The Project Gutenberg eBook of the Whitefriars Library of Wit and Humour., by William Davenport Adams.

"We shall spare no pains to make instruction agreeable to our readers and their diversion useful. For which reasons we shall endeavour to enliven morality with wit, and to temper wit with morality, that our readers may, if possible, both ways find their account in the speculation of the day."

A
BOOK OF BURLESQUE

BY
WILLIAM DAVENPORT ADAMS
Author of "A Dictionary of English Literature," "Rambles in Book-Land" etc., etc.

PREFACE.

In the pages that follow, I make no attempt to supply a consecutive and comprehensive history of English stage travestie. This would have been impossible within the limits assigned to me. My object has been simply to furnish an introduction to such a history, supplemented by sketches of the various groups into which English stage burlesques naturally fall, with such extracts as might serve to exhibit the respective methods of individual travestie-writers. My business has been with the literary rather than the histrionic side of burlesque—with the witty and humorous, rather than the purely theatrical, features of the subject with which I had to deal. At the same time, I hope that the details I have been able to give concerning dates, and "casts," and so on, may be useful to at least a large section of my readers.

I ought to say that, while I have endeavoured to mention all the most representative burlesques of which our stage history keeps record, I have intentionally left outside of my scheme all "extravaganzas," "bouffoneries musicales," and other such miscellaneous varieties of comic[Pg vi] literature,—confining myself to definite and deliberate travesties of subjects previously existent.

I have to thank more than one kind friend for information and material supplied, and more than one living writer of burlesque for the opportunity of consulting his "prompt books" and thus quoting from unpublished work.

[We beg to acknowledge the courtesy of MM. Walèry, Limited, in permitting us to avail ourselves of their photographs of Messrs. Burnand and Gilbert; and of Mr. Bassano for the same permission in regard to that of Mr. G. R. Sims.—Ed. W. L.]

CONTENTS.

Who shall say when the spirit of burlesque first made its appearance on our stage? There were traces of it, we may be sure, in the Mysteries and Moralities of pre-Elizabethan days; the monkish dramatists were not devoid of humour, and the first lay playwrights had a rough sense of ridicule. The "Vice" which figured in so many of our rude old dramas had in him an element of satire, and the pictures drawn of his Satanic Majesty were conscious or unconscious caricatures of the popular conception of the Evil One.

In all these cases, however, the burlesque was general. It was of the nature of travestie, and of the vaguest sort. Of particular parody one finds but few signs in the Elizabethan drama. There is a little of it in Shakespeare, where he pokes fun at the turgidity of contemporary tragedy or at the obscurity of contemporary Euphuism. The Pyramus and Thisbe episode is less burlesque than satire. It is an exposé of the absurdities of the amateur performer,[Pg 2] for whom Shakespeare, as a professional actor, could have only an amused contempt.

"The Bard" parodied, but he did not burlesque. That was left to the initiative of the gifted literary Dioscuri, Beaumont and Fletcher. "The Knight of the Burning Pestle," which saw the light in 1611, is not wholly a travestie, but it contains a travestie within itself. In the main it is a dramatic exposition of a love story, the scene of which is laid in the middle-class life of the time. Ralph, the Knight of the Burning Pestle, is by no means the hero of the tale; rather is he an excrescence upon it. A grocer and his wife sit on the stage, and suggest to the actors that Ralph, their apprentice, shall take part in the performance. They want a play in which a grocer shall do "admirable things," and Ralph is bound to do them. The apprentice, it would seem, is an amateur actor—he "hath played before," and so finds no difficulty in adapting himself to the situation. When he enters, it is "like a grocer in his shop, with two prentices, reading 'Palmerin of England.'" This gives us the key to the satire. Ralph is to burlesque the romances of chivalry, which were then so common in England, as elsewhere. "Palmerin of England" had been "translated out of French" by Anthony Munday and assistants, and published between 1580 and 1602. Ralph starts with a quotation from it, and then goes on to say:—

He whom Palmerin would have called "Fair Sir," and she whom Rosiclear would have called "Right beauteous[Pg 3] Damsel," are now spoken of opprobriously. But why should not Ralph be the means of wiping out this reproach?—

After this, Ralph reappears at various points in the action. He interposes, Quixote-like, in the aforesaid love-affair, and gets belaboured by the favoured lover for his pains. Later, he puts up at an inn, and, about to leave, is surprised when the tapster draws his attention to the fact that the reckoning is not paid:—

Host. Thou valiant Knight of the Burning Pestle, give ear to me: there is twelve shillings to pay, and as I am a true knight, I will not bate a penny....

The host, however, insists upon receiving his twelve shillings, and the grocer's wife, in great fear lest harm shall befall her Ralph, requests her husband to pay the money. In a subsequent scene, Ralph conquers the giant Barbaroso, and releases his captives. By-and-by he goes into Moldavia, where he touches the heart of the king's daughter, but tells her that he has already pledged his troth to Susan, "a cobbler's maid in Malte Street," whom he vowed never to forsake. At the end of the play he comes on to explain, at length, that he is dead, taking the opportunity to recount his various performances.

The fun is never very brilliant; and the "Knight of the Pestle," albeit by writers so distinguished, is not, for the present-day Englishman, particularly exhilarating reading. One can imagine, however, how droll it seemed to our ancestors, with whom it remained popular for over half a century, surviving till the time of Mistress Eleanor Gwynne, who once spoke the prologue to it.

Our first burlesque, then, was a satire upon exaggerated fiction. Our second was a satire upon extravagant plays. It is possible that "The Rehearsal" was represented before[Pg 5] "The Knight of the Burning Pestle" left the boards. Begun in 1663, and ready for production before 1665, it was first performed in 1671. It is ascribed to George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham; but probably there were several hands engaged in it. It was the outcome of the boredom and the laughter caused by the wildness and bombast of the Restoration plays. There were some things in the stage of that day which the wits could not abide:—

So runs the prologue to "The Rehearsal," which was destined to strike the first blow at the mechanical dramas that had succeeded the masterpieces of the Shakespearian period. Bayes, the playwright whose tragedy is supposed to be "rehearsed," is usually accepted as a skit upon Dryden, whose dress, speech, and manner were openly mimicked by Lacy, the interpreter of the part. But there is reason to believe that Davenant first sat for the portrait, and in the end Bayes became a sort of incarnated parody of all the Restoration playwrights. This preposterous play travesties a whole school of dramatic writing. Dramas by Dryden, Davenant, James and Henry Howard, Mrs. Behn, and Sir William Killigrew and others, are directly satirised in certain passages; but in the main the satire is general. For instance, in one place fun is made of the prevalence[Pg 6] of similes in the dramas aimed at. Prince Prettyman, in the rehearsed play, falls asleep, and Chloris, coming in, finds him in that situation:—

