," another of Mr. Wilson Barrett's triumphs, has lately reappeared, disguised as "Shatter'd Un" – the author in this instance being Mr. A. Chevalier. "In the Ranks" naturally led to the production of "Out of the Ranks" (by Mr. Reece, Strand, 1884); and "Called Back" was found especially provocative of ridicule, no fewer than three travesties being written – Mr. Herman Merivale's "Called There and Back" (Gaiety, 1884), Mr. Yardley's "The Scalded Back" (Novelty, 1884), and Mr. Chevalier's "Called Back again" (Plymouth, 1885).

In 1888 Mrs. Bernard Beere was playing at the Opéra Comique in "Ariane," a rather full-blooded drama by Mrs. Campbell Praed. This was at once burlesqued at the Strand by Mr. Burnand, whose "Airey Annie" (as rendered by Mr. Edouin, Miss Atherton, and Miss Ayrtoun) proved to be a very mirth-provoking product. The heroine, Airey Annie thus accounted for her sobriquet: —

 
Untaught, untidy, hair all out of curl,
A gutter child, a true Bohemian girl,
Like Nan, in "Good for Nothing," so I played,
And up and down the airey steps I strayed,
Until the little boys about began
To call me by the name of "Airey Anne."
 

Among miscellaneous satires upon the conventional stage products may be named Byron's "Rosebud of Stinging-Nettle Farm" (Crystal Palace, 1862), Mr. Reece's "Brown and the Brahmins" (Globe, 1869), and Mr. Matthison's "More than Ever" (Gaiety and Court, 1882) – the last-named being written in ridicule of the modern Surrey-side "blood-curdler."

So much for the travestie of English melodrama. When we come to deal with the burlesque of melodrama derived from the French, a large field opens out before us. Going back to 1850, we find that Hugo's "Nôtre Dame," as dramatised in England, has suggested to Albert Smith a comic piece called "Esmeralda," brought out at the Adelphi. The subject is next taken up by H. J. Byron, whose "Esmeralda or the 'Sensation' Goat" belongs to the Strand and 1861. Then Fanny Josephs was the Esmeralda, Marie Wilton the Gringoire, Eleanor Bufton the Phoebus, Clarke the Quasimodo, and Rogers the Claude Frollo. Gringoire was made to introduce himself in this punning fashion: —

 
I am a comic, tragic, epic poet.
I'll knock you off a satire or ode Venice on,
Aye, or write any song like Alfred Tenny-song.
Something from my last new extravaganza —
Come now (to Clopin), a trifling stanza shall I stand, sir?
Let me in some way merit your esteem:
Ode to a creditor– a first-rate theme.
 
 
Clop. Thankee, I'd rather not; the fact is, you're —
 
 
Gring. But a poor author – that is, rauther poor.
The baker, a most villainous character,
Has stopped supplies…
The milk purveyor to my chalk cried "Whoa,"
Because I did a trifling milk-bill owe.
My tailor, who for years this youth hath made for,
Closed his account, account o' clothes not paid for.
The gasman, looking on me as a cheater,
Finished my rhyme by cutting off my metre.
 

Esmeralda, who is a dancer, expresses her "delight in all things saltatory": —

 
Some people like dear wine, give me cheap hops,
Where fountains spout and where the weasel pops;
My love for trifling trips I can't conceal:
E'en when I read I always skip a deal;
I prefer columbine before all plants,
And, at the play, give me a piece by Dance.
 

Phœbus, declaring his love for Esmeralda, makes use of a pun somewhat above the Byronic average: —

 
Alonzo Cora loved with all his might,
And Petrarch was forlorn for Laura quite:
You're worth to me, dear maid, a score o' Coras;
Yes, to this bachelor, a batch o' Lauras.
 

In 1879, at the Gaiety, Byron returned to the topic, and produced the piece which he called "Pretty Esmeralda." At the same theatre, in 1887, one saw the same subject treated in the "Miss Esmeralda" of Messrs. F. Leslie and H. Mills – a piece in which Miss Marion Hood, as the heroine, played prettily to the Frollo of Mr. E. J. Lonnen, and in which the late George Stone laid the foundation of his too brief success.

Boucicault's version of "Les Frères Corses" was produced in London by Charles Kean in 1852, and was quickly followed by a travestie. This was furnished by Gilbert Abbott a'Beckett and Mark Lemon at the Haymarket (April, 1852), under the title of "O Gemini! or the Brothers of Co(u)rse." Those who did not witness the production can nevertheless conceive how droll Buckstone must have been as the Brothers, and how well he was supported by Bland, also in a dual rôle– that of Meynard and Montgiron (or Montegridiron, as he was called) – and by Mrs. L. S. Buckingham as Chateau Renaud. The burlesque was not wholly of the punning sort; it relied chiefly upon its travestie of the incidents in the original play. Fabien was made to give (to the sound of "low music") the following account of the extraordinary sympathy existing between himself and his brother: —

 
Listen! this hour, five hundred years ago —
It may be more or less a second or so —
In the Dei Franchi family there died,
I think it was upon the female side,
The very greatest of our great-great-grandmothers,
Leaving ('tis often thus) two orphan brothers.
They took an oath, and signed it, as I think,
In blood – a horrid substitute for ink.
They swore if either was in any mess,
If either's landlord put in a distress,
Or of their goods came to effect a clearance,
They'd to each other enter an appearance.
 
 
Maynard. But you have never seen a ghost —
 
 
Fabien. That's true;
But I shall see one soon, by all that's blue:
For 't is a fact not easily explained,
The ghost has in the family remained,
We've tried all means – still he has stalked about,
And nobody could ever pay him out.
We let apartments, sir; but deuce a bit
Will the ghost take our notices to quit.
 

Later, just before Louis' apparition, Fabien says: —

 
I feel a pain about my ears and nose,
As if the latter had repeated blows.
I'm sure my brother's in a fearful row —
I shouldn't wonder if they're at it now.
I'll write to him. (Writes) "Dear brother, how's your eye?
Yours ever, Fabien. Send me a reply."
I'm sure he's subjected to fierce attacks,
For as I seal my note I feel the whacks!
 

H. J. Byron, who travestied nearly everything, of course did not let the "Corsican Brothers" escape him, and his "Corsican 'Bothers'" duly figured at the Globe in 1869. Messrs. Burnand and H. P. Stephens followed, at the Gaiety in 1880, with "The Corsican Brothers & Co.," and in 1881 (at the Royalty) Mr. G. R. Sims made his début as a writer of burlesque with "The Of Course-Akin-Brothers, Babes in the Wood." In this he began the action with Fabien and Louis as the Babes and Chateau Renaud as the Wicked Uncle, introducing a certain Rosie Posie, who is maid to Mme. dei Franchi and sweetheart of Alfred Meynard. At the end of the first scene Father Time came on, and summed up the situation in a song: —

 
Kind friends in front, you here behold a figure allegorical:
Excuse me if at times I pause and for my paregoric call.
I want to tell you all about this story Anglo-Corsican,
And do the best in spite of cough and voice that's rather hoarse I can.
Old Father Time I am, you guess; 't is I who rule the universe,
And cause the changes which I sing in this the poet's punny verse!
So while the scene is changing, here I sing this song preparative,
To help you, as a chorus should, to understand the narrative.
Ha, ha, ha! Ho, ho, ho!
As chorus to this tragedy, to act my painful doom it is.
In spite of cough, sciatica, lumbago, and the rheumatiz.
 
 
The little boys who in the wood the robins saved from perishing
Are two young men for one young girl a hopeless passion cherishing.
In Corsica with his mamma young Fabien dei Franchi is;
The other one in Paris lives, and growing rather cranky is.
Sweet Rosie Posie followed them. The ma of these phenomena
As lady-help accepted her for foiling the abomina-
Ble plans the wicked uncle laid the brothers to assassinate,
And Rosie still in Corsica contrives all hearts to fascinate.
 
 
To Paris went the uncle, too, to let coiffeurs their talent try,
And now he is an agèd buck and famous for his gallantry.
He's bought a wig, and paints his face – three times a day he'll carmine it,
He asks young wives to opera balls, and swears there's little harm in it.
 

In the second act Meynard brings a friend with him to Corsica, and thus presents him to Mme. dei Franchi: —

 
A friend of mine who's come this trip with me,
The customs of the country for to see.
The customs, when he landed, landed him —
He's cust 'em rather, I can tell you, mim!
 
 
Friend. 'Tain't pleasant when a chap on pleasure's bent
To find the call of duty cent. per cent.
 
 
Mad. You're welcome, sir, although our customs seize you:
A triple welcome, and I hope the trip'll please you.
 