Elsewhere it is confusion of metaphor, very common among the second-rate "tragedians," that is derided. Says the physician in the play:—

In one place, Smith, the aforesaid onlooker, complains that, amid all the talk, the plot stands still; to which Bayes replies, "Why, what the devil is the plot good for but to bring in fine things?" At another juncture we have the first hint of a bit of persiflage which Sheridan afterwards imitated in "The Critic." It has reference to the portentous reticence of some of the dialogue in Restoration plays. An usher and a physician are on the stage:—

"Well, sir," says Smith to Bayes, "but pray, why all this whispering?" "Why, sir," replies the dramatist, "because they are supposed to be politicians, and matters of state ought not to be divulg'd."

In its direct travestie "The Rehearsal" is often very happy. Dryden had claimed for his tragedies that they were written by "th' exactest rules"; so Bayes exhibits to his friends Smith and Johnson what he calls his "Book of Drama Commonplaces, the mother of many plays," containing "certain helps that we men of art have found it convenient to make use of." "I do here aver," he says, "that no man yet the sun e'er shone upon has parts sufficient to furnish out a stage, except it were by the help of these my rules." Davenant, in his "Love and Honour," had portrayed a mental and spiritual struggle between those potent forces. Bayes, accordingly, is made to introduce a scene in which Prince Volscius, sitting down to pull on his boots, wonders whether he ought or ought not to perform that operation:—

In the end, he "goes out hopping, with one boot on, and t'other off." Again, there was a passage in the drama called "The Villain," in which the host supplied his guests with a collation out of his clothes—a capon from his helmet, cream out of his scabbard, and so on. In like manner, Pallas, in Mr. Bayes's tragedy, furnishes forth the two usurping kings:—

Of the direct parody in the burlesque a few instances will suffice. Almanzor, in "The Conquest of Granada," becomes the Drawcansir of Mr. Bayes's work; and while the former ejaculates—

The simile of the boar and the sow has often been quoted;[Pg 9] it seems to have been always a favourite with our playgoing ancestors. In "The Conquest of Granada" we read:—

Mr. Bayes imitated this in what he called "one of the most delicate, dainty similes in the world, egad":—

The example set by Buckingham in "The Rehearsal" was followed, more than half a century later, by Henry Fielding, in "The Tragedy of Tragedies, or the Life and Death of Tom Thumb the Great." This was brought out in 1730, in two acts, and was so immediately and largely successful that the author was induced to expand its two acts into three. It was afterwards published, with elaborate notes, setting forth a number of "parallel passages" from Dryden downwards, and with a preface, in which the supposed editor, H. Scriblerus Secundus, gravely assigned the origin of the "tragedy" to the age of Elizabeth. Apropos of parallel passages, the editor says:—

The editor goes on to say that "our author excelleth" in both these styles. "He is very rarely within sight through the whole play, either rising higher than the eye of your understanding can soar, or sinking lower than it careth to stoop."

Fielding does not adopt in "Tom Thumb" the machinery of "The Rehearsal." "Tom Thumb" is a burlesque tragedy, standing by itself, and intended for representation in the serious spirit which should animate all true burlesque. Tom Thumb is "a little hero, with a great soul," who, as a reward for his victories over the race of giants, demands in marriage the hand of Huncamunca, the daughter of King Arthur. As he observes:—

"Prodigious bold request," remarks the King; but he decides, nevertheless, to give Huncamunca to Tom Thumb. Unhappily, Lord Grizzle is enamoured of the princess, and, in revenge, leads an insurrection against the Court. He is, however, conquered by the little hero, who is about to be wedded to his charmer, when, alas! as he is marching in triumph through the streets, he is swallowed by "a cow, of larger than the usual size." Queen Dollallolla, who is[Pg 11] in love with Tom, slays with her own hand the messenger who brought the news. Thereupon, Cleora, who is in love with the messenger, kills the Queen. Huncamunca, by way of reprisal, kills Cleora. A certain Doodle kills Huncamunca; one Mustacha kills Doodle; the King kills Mustacha, and then kills himself, exclaiming—

We have here a happy satire upon the sanguinary conclusions given to the tragedies of the seventeenth century. Great pains, too, are taken, throughout the "tragedy," to travestie that bête noire of the humourists, the dragged-in simile, to which not even "The Rehearsal" had given the coup de grâce. The ghost of Tom Thumb's father is made to say—

Whereupon the king says, "D—n all thou hast seen!" Grizzle, when on the point of expiring, cries—

Some of the mock similes in "Tom Thumb" are among the most familiar things in literature. We all remember the lines—

The burlesque contained within the pages of "Tom Thumb" covers a considerable field. Dryden is once more very freely satirised, some nine or ten of his plays being held up to ridicule. But much attention is at the same time paid to dramas which saw the light after the production of "The Rehearsal." Thus, there are allusions to the "Mithridates," "Nero," and "Brutus" of Nathaniel Lee, which belong to 1674-1679; to the "Marius" of Otway (1680); to the "Anna Bullen," "Earl of Essex," "Mary Queen of Scots," and "Cyrus the Great" of Banks (1680-1696); to the "Persian Princess" of Theobald (1711), to Addison's "Cato" (1713), to Young's "Busiris" and "The Revenge," and even to Thomson's "Sophonisba," which had come out only in the year preceding that in which "Tom Thumb" was performed. "O Sophonisba, Sophonisba O" (which had already been parodied in the[Pg 13] form of "O Jemmy Thomson, Jemmy Thomson O") is here laughed at in "O Huncamunca, Huncamunca O!" In "Cyrus the Great" the virtuous Panthea remarks to one lover—

And, in a like spirit, Huncamunca, after wedding Tom Thumb, is quite willing to wed Grizzle:—

thereby reminding us of the obliging defendant in Mr. Gilbert's "Trial by Jury," who is ready to "marry this lady to-day, and marry the other to-morrow." In the third act of "Cato" is a simile which Fielding parodies thus—putting it into the mouth of Grizzle:—

Finally, we have this equally well-known passage, suggested by the remark of Lee's Mithridates that he "would be drunk with death":—

It was the fate of "Tom Thumb" to be transformed—so far as it was possible to transform it—into a burlesque of Italian opera as well as of conventional drama. "Set to music after the Italian manner," it was brought out in 1733 as "The Opera of Operas," and had considerable vogue in the new guise thus given to it. It had been preceded in 1727 by Gay's "Beggar's Opera"; but that famous work was a social and political satire rather than a travestie of the exotic lyrical drama. It may be regarded as a species of prototype of the burletta or ballad opera of later days. Not even the transformed "Tom Thumb"[1] could be called an effective reductio ad absurdum of the Italian opera of those days. For that the public had to wait a short time longer.