Previous to the first entry of Louis' ghost, Fabien says: —

 
I feel so strange, I know poor Loo is seedy;
I dreamt I saw his ghost all pale and bleedy.
I'll write him. Where's the ink? Lor, how I shudder!
(Looks about for ink) I'm on the ink-quest now – poor absent brudder.
The ink! – the quill! Ah! this, I think, will do.
(Sits and writes) "Louis, old cock, how wags the world with you?"
(Music – he shudders) I feel as if a ghost were at my elbow handy.
This goes to prove I want a drop of brandy.
 

Of the other puns in the piece the following are perhaps fair specimens. At the bal masqué, Louis, meeting Emilie de Lesparre, says: —

 
Why are you here?
 
 
Emilie. I came because I'm asked (puts on mask).
 
 
Louis. This is no place for you to cut a shine;
'Tain't womanly.
 
 
Emilie. I know it's masky-line.
 

Again: —

 
Louis. My dagger awaits you – for your blood I faint!
 
 
Renaud. Your dagger awaits – you'd aggerawate a saint.
 

In the final tableau, Chateau Renaud is advised to take some brandy; but he asks instead for "a go of gin – I want the gin-go spirit."

The latest of the burlesques on this subject was supplied – also for the Royalty – by Mr. Cecil Raleigh, whose "New Corsican Brothers" played in 1889, had more than one whimsical feature to recommend it. One of the brothers (Mr. Arthur Roberts) was supposed to be an English linen-draper, who, whenever anything was happening to the other brother, had a wild desire to measure out tape – and so on. The dialogue was in prose.

"Belphegor," the generic name bestowed upon the numerous adaptations of "Paillasse," gave birth to at least one travestie of importance – that by Leicester Buckingham, which saw the light at the Strand in 1856, the year in which Charles Dillon played in one of the adaptations (at the Lyceum). "The Duke's Motto," in which Fechter "starred" at the same theatre, was the origin of H. J. Byron's "The Motto: I am 'All There'" – a piece seen at the Strand in 1863, with Miss Maria Simpson as the Duke Gonzaque, George Honey as Lagardère, and Ada Swanborough and Fanny Josephs as Blanche and Pepita. Among much which is mere punning, though deter enough for that commodity, I find this little bit of social satire: —

 
Receipt to make a party: – First of all,
Procure some rooms, and mind to have 'em small;
 
 
Select a good warm night, so draughts may chill 'em;
Ask twice as many as it takes to fill 'em;
For though the half you ask may not attend,
The half that comes is sure to bring a friend;
Select a strong pianist, and a gent
Who through the cornet gives his feelings vent;
Give them some biscuits, and some nice Marsala;
Make a refreshment-room of the front parlour;
Garnish with waltzes, flirtings, polking, ballads,
Tongue, fowl, and sandwiches, limp lobster salads,
Smiles, shaking hands, smirks, simpers, and what not;
Throw in the greengrocer, and serve up hot.
 

It is to H. J. Byron that we owe the burlesque of "Robert Macaire," which, with Fanny Josephs and J. Clarke as Macaire and Strop, brightened the boards of the Globe Theatre in 1870. The drama of which Ruy Blas is the central figure has been twice travestied among us – once in 1873 by Mr. Reece ("Ruy Blas Righted," at the Vaudeville), and more recently (in 1889) by Messrs. F. Leslie and H. Clark ("Ruy Blas, or the Blasé Roué," at the Gaiety). "Diplomacy," adapted from "Dora," appealed to Mr. Burnand's sense of the ridiculous, and the result was "Dora and Diplunacy" (Strand, 1878), in which the weak spots of the original were divertingly laid bare. In the same year, Mr. Burnand burlesqued, at the Royalty, his own adaptation, "Proof, or a Celebrated Case," under the title of "Over-Proof, or What was Found in a Celebrated Case." To 1879 belong two clever travesties – "Another Drink," by Messrs. Savile Clarke and Clifton (Lyne), suggested by "Drink," and brought out at the Folly; and "Under-Proof," Mr. Edward Rose's reductio ad absurdum of "Proof." In the latter piece, besides many well-constructed puns, there are many pleasant turns of humour, as when Pierre satirises the conventional stage pronunciation of his name: —

 
In my native land, as you're aware,
My Christian name's pronounced like this – Pi-erre,
But here I'm made a nobleman of France,
For everybody calls me Peer Lorance.
 

Of the Anglo-French melodrama of recent years, Mr. Burnand has been the frequent and successful satirist. He capped "Fedora" with "Stage-Dora" (Toole's, 1883), "Theodora" with "The O'Dora" (same theatre, 1885), and "La Tosca" with "Tra la la Tosca" (Royalty, 1890). This last contained some of the happiest of its author's efforts, in the way both of ingenious punning and effective rhyming. Here, for example, is a song put into the mouth of the Baron Scarpia, the "villain" both of the play and of the travestie: —

 
I am the bad Baron Scarpia!
You know it at once, and how sharp y'are.
Than a harpy I am much harpier —
How harpy I must be!
There never was blackguard or scamp
To me could hold candle or lamp.
I'm equal to twenty-five cargoes
Of Richards, Macbeths, and Iagos!
For nobody ever so far goes
As Scarpia – meaning me.
 
 
I'm chief of the Italiani
Peelerini Me-tropoli-tani!
Around me they wheedle and carney —
They'd all curry favour, you see.
And, buzzing about me like flies,
Are myrmidons, creatures, and spies.
 
 
They're none of them mere lardy-dardy,
But cunning, unprincipled, hardy,
And come from Scotlandini Yardi,
La Forza Constabularee.
 

During the present year, the interest gradually excited by successive performances of plays by Henrik Ibsen has culminated in the production of the inevitable burlesques. More than one clever travestie of Ibsen has been printed —e. g., those by Mr. J. P. Hurst and Mr. Wilton Jones; but the first to be performed was that entitled "Ibsen's Ghost, or Toole up to Date," which is from the witty pen of Mr. J. M. Barrie. This starts as a sort of sequel to "Hedda Gabler," which it mainly satirises; but there are allusions also to "Ghosts" and to "A Doll's House," with some general sarcasm at the expense of Ibsen's peculiarities. The dialogue is in prose, with a concluding vocal quartett; the writer's touch is as light as it is true; and the composition, as a whole, is thoroughly exhilarating. The three-act piece, "The Gifted Lady," in which Mr. Robert Buchanan sought to ridicule not only Ibsen but other "emancipating" agencies of the time, was, unfortunately, not so successful as Mr. Barrie's slighter and brighter work. It abounded in excellent epigram, but lacked geniality and humour. In "Ibsen's Ghost" Mr. Toole and Miss Eliza Johnstone renewed old successes, while Miss Irene Vanbrugh gave signs of aptitude for burlesque. In "The Gifted Lady" Miss Fanny Brough, Miss Cicely Richards, Mr. W. H. Vernon, and Mr. Harry Paulton showed all their usual skill, but, unfortunately, to no purpose.

VIII
BURLESQUE OF OPERA

We have already seen that, in burlesquing mythology, faërie, and other matters, our comic playwrights have not been able to resist the temptation to introduce occasional travesties of things operatic. Opera, indeed, has always had a magnetic power over them. They have been unable to maintain their gravity in presence of the singularities which distinguish opera, even in its most modern guise, from the more natural and realistic drama. Operatic conditions demand, of necessity, certain stereotyped regulations, especially of stage management, which detract from probability and excite derision. Especially is this so in the case of the older school of Opera, and notably in that of the Italian school, whose products were largely on the same simple and ingenuous model – a model on which the travestie writers were able to construct some genuinely entertaining imitations.

Beginning, then, with the Italian school, we note that Donizetti has been particularly favoured by the parodists. His "Lucrezia Borgia," "Linda di Chamouni," "Elisir d' Amore," and "Fille du Régiment" have all had to submit to deliberate perversion. Of "Lucrezia" there have been three notable burlesques – one by Leicester Buckingham, at the St. James's, in 1860; another by Sydney French, at the Marylebone, in 1867; and the third by H. J. Byron, at the Holborn, in 1868. Buckingham's was entitled "Lucrezia Borgia! at Home, and all Abroad," and had Charles Young for the exponent of the title character. Miss Wyndham was Johnny Raw ("known as Gennaro, through the defective pronunciation of his Italian friends – a British shopkeeper, who has left for awhile the countertenor of his way, and is travelling on the Continent for his pleasure"). Miss Cecilia Ranoe was Alfonso, and a small part was played by Miss Nellie Moore. Lucrezia figures in this piece as a dabbler in monetary speculations, the failure of which gives opportunity for a speech parodying some Shakespearean lines with more freshness than such things usually possess: —