Meanwhile, four years after the production of "Tom Thumb" came the "Chrononhotonthologos" of Henry Carey, author of "Sally in our Alley." This also is a burlesque tragedy, but the travestie is purely general. No individual play is directly satirised; the satire is aimed at a whole class of dramas—the same class as that which had suggested the composition of "Tom Thumb."

"Chrononhotonthologos" is a short piece, in one act and seven scenes. It is described in its sub-title as "the most tragical tragedy that ever was tragedised by any company of tragedians," and it bears out the description tolerably well. When the curtain rises, there enter two courtiers of Queerummania—Rigdum-Funnidos and Aldiborontiphoscophornio. Says the latter to the former:—

Chrononhotonthologos is the king, and we learn that he is in his tent, in a kind of waking slumber. Presently he enters, very much put out that he should be so inclined to doze, and very angry, consequently, with the God of Sleep. Says he:—

and "exits in a huff." Whereupon the two courtiers, who have retired, re-enter:—

Thereupon the king re-enters, followed almost immediately by the captain of the guard, who informs him that "th' antipodean pow'rs from realms below have burst the entrails of the earth" and threaten the safety of the kingdom. "This world is too incopious to contain them; armies on armies march in form stupendous"—"tier on tier, high pil'd from earth to heaven." The king, however, is not alarmed. He bids Bombardinian, his general, draw his legions forth, and orders the priests to prepare their temples for rites of triumph:—

Happily the Antipodeans (who walk upon their hands) are badly beaten, and all run away except their king, with whom, alas! Fadladinida, the wife of Chrononhotonthologos, promptly falls in love. As she herself says to her favourite maiden:—

Meanwhile, Bombardinian has invited the King to drink wine with him in his tent. The King accepts, but, not content with liquor, asks for something more substantial:—

The cook suggests "some nice cold pork in the pantry," and is instantly slain by the irate monarch, who, deeming that Bombardinian is "braving" him, strikes him. Whereupon the General:—

The doctor, pronouncing the king dead, is killed by the General, who then kills himself. The Queen mourns her widowhood, and Tatlanthe proposes that she should wed Rigdum-Funnidos. To this, however, Aldiborontiphoscophornio objects; and so, to save discussion, the Queen will give no preference to either:—

Produced in 1734, "Chrononhotonthologos" was performed at intervals until 1815, when it was seen at Drury Lane, with Oxberry in the title-part and Dowton as the General. After that it remained out of the theatrical repertory until 1880, when Mr. John Hollingshead revived[Pg 18] it, for one representation, at the Gaiety.[2] It is a slight piece of work, but contains some elements of comicality. It will always be esteemed by literary students, if only because the names of Rigdum-Funnidos and Aldiborontiphoscophornio struck the fancy of Sir Walter Scott, who bestowed them, in fun, upon the brothers Constable, the publishers. "Aldiborontiphoscophornio" is surely the perfection of mock-tragedy nomenclature.

It is to Carey that we owe, not only "Chrononhotonthologos," but the first really effective burlesque of Italian opera. In 1737 there was brought out at the Haymarket "The Dragon of Wantley," a "burlesque opera," of which Carey had written the dialogue and songs, and for which John Frederick Lampe had composed the music. Its object, according to the author, was "to display in English the beauty of nonsense, so prevailing in the Italian operas." The story was founded on the old ballad, with which, however, liberties were taken. In the first act, the natives of "that part of Yorkshire near Rotherham" are shown in much excitement, due to the ravages of the dragon, which has just entered the Squire's residence and consumed all the coffee, toast, and butter that was set out for breakfast. Says one Gubbins:—

Not far hence lives "a valiant knight," named Moore, of Moore Hall, who may be trusted to destroy the dragon. Moore accordingly is approached, surrenders to the charms of Margery, and undertakes to do the deed. Meanwhile, Mauxalinda, an old flame of Moore's, becomes jealous of Margery, and seeks to slay her with a bodkin—a fate from which Moore happily rescues her. Mauxalinda is then threatened with quarter sessions; but she cries—

Duly encountering the monster, Moore kills him (say the stage directions) with a kick in the rear, the Dragon crying "Oh, oh, oh! the Devil take your toe!" After that, Gubbins declares:—

"The music," says the chronicler, "was made as grand and pompous as possible, to heighten the contrast between that and the words"—thus anticipating the comic method which has been utilised with so much success by Mr. Gilbert and Sir Arthur Sullivan.

From "The Dragon of Wantley," which, as might be expected, had a very considerable vogue, we come to "The Critic, or a Tragedy Rehearsed"—the last, and not the least, of Sheridan's dramatic works, produced in Drury Lane in 1779. Of so familiar a piece, what is there to be said? Is it not played with tolerable frequency at "benefits," for the sake of the "exceptional casts" it can supply? Have not all middle-aged playgoers seen and admired the younger Mathews as Sir Fretful Plagiary and Mr. Puff? Assuredly there are certain features of "The Critic" which everybody remembers. Everybody remembers Sir Fretful's famous lines on the plagiarists, who "serve your best thoughts as gypsies do stolen children—disfigure them to make 'em pass for their own"; as well as his special addendum about the "dexterous" writer who "might take out some of the best things in my tragedy and put them into his own comedy." Everybody remembers, too, Mr. Puffs no less famous catalogue of the varieties of réclame; his remark that "the number of those who undergo the fatigue of judging for themselves is very small indeed"; his explanation of the fact that he and Shakespeare had made use of the same thought; Lord Burleigh's shake of the head, which meant so much, and has become proverbial; the Spanish fleet, which could not be seen because it was not yet in sight; Tilburina, "mad in white satin"—and the like. It must be recollected, however, that "The Critic"[Pg 21] as played and "The Critic" as written and printed are two very different things. In the acting version, the earlier scenes between Puff and Dangle and Sneer, as well as the latter portion of the "tragedy rehearsed," are very much compressed—no doubt with advantage to the public, for, clever as "The Critic" is as a whole, certain portions of it are out of date, and would not "go" well with a modern audience.