 
Oh! that dishonoured notes of hand would melt,
Thaw, and dissolve themselves when overdue,
And never leave the holder time to sue;
Or that in pickle no such sharp rod lay
As the unpleasant writ called a ca sa!
How weary, flat, unprofitable, stale,
To kick one's heels inside a debtor's gaol!
Fie on't! 'Tis an unweeded garden clearly;
Blackguards and seedy swells possess it merely.
That it should come to this! At two months' date! —
No, not two months; six weeks is less than eight.
So excellent a bill! The blow will floor me!
Is this a bailiff that I see before me,
A capias in his hand? Come, let me dodge thee;
Or in a sponging-house I know thou'lt lodge me.
I've turned my back, and yet I see thee still!
Canst thou then be two gentlemen at will?
Or art thou but a grim dissolving view —
A phantom officer – in short, a do?
I see thee yet – so palpable in form,
My prospects seem uncomfortably warm.
Thou marshall'st me to Whitecross Street, I see,
Clutching protested bills endorsed by me;
Indictments, too, for fraud and false pretences!
Mine eyes are made the fools o' the other senses,
Or else I'm tight! I see thee still, my man;
And by thy side appears the prison van,
Which was not so before. There's no such thing!
 

In the course of the piece, Johnny Raw is poisoned by Alfonso with publican's port, and afterwards Lucrezia seeks to destroy Orsini and his companion with London milk. Byron's burlesque on the subject was called "Lucrezia Borgia, M.D."

"Linda di Chamouni" exercised the wit both of Mr. Conway Edwardes and of Mr. Alfred Thompson. The former writer's "Linda di Chamouni, or the Blighted Flower," was played at Bath in 1869; the latter's work was presented, later in the same year, at the Gaiety. In Mr. Edwardes' book one is most struck by the multiplicity and occasional felicity of the "word-plays." Here, for instance, is what Pierotto says when he is asked to take a cup of wine: —

 
Well, if you ask me what I'll take, I think
Tea I prefer 'bove every other drink.
For when I'm teazed, vex'd, worried beyond measure,
A cup of tea's to me a source o' pleasure.
Whene'er I play, the game is tea-to-tum;
My fav'rite instrument's a "kettledrum."
I've faith, when suff'ring ills heir to humanity,
In senna tea that you may say's insanitee.
And also p'rhaps a little odd 'twill seem here,
That I prefer the scenery of Bohea-mia.
And if I were engaged in deadly strife,
I'd stab my en'my with a Bohea knife.
 

Two of Donizetti's operas – "L'Elisir d'Amore" and "La Fille du Régiment" – were travestied by Mr. W. S. Gilbert; the former under the title of "Doctor Dulcamara, or the Little Duck and the Great Quack," the latter under that of "La Vivandière, or True to the Corps." "Doctor Dulcamara" was played at the St. James's, with Frank Matthews in the title-part. "La Vivandière" (1868) was written for the Queen's Theatre, where it employed the talents of Miss Henrietta Hodson, Mr. Toole, Mr. Lionel Brough, Miss Everard (the original Little Buttercup), and Miss Fanny Addison.

Of Verdi's operas two have been singled out for special attention – "Il Trovatore" and "Ernani." The first of these suggested H. J. Byron's "Ill-Treated Trovatore," seen at the Adelphi in 1863, and another version by the same hand, played at the Olympic seventeen years after. Byron also wrote a travestie of "Ernani," which he called "Handsome Hernani" (Gaiety, 1879); but in this he had been anticipated by William Brough, whose work was seen at the Alexandra Theatre in 1865.

Three travesties have been founded on the "La Sonnambula" of Bellini. The first, which was played at the Victoria Theatre in 1835, was from the pen of Gilbert Abbott a'Beckett, and entitled "The Roof Scrambler" – a title explained in lines spoken by Rudolpho and Swelvino: —

 
Rud. I tell you, there are beings in their dreams
Who scramble 'pon the house-tops.
 
 
Swel. So it seems.
 
 
Rud. Roof-scramblers they are called; for on the roofs
They walk at night – Molly is one.
 