In glancing through the printed version, one is struck anew by the similarity that "The Critic" bears to "The Rehearsal," not only in form, but in detail. In both cases a dramatic author rehearses a tragedy in the presence of a couple of friends, who interject comments upon the performance. But the likeness does not end here—possibly because the theatrical world of 1779 was, in all essentials, very like the theatrical world of 1671. Bayes, in "The Rehearsal," says that he has "appointed two or three dozen" of his friends "to be ready in the pit" (at the première of his piece), "who, I'm sure, will clap." And so Sneer, in "The Critic," expects that he will not be able to get into Drury Lane on the first night of Puff's play, "for on the first night of a piece they always fill the house with orders to support it." Again, Bayes says that

In a similar spirit Sir Fretful stigmatises the newspapers as "the most villainous—licentious—abominable—infernal—— Not that I ever read them—no. I make it a rule never to look into a newspaper."

In one respect Sheridan's work is quite unlike the Duke of Buckingham's. It contains no direct travestie or parody of any kind. The burlesque is "at large" throughout. The satire embodied in the dialogue between Puff and his friends reflects upon all old-fashioned playwriting of the "tragic" sort. Puff opens the second scene of his "Spanish Armada" with a clock striking four, which, besides recording the time, not only "begets an awful attention in the audience," but "saves a description of the rising sun, and a great deal about gilding the eastern hemisphere." He makes his characters tell one another what they know already, because, although they know it, the audience do not. He hears the stage cannon go off three times instead of once, and complains, "Give these fellows a good thing, and they never know when to have done with it." "Where they do agree on the stage," he says, in another hackneyed passage, "their unanimity is wonderful." In the rehearsed tragedy itself the travestie is general, not particular. Here Sheridan satirises a different class of tragedy from that which Buckingham dealt with. As the prologue (not by Sheridan, however) says:—

Dulness, then, is what Sheridan is chiefly girding at, but he has a keen eye also for the unconscious banalities of the genre he is dealing with. How truly comic, for instance, is the prayer to Mars offered up by Leicester and his companions!—

How delicious, too, in their absolute nonsense, are the lines given to the distraught Tilburina!—

For the rest, the text of the tragedy, as printed, is very dissimilar from the text as played. In representation, most of the fun is got out of intentional perversion of certain words or phrases. Thus, "martial symmetry" becomes "martial cemetery";

"friendship's closing line" is turned into "friendship's clothes-line"; "My gentle Nora" into "My gentle Snorer"; "Cupid's baby woes" into "Cupid's baby clothes";[Pg 24] "matchless excellence" into "matchless impudence," and so on. This is sorry stuff; and those who desire to appreciate Sheridan's travestie of the tragedy of his day must read "The Critic" in its published shape.

The next notable attempt at the burlesque of conventional tragedy was a return to the methods of "Chrononhotonthologos." In "Bombastes Furioso" (first played in 1816 [3]) all satirical machinery was discarded; all that the author—William Barnes Rhodes—sought to do was to travestie his originals in a brief and telling story. "Bombastes" is not now so often performed as it used to be; but not so very long ago it was turned into a comic opera, under the title of "Artaxominous the Great," and its humours are fairly well known to the public. Some of these the world will not willingly let die. One still thinks with amusement of the "army" of Bombastes, consisting of "one Drummer, one Fifer, and two Soldiers, all very materially differing in size"; of the General's exhortation to his troops—

and of the boastful challenge of the General, so promptly accepted by Artaxominous—

And the piece bears re-perusal wonderfully well. Its literary merit is assuredly not less than that of "Chrononhotonthologos": it is perhaps even greater. The opening colloquy between the King and Fusbos is genuinely diverting, embodying as it does one of those mock similes so dear[Pg 25] to the satirists of old-fashioned tragedy. The King admits to Fusbos that he is "but middling—that is, so so!" It is not, however, either the mulligrubs or the blue-devils that disturb him:—

By-and-by the King confides to Fusbos that his heart is not wholly faithful to Queen Griskinissa—that he is also hopelessly in love with Distaffina, the acknowledged sweetheart of Bombastes. Under the circumstances he asks for Fusbos' advice:—

These, however, are not the best known of the mock similes in "Bombastes." For those we have to look to the scene in which the King, observing his General's above[Pg 26]mentioned challenge, reviles Bombastes and knocks down his boots. Then we have the familiar lines:—

Next comes the fight between the monarch and the warrior; the King is killed, and then Fusbos kills Bombastes. Finally, the two deceased (despite the assertion of Fusbos that they are "dead as herrings—herrings that are red") come to life again, and all ends happily.

Of ordinary parody there is little in the piece, and what there is can scarcely be said to be of the best. There is a suggestion, in one ditty, of "Hope told a flattering Tale." But better than this is the song suggested by "My Lodging is on the Cold Ground," which is happy both intrinsically and as an imitation. Fusbos is the singer:—

At this point, English stage burlesque suddenly takes a new departure, combining, with satire of the contemporary native "boards," satire not less keen of certain products of the foreign muse. The incident came about in this way:—Just before the close of the eighteenth century, the English book-market had been flooded with translations of certain German plays, including Schiller's "Robbers" and "Cabal and Love," Goethe's "Stella," and Kotzebue's "Misanthropy and Repentance" ("The Stranger") and "Count Benyowsky." Canning, Ellis, and Frere, who were then bringing out The Anti-Jacobin, were struck by the absurdities contained within these dramas, and accordingly composed and printed (in June 1798) that well-known skit, "The Rovers, or the Double Arrangement." In this the plays chiefly parodied are "Stella," "The Stranger," and "Count Benyowsky." By "Stella" was suggested not only "the double arrangement" (by which Matilda and Cecilia share the affections of their lover Casimere), but the famous scene in which the two women, before they know they are rivals, become, on the instant, bosom friends. Both admit that they are in love, and then—

"The Rovers," however, would hardly come within the scope of the present volume, were it not that, in 1811, at the Haymarket, there was produced, by Colman junior, a piece called "The Quadrupeds of Quedlinburgh, or the Rovers of Weimar," in which the adapter made use of the squib in The Anti-Jacobin. Colman's aim in this work was to ridicule not only the German plays, including Kotzebue's "Spaniards in Peru" ("Pizarro"), which had lately been brought before the English playgoer, but also the prevailing fancy for bringing animals upon the stage. At Astley's horses had figured both in "Blue Beard" and in "Timour the Tartar," and dogs had previously been seen in "The Caravan." To this, as well as to the unhealthy importations from Germany, allusion was made in the prologue:—

"The Quadrupeds of Quedlinburgh" was not printed, and one does not know to what extent Colman took advantage of the text of "The Rovers." It is certain, however, that Casimere, Matilda, and Cecilia, as well as Rogero (a creation of the original parodists), all appeared in the burlesque, being enacted respectively by Munden, Mrs. Glover, Mrs. Gibbs, and Liston, Elliston taking the rôle of Bartholomew Bathos, a lineal descendant (no doubt) of Bayes and Puff. We read that, in addition to the travestie supplied by The Anti-Jacobin, fun was poked at the sentimental sentinel in "Pizarro," and the last scene of "Timour the Tartar" was closely imitated. The piece was acted thirty-nine times, and must therefore have been what, in those days, was accounted a success.

We come now to a travestie of the old-fashioned tragedy which helps to connect the Old burlesque with the New, inasmuch as it was the production of James Robinson Planché. Of his "Amoroso, King of Little Britain: a serio-comick bombastick operatick interlude," played at Drury Lane in 1818, Planché was not particularly proud. He was very young when he wrote it; he wrote it for amateur performance; and it got on to the stage of Drury Lane without his knowledge and consent. Harley, the comedian, appears to have seen or read the little trifle, and to have recommended it to the manager of "the national theatre." He himself represented Amoroso; Knight was Roastando (a cook); Smith was Blusterbus (a yeoman of the guard); Mrs. Bland was Coquetinda (the Queen of Little Britain), and Mrs. Orger was Mollidusta (a chambermaid). The piece was much applauded, and had the distinction of being quoted[Pg 30] in the Times. It opens with the King being awakened by his courtiers, to whom he angrily exclaims:—

The Times applied the last line to a Parliamentary incident which had just occurred; and Planché admits that he was flattered by the compliment. But he would not include "Amoroso" in the testimonial edition of his burlesques and extravaganzas,—mainly, I imagine, because the piece is so obviously an imitation of "Bombastes Furioso," which it by no means equals in literary distinction.

The plot is simplicity itself. Amoroso is in love with Mollidusta, Mollidusta with Blusterbus, and the Queen with Roastando. "The King sees Roastando and the Queen salute: he discharges Roastando. The Queen sees the King and Mollidusta together: she stabs Mollidusta. The King stabs the Queen, Roastando stabs the King, the King stabs Roastando." In the end, all come to life again. In the course of the play the King thus declares his passion to Mollidusta:—

Not to be outdone by the other lovers, the Queen and Roastando warble a duet, in which they confess their feelings for each other:—

Three months after "Amoroso" had been seen at Drury Lane, there was produced at the English Opera House a "serio-comic-bombastic-operatic interlude," written by George Daniel, and called "Doctor Bolus"—yet another burlesque of the old-fashioned drama, owing quite as much[Pg 32] to "Bombastes Furioso" as did "Amoroso." In this piece the King, Artipadiades (Harley), is in love with Poggylina, a maid of honour, while the Queen, Katalinda (Miss Kelly), is enamoured of General Scaramoucho (Chatterley). The General revolts, and is defeated by the King. His amour is discovered, and, while the Queen is poisoned with one of Bolus's "infallible" pills, the General is stabbed by Artipadiades. The Queen, however, revives, and is thereupon stabbed by the King, who also stabs himself. But, in the end, as in "Amoroso," all the dead people are resuscitated. There are some gleams of humour in the dialogue, but not many. Bolus was played by John Wilkinson.

II.

After the production of "Amoroso," Planché remained silent, so far as travestie was concerned, till 1831, when he began in earnest his successful career as a burlesque writer. In the interval a new votary of travestie appeared in the person of Fox Cooper, of whose "Elbow Shakers" and "Ion" I shall have something to say by-and-by. Moncrieff and Buckstone, too, followed the example of T. Dibdin, in dealing more or less humorously with the subject of "Don Giovanni," while Buckstone also essayed to do the same with that of "Billy Taylor." None of these effusions, however, were burlesques in the ordinary acceptation of the word; and 1831, therefore, may still be taken as the starting-point of the new theatrical era, of which Planché was the herald.

This era may be said to divide naturally into fairly balanced parts, the first extending from 1831 to 1865, the period covered by Planché's activity in the work; the second from 1865 to 1885, by which time Mr. Edward Terry and Miss Kate Vaughan had retired from the Gaiety. Within the former moiety are comprised the labours of four men who for many years shared with Planché the throne[Pg 34] of stage travestie. Need I say that I mean Gilbert Abbott a'Beckett (with whom Mark Lemon so frequently collaborated), Francis Talfourd, and the Brothers Brough? Planché's "Olympic Revels" (1831) was followed by A'Beckett's "Son of the Sun" in 1834, by Talfourd's "Macbeth" in 1847, and by the Brothers Brough's "Enchanted Isle" in 1848. The "Joan of Arc" of William Brough was seen in 1869; its writer had been producing burlesque for over twenty years. Talfourd's career as a dramatist was comparatively brief. Beginning in 1847, it ended in 1860, but was brilliant while it lasted.

Modern burlesque was fortunate indeed in its founders—all of them men of education and refinement, all of them men of letters as well as playwrights. To the literary merit of their products it is unnecessary to bear more than the briefest testimony, for it is everywhere, and by everybody, acknowledged. In the writings of these four men theatrical burlesque was seen at its best. They came fresh to the task, and made the most of their opportunities. They set themselves really to travestie and to parody, and were careful to present, amid their wildest comicalities, a definite, intelligible story. They dropped naturally into the decasyllabic couplet, and made free use of the pun; but in neither case did they become mechanical or strained. The verse of Planché and A'Beckett is smoothness itself, and they do not descend to word-torturing. Talfourd and the Broughs took more licence in this latter respect, but they never sank into drivel. Above all, not one of these five masters of burlesque permitted themselves to be vulgar either in general treatment or in verbal detail. They were nice in their choice of subjects, and, like Mr. W. S. Gilbert[Pg 35] in the case of "The Princess," perverted them respectfully. One finds no horseplay in the fun of these genuine humourists. All their effects are made legitimately, and in decent fashion.