Molly is the name here given to Amina; Swelvino, of course, is Elvino. He is a sexton, and has plighted his troth to Lizzy; but before the piece opens, he has transferred his affections to Molly Brown, a charity girl – "a Greasy Roamer over the tops of houses." Swelvino and Molly are about to be married, when there arrives at the village Rodolpho, the new Inspector of Police, who introduces himself as follows: —

 
Ah, here I am again! – I know this scene,
In which, when I was young, so oft I've been.
I recognise each spot I see around,
The stocks know me, and well I know the pound!
The sight of these my eyes with tears is filling:
I knew that pound when I had not a shilling!
 

Molly, walking in her sleep, enters Rodolpho's apartment, and is found there by Swelvino, but is vindicated, like her prototype in the opera, by being subsequently discovered in a somnambulant condition. The story of "La Sonnambula" is, in fact, followed closely, but caricatured throughout. W. Rogers, who was the Swelvino, and Mitchell, who was the Molly, appear to have been highly successful in exciting the hilarity of their audiences. The latter portrayed the heroine as "a waddling, thick-set, red-and-ruddy, blowzy-faced goblin, with turn-up nose and carroty hair, wrapt in a pea-soup or camomile-tea-coloured negligée, and carrying," in the sleep-walking scene, "a farthing rushlight in one of Day & Martin's empty blacking-bottles." Of Swelvino's appearance we may judge from a remark made by Molly to her lover: —

 
I, by looking in your face, can tell
What are your feelings excellently well.
Oh, yes! the fulness of that ruby nose
Your love for me doth passing well disclose;
Your agitated whisker shows full well
What throbs of passion underneath it dwell!
 

The two other skits upon the opera were the work of H. J. Byron, who produced the first at the Prince of Wales's in 1865, under the title of "La! Sonnambula! or the Supper, the Sleeper, and the Merry Swiss Boy; being a passage in the life of a famous 'Woman in White': a passage leading to a tip-top story." Miss Marie Wilton was the Merry Swiss Boy (Alessio); Miss Fanny Josephs was Elvino; Mr. Dewar, Rodolpho; "Johnny" Clarke, Amina; Miss Bella Goodall, Lisa; Mr. Harry Cox undertaking the rôle of "a virtuous peasant (by the kind permission of the Legitimate Drama)." This was Miss Wilton's first production at the Prince of Wales's, and it was a great success. In 1878 Byron brought out at the Gaiety a piece which he called "Il Sonnambulo, or Lively Little Alessio." In this he introduced several variations on the operatic story; making the Count (Edward Terry) the somnambulist, instead of Amina – in burlesque of Mr. Henry Neville's sleep-walking scene in Wilkie Collins's "Moonstone." Miss Farren was the lively little Alessio, and Mr. Royce the "local tenor," Elvino.

Of Bellini's "Norma" the first burlesque produced was that which W. H. Oxberry, the comedian, contributed to the Haymarket in 1841. In this the title-part was played by Paul Bedford, with Wright as Adalgisa and Mrs. H. P. Grattan as Pollio. The piece had no literary pretensions, and it would be unfair to compare it, in that or any other respect, with "The Pretty Druidess, or the Mother, the Maid, and the Mistletoe Bough," which Mr. W. S. Gilbert wrote for the Charing Cross Theatre (now Toole's) just twenty-eight years later. This was one of the best of Mr. Gilbert's operatic travesties, the dialogue being characterised by especial point and neatness. Here, for example, is the advice given by Norma (Miss Hughes) to the ladies presiding over the stalls at a fancy fair. Hamlet's address to the players is very happily suggested: —

 
With pretty speech accost both old and young,
And speak it trippingly upon the tongue;
But if you mouth it with a hoyden laugh,
With clumsy ogling and uncomely chaff —
As I have oft seen done at fancy fairs,
I had as lief a huckster sold my wares.
Avoid all so-called beautifying, dear.
Oh! it offends me to the soul to hear
The things that men among themselves will say
Of some soi-disant "beauty of the day,"
Whose face, when with cosmetics she has cloyed it,
Out-Rachels Rachel! – pray you, girls, avoid it.
Neither be ye too tame – but, ere you go,
Provide yourselves with sprigs of mistletoe;
Offer them coyly to the Roman herd —
But don't you "suit the action to the word,"
For in the very torrent of your passion
Remember modesty is still in fashion.
Oh, there be ladies whom I've seen hold stalls —
Ladies of rank, my dear – to whom befalls
Neither the accent nor the gait of ladies;
So clumsily made up with Bloom of Cadiz,
Powder-rouge – lip-salve – that I've fancied then
They were the work of Nature's journeymen.
 

The "Gazza Ladra" of Rossini lives on the burlesque stage in the counterfeit presentment furnished by Byron's "Maid and the Magpie, or the Fatal Spoon." This was one of the writer's greatest triumphs in the field of travestie. Produced at the Strand in 1854, with Miss Oliver as Ninette, Miss Marie Wilton as Pippo, Bland as Fernando, and Clarke as Isaac (the old-clothes man), it at once hit the public taste, as it well deserved to do, for it is full of clever writing and ingenious incidents. The best scene of all, perhaps, is that in which the broken-down Fernando reveals himself to Ninette – a happy satire upon a familiar melodramatic situation: —

 
Ninette (entering). A stranger here!
 
 
Fernan. How beautiful she's grown! I say, my dear!
(she starts) Start not – ha, ha! – do I alarm you?
 
 
Ninette (uneasily). Rather!
 
 
Fernan (hesitatingly). Why, miss, you see – the fact is – I'm your father!
 
 
Ninette. Impossible! I never had one!
 
 
Fernan. Law!
 
 
Ninette. That is – I had none that I ever saw.
 
 
Fernan. Oh, why in battle did no friendly blow
Finish her luckless parent long ago?
(in choked accents) Doth not the voice of nature seem quite clear – eh?
 
 
Ninette. The voice of nature seems a little beery.
Fernan (seizing her arm – music piano). Look at me well!
 

(Ninette appears gradually to recognise him.)

 
Ninette. Upon a close inspection,
I seem to have a dreamy recollection
Of having seen those eyes of yours somewhere,
Also that most extensive head of hair;
The accents of the voice, too, now I think,
Seem broken by emotion, not by drink;
Yes, it's all coming back to me, of course.
 
 
Fernan. Remember, dear, I bought you once a horse,
A wooden toy – remember, you had lots —
It ran on wheels – all mane and tail and spots —
Also a dog, a little dog, I vow,
Which, when you squeezed it, used to go Bow-wow!
Likewise a spade, which, on your nurse's head
You broke, and got well spanked and sent to bed —
 
 
Ninette (wildly). A flood of memory rushes through my brain!
 
 
Fernan (excitedly). Ninette, my daughter, look at me again.
 
 
Ninette (seizing his nose). Yes, yes, that nose decides me – yes – you are —
 
 
Fernan. At last – at last! he – he! she knows her pa!
 

In a mock love-scene with Ninette, Gianetto (Miss Ternan) draws the following comic picture: —

 
Fancy a bower with rose and jasmine graced,
Such as we see in small tea-gardens placed;
Where friendly spiders and black-beetles drop
On to your bread and butter with a flop;
Where mouldy seats stain sarsnet, satin, silk,
And suicidal flies fall in the milk;
Where we can scorn the heartless world's attack,
Though daddy-longlegs may creep down your back;
Smile at society's contemptuous sneer,
Though caterpillars tumble in your beer;
Where chimneys never smoke, and soot don't fall,
Where income-tax collectors never call,
Where one's wife's mother never even once
Visits her darling daughter for six months;
Where bills, balls, banks, and bonnets are not known —
Come, dwell with me, my beautiful – my own.
 

Turning to the burlesques of opera of the German school, we begin, naturally, with Mozart, whose "Don Giovanni" found humorous reflection in two pieces, by H. J. Byron and Mr. Reece. The former's "Little Don Giovanni"⁴⁵ belongs to 1865, when it was performed at the Prince of Wales's, with Miss Wilton (Mrs. Bancroft) as the hero, Clarke as Leporello, Miss Fanny Josephs as Masetto, Mr. Hare as Zerlina (probably his only appearance on the stage in petticoats), Miss Sophie Larkin as Elvira, and Miss Hughes as Donna Anna. Don Giovanni was the last burlesque part written by Byron for Miss Wilton, and, moreover, it was the last burlesque part she ever played. She records in her Memoirs that an amusing feature of the piece was the spectacle presented in the last act by the Commandant's horse, which, in allusion to a recent freak in Leicester Square, had been covered with a variety of spots, and "looked like an exaggerated Lowther Arcade toy." Mr. Reece's burlesque was called "Don Giovanni in Venice," and came out at the Gaiety in 1873.