They were happy, too, in the good influence they exercised. The list of their colleagues during the period named is notable. One meets early with the names of Charles Selby and W. H. Oxberry. Then come those of Albert Smith, Kenny, and Shirley Brooks, Leicester Buckingham, and Andrew Halliday, by whom much excellent work was achieved in the 'forties and 'fifties. Of lesser note, in this particular department of endeavour, were Leman Rede, Stirling Coyne, and Tom Taylor, who were more distinguished in other fields. Selby and Oxberry had the knack of writing for the stage which so often results from experience in acting. Smith, Brooks, Buckingham, Halliday, Rede, Coyne, and Taylor, were men whose literary skill, acquired in other quarters, was of eminent service to the comic stage. Especially is it to be regretted that the genial and witty author of "Sooner or Later" did not devote more of his time and talent to the service of burlesque, of the qualities and possibilities of which he had so keen a sense.

But to turn now to the second moiety of the period above named—that extending from 1865 to 1885. We find that this, too, has had the good fortune to be dominated by some burlesque writers of very special capacity—to wit, Mr. F. C. Burnand, the late H. J. Byron, Mr. W. S. Gilbert, and Mr. Robert Reece. Mr. Burnand has been bringing out burlesques ever since 1855, when he wrote "Villikins and his Dinah" for the Cambridge A.D.C. His first London production was his "Dido," seen at the[Pg 36] St. James's in 1860. His metropolitan career, therefore, has covered more than thirty years. Byron began at the Strand in 1858, and ended at the Gaiety in 1879. Mr. Gilbert's labours as a producer of travestie in the ordinary sense started early in the 'sixties with "Dr. Dulcamara," and closed in 1870 with "The Princess."[4] Mr. Reece opened in 1865 with "Prometheus"; and work in which he had a part was witnessed so recently as 1886.

Mr. Gilbert soon found that his true métier lay outside the bounds of ordinary burlesque, and his "Princess" was the stepping-stone to "The Palace of Truth," and, in due course, to "H.M.S. Pinafore" and its successors. His travesties of "L'Elisir d'Amore," "La Fille du Régiment," "The Bohemian Girl," "Norma," and "Robert le Diable," had, however, what all the best specimens of English stage burlesque have had—a literary quality and an entire absence of coarseness or suggestiveness; and no doubt they had, at the time, their due effect upon the public taste. Meanwhile, the premier burlesque writers of the past thirty years are Mr. Burnand, Byron, and Mr. Reece, whose productions have been as notable for their multiplicity and variety as for their technical excellence. All three, like the ablest of their predecessors, have written extravaganza as well as travestie; and, in travestie, they have gone far afield, essaying and succeeding in all subjects and all styles. They, too, have favoured, in the main, the decasyllabic couplet and the pun, bringing both of them to all the comic perfection of which they were capable. The pun, in particular, has[Pg 37] reached its highest phase in the writings of these consummate jugglers with words.

Mr. H. B. Farnie had a considerable vogue in burlesque from 1870 to 1885, but never displayed the neatness or the spontaneity of the writers above mentioned. He was fluent, but that was all. Mr. Alfred Thompson at one time did good things in this direction, and so did Mr. Conway Edwardes. Mr. G. A. Sala composed one burlesque, but has not been induced to give it a successor. Mr. Herman Merivale has been content to write two: that he has not written more is to be regretted. Among other recent writers of travestie may be named—Mr. Gilbert Arthur a'Beckett, Mr. Harry Paulton, Mr. F. W. Green, Mr. Arthur Matthison, Mr. Savile Clarke, Mr. W. Younge, Mr. Edward Rose, Mr. Alfred Murray, Mr. Albert Chevalier, Mr. George Dance, Mr. G. P. Hawtrey, Mr. Horace Lennard, Mr. Geoffrey Thorn, and Mr. Cecil Raleigh. In the provinces great successes have been made by Mr. J. McArdle and Mr. Wilton Jones. Of Messrs. Sims and Pettitt, Stephens and Yardley, "Richard Henry," and "A. C. Torr" and H. Mills, I shall have something to say when I come to consider "The New Burlesque," of which they have been the principal producers. If, within the last twenty years or so, travestie has been confined to a smaller number of theatres than before, and if it has been proportionately "depressed," that has been owing, chiefly, to the popularity of comic opera and farcical comedy, into the composition and exposition of which has been thrown, of necessity, very much of the talent which otherwise would have been devoted to the writing and acting of burlesque.

On the whole, the days between 1831 and 1885 were, for[Pg 38] burlesque, "palmy" days indeed. They produced not only many admirable writers of the genre, but many admirable actors thereof. Planché was generous in his praise of the artists who helped so greatly to make his pieces "go"; and he did well to be so, for never, I suppose, was a comic writer so fortunate in his interpreters. During his first years at the Olympic he had the aid of the incomparable Vestris, of Rebecca Isaacs, of Miss Murray, of Mrs. Macnamara, of Mrs. Honey, of John Brougham, of James Bland, of James Vining, and of Charles James Mathews,—all in the first rank of their art. At Covent Garden, from 1840 to 1843, the company included, at different times, not only Mme. Vestris, Mrs. Macnamara, Brougham, Bland, and Vining, but Harley, Wm. Harrison, Morris Barnett, Selby, Miss Fairbrother, Miss Priscilla Horton, Mrs. C. Jones, and Mrs. Alfred Wigan. At the Haymarket, during the three years following, Planché had his ideas carried out, not only by Bland and Miss Horton, and during one year by Mme. Vestris and Charles Mathews, but also by Caulfield, Widdicomb, Tilbury, Brindal, Braid, Julia Bennett, Miss Reynolds, and Mrs. L. S. Buckingham. Continuously lucky in this respect, Planché enjoyed—from 1847 to 1853, at the Lyceum—the services of Miss Fitzwilliam, Julia St. George, Miss Oliver, John Reeve, Robert Roxby, Basil Baker, and Mr. and Mrs. Frank Matthews, in addition to Vestris and Mathews and many others of the artists named above. Finally, and best, when Planché brought out, at the Olympic, his "Yellow Dwarf," his "Discreet Princess," and his "Young and Handsome," his chief comedian was the "great little Robson," the fame of whose tragi-comic outbursts still lingers among us, and who[Pg 39] had for his successive supporters Horace Wigan, Emery, James Rogers, Julia St. George, Miss Maskell (Mrs. Walter Baynham), and Miss Swanborough.

What, meanwhile, had been the personnel at the other houses of burlesque? At the Strand in the 'thirties, the great favourites were W. J. Hammond, H. Hall, Mitchell, Oxberry, G. Cooke, Miss Daly, Miss Horton. At the Fitzroy one finds Miss Chaplin and W. Rogers; at the Victoria, Rogers and Mitchell; at the St. James's, Hall and Mme. Sala; at Sadler's Wells, Rogers and C. H. Pitt; at the Queen's, T. F. Matthews and Mrs. Selby; and at the Adelphi, O Smith, John Reeve, and Mrs. Stirling. Early in the 'forties we see Wright and Paul Bedford moving from the Princess's to the Adelphi, where Miss Chaplin and Miss Woolgar are also located. At the Strand we find Wigan, Hammond, and R. Romer. Later, we come across Keeley in burlesque at the Haymarket, along with Bland, Miss Reynolds, and Miss Horton. The second half of the century opens brilliantly at the Strand, where Reeve, Rogers, Romer, and Maskell are the male comedians, with Miss Marshall, Miss Romer, Miss Maskell, and Mrs. Horsman as their helpmates. Was not that a truly strong company? And was not the Adelphi fortunate, about the same time, in the possession of Miss Woolgar, Miss Mary Keeley, Keeley himself, and Paul Bedford? At the Haymarket were Buckstone and Mrs. Caulfield. Some of these may be names only to the uninstructed reader; but to the theatrical student they all convey a world of meaning, conjuring up a multitude of delightful associations.

When we come to 1856 we reach a landmark in the history of burlesque acting. William Brough's "Perdita" is[Pg 40] "put up" by Charles Dillon at the Lyceum, and in the cast of it we find not only Miss Woolgar and the author, but that very youthful actress Marie Wilton, and that rising young comedian J. L. Toole. Here, then, is the beginning of the modern régime. Robson and Julia St. George are still playing at the Olympic; but the "palmy" days of the Strand Theatre are about to flash upon us. Marie Wilton stays for another year at the Lyceum, but in 1858 she is comfortably lodged at the little playhouse across the way, together with Bland and Poynter and Mrs. Selby, and Johnny Clarke, H. J. Turner, and Miss Ternan. In 1859 Charlotte Saunders is playing a mock Romeo to Marie Wilton's mock Juliet, and Eleanor Bufton and Maria Simpson and "Jimmy" Rogers are also members of the troupe—the one troupe which can regard itself as the legitimate successor to the Vestris-Mathews "combinations." In the year following, a new star arises at the Lyceum in the person of Lydia Thompson; at the St. James's are Nelly Moore and Cecilia Ranoe and Charles Young; at the Haymarket are Chippendale, Compton, and C. Coghlan. A few months more, and the name of Kate Terry appears on the burlesque bill at the St. James's. Fanny Josephs and E. Danvers have been added to the Strand establishment, which shortly welcomes Fanny Hughes and Ada Swanborough, Polly Marshall and George Honey.

Next comes the turn of the little Royalty. We are in 1863, and Mr. Burnand's "Ixion" is announced, with Jenny Wilmore in the title-part, David James as Mercury, Felix Rogers as Minerva, Mrs. Charles Selby as the Queen, and Ada Cavendish as Venus. Here, again, is a landmark, not to be left unnoted; here we have to record the first of[Pg 41] many triumphs to come. Next year both David James and Thomas Thorne are in the troupe at the Strand, where they are destined to remain till they open the Vaudeville in 1870. In the year next again, the burlesque company at the Olympic is seen to include a young actress of the name of Ellen Farren, one day to become the chief tender of the "sacred lamp"; along with her are Amy Sheridan, Louisa Moore, Patti Josephs, and Mrs. Stephens. Meanwhile, the Royalty has been running neck and neck with the Strand, and growing greatly in public favour. By 1866 it is ripe for another success—the most remarkable ever achieved on the burlesque boards—secured by the "Black-eyed Susan" of Mr. Burnand, with Fred Dewar as Captain Crosstree, Mr. Charles Wyndham as a Deal smuggler, Miss Oliver as Susan, Miss Nellie Bromley as Dolly Mayflower, and E. Danvers as Dame Hatley. After this one notes the addition to the Strand troupe, first, of Miss Eliza Johnstone, Miss Elise Holt, and Miss Weathersby; and next, of Miss Lydia Thompson. At the New Queen's in 1868, Miss Kate Santley and Miss Henrietta Hodson are playing burlesque with W. H. Stephens and "Lal" Brough. In the same year the Gaiety Theatre is opened, by Mr. John Hollingshead with a new burlesque by Mr. W. S. Gilbert—"Robert the Devil," in which the leading character is undertaken by Miss Ellen Farren.

From this date onwards it is not necessary to do more than indicate a few salient points in connection with burlesque acting in this country. The opening of the Gaiety was the first step towards the expansion of the Old burlesque into the New. In the following year Mr. Edward Terry entered on an engagement at the Strand—an[Pg 42] engagement which lasted till 1877, and did as much for the progress of stage travestie as did that of Miss Farren at the other house. In 1869 there was burlesque at the Globe, with Edward Marshall and Miss Maggie Brennan, and at the St. James's with Mrs. John Wood in "La Belle Sauvage."[5] In 1870 Harry Paulton went to the Strand; and at the Royalty were Rachel Sanger, Arthur Wood, and Alfred Bishop. In 1871 there was burlesque at the Court, with Mlle. D'Anka, Miss Oliver, Miss Kate Bishop and Mr. Righton. At the Vaudeville, next year, Miss Nelly Power and Miss Marie Rhodes were supporting Messrs. James and Thorne; while at the Royalty were Miss Emma Chambers, Miss Kate Phillips, and Miss Harriett Coveney.

In 1873 Mr. E. W. Royce goes to the Gaiety, and Miss Lottie Venne is seen at the Court in "The Happy Land." At the Folly, next year, Mr. Edouin takes the fancy of the town as the Heathen Chinee in Mr. Farnie's "Blue Beard;" Belmore, Mr. Odell, and Mr. Leonard Boyne all essay to burlesque Mr. Irving as Hamlet; and Miss Pattie Laverne plays the hero in Mr. Burnand's "Ixion Re-Wheeled." A "Robinson Crusoe," by Mr. Farnie, at the Folly in 1876, brings to the front a droll Will Atkins in the form of Mr. George Barrett.

In 1877, at the Gaiety, Edward Terry joins Miss Farren and Mr. Royce, and in 1878 Selina Dolaro and G. W. Anson are playing at the Folly in "Another Drink," while Alma Stanley and Charles Groves are playing in "Venus"[Pg 43] at the Royalty. Miss Kate Vaughan, at the Gaiety, is already beginning to revolutionise stage dancing, making it at once graceful and decorous. At the Royalty, in 1880, are Miss Kate Lawler and Mr. Frank Wyatt; at the Gaiety are Mr. Dallas and Miss Gilchrist. In 1882, Mr. Toole, who has not been seen in burlesque for some time, takes part in a skit on rural melodrama. A year later Mr. Harry Monkhouse figures at the Gaiety; Mr. E. D. Ward and Miss Marie Linden first show, at Toole's, their talent for travestie; and Miss Laura Linden does the same thing at the Strand. In 1884 Mr. Willie Edouin and Miss Alice Atherton make, in "The Babes," their first joint success in London; and Mr. Edward Terry and Miss Kate Vaughan appear at the Gaiety for the last time in burlesque.

It is from this point that we may date the foundation of the New Burlesque, to which I shall return in my last chapter. In the chapters that immediately follow we shall be able to see how numerous were the topics essayed by burlesque writers in the "palmy" days, and also with how much wit and humour those writers were able, for the most part, to charge the stories that they told and the pictures that they presented.

III.

Planché was not only the founder of modern burlesque: he was the originator, in particular, of that form of travestie which is commonly described as "classical"—which deals with the characteristics and adventures of the gods and goddesses, heroes and heroines, of the Greek and Latin mythology and fable. It is true that comic pieces on classical subjects had been played in England before Planché brought out, at the Olympic, his "Olympic Revels"[6] (January 1831). But these pieces were not burlesques in the present-century sense of the word. Take, for example, the "Midas" of Kane O'Hara, which, produced in 1762, remained popular for so many years, and will always be remembered as including the once famous ditty:—

The gods and goddesses are presented in "Midas" in a light more or less ludicrous, and the dialogue, songs, and[Pg 45] choruses are flavoured with contemporary allusion, more or less humorous. But the form given to the work is that of the old-fashioned burletta. Indeed, the chief merit of "Midas," from a historical point of view, lies in the fact that it was its successful revival, with Mme. Vestris as Apollo, which, coupled with the publication of Colman junior's story, "The Sun-Poker," suggested to Planché the composition of his first "classical" burlesque. This had for subject the story of Prometheus and Pandora, and was remarkable, not only for the smooth flow of its versification and the general refinement of its tone, but also for the accuracy and consistency of the costumes, which were throughout "classical," and therefore in strong contrast to the haphazard, incongruous attire in which "classical" characters had hitherto been exhibited on the comic boards.

Prometheus and Pandora, I may note, figured later—in 1865—as the leading personages in Mr. Reece's "Prometheus, or the Man on the Rock,"[7] in which the writer differed from his predecessor in admitting into his dialogue a large infusion of the punning element. In this direction Mr. Reece has always been proficient. Here are a few specimens of his work, picked out at random:—

Planché's "Olympic Revels" proved so brilliantly successful that he was encouraged to follow it up, at the end of the year, with a companion composition—"Olympic Devils, or Orpheus and Eurydice." In this work, James Bland, the son of the lady who "created" Planché's Coquetinda, made his first appearance in burlesque, and among the female Bacchantes who took part in the groupings was a clever young girl, named Leonora Pincott, who was destined one day to be a great public favourite as "Mrs. Alfred Wigan." In "Olympic Devils" Planché's style is seen to excellent effect. Note, as an instance, the remarks addressed by Minos, Lord Low Chancellor, to the Fates:—

But Planché had a higher wit than that of punning. His satire and sarcasm have an agreeable, because not too pungent, cynicism—as in such little scraps of song as this (following upon the scene in which Orpheus, hearing that his wife is flirting with Pluto, cannot resist looking back at her and thus consigning her again to Pluto's tender mercies):—

In after years H. J. Byron wrote two burlesques on the legend of Orpheus and his wife, both of them produced at the Strand Theatre,[8] and it is notable that when Planché made, in 1865, at the Haymarket, his last appearance as a writer of extravaganza, it fell to his lot to treat once more of Orpheus and his surroundings.[9]

Planché's third classical burlesque was "The Paphian Bower, or Venus and Adonis," in which Benjamin Webster[Pg 48] was seen for the first time in this class of histrionic work. Mme. Vestris, of course, was Venus, and in the course of the piece had to sing this eminently clever parody of "Sally in our Alley":—

Venus and Adonis have always been great favourites with the producers of travestie. Among those who have made them the central figures of burlesque are Mr. Burnand, whose work was brought out in 1864, and Mr. Edward Rose, whose "Venus," written in collaboration with the Mr. Augustus Harris, and first performed at the Royalty in 1879 (with Miss Nelly Bromley as the heroine), was re-written for revival, and finally taken as the foundation of a third production in 1880.

In "The Deep, Deep Sea," brought out in 1833, Planché selected as the basis of his work the story of Perseus and Andromeda. He treated it with his usual reverence for the original legend. He represented Juno and the Nereids[Pg 49] as being angry with King Cepheus, and sending the sea-serpent to devastate his shores. James Vining played the Serpent, and his approach was announced to the monarch in the following strain:—

The Serpent, when he arrives, introduces himself to the king in an engaging fashion:—

The exaggeration which is so characteristic of American humour is here happily satirised. In another passage, Perseus, addressing himself to Andromeda, sings a neatly turned parody of "We met—'twas in a Crowd":—

In 1861 Perseus and Andromeda reappeared upon the comic stage at the instance of William Brough, who made them the hero and heroine of a burlesque at the St. James's.

The story of Telemachus was the subject which engaged the attention of Planché immediately after he had done with Perseus. Fénelon's tale had become extremely familiar to the British schoolboy, who at that time was not thought to have "grounded" himself sufficiently in French until he had read the narrative in the original. Hence Planché's "Telemachus, or the Island of Calypso,"[10] concerning which[Pg 51] the author took credit to himself once more for having "preserved the well-known plot with the most reverential fidelity." Ten years later the same subject was treated in the "Telemachus" of Stirling Coyne, played at the Adelphi with Miss Woolgar in the title-part, Wright as Calypso (a ballet-dancer!) and Paul Bedford as the hero's Mentor or "tor-Mentor." In 1863 the story of the parents of Telemachus proved attractive to Mr. Burnand, whose "Patient Penelope" made her curtsey at the Strand, to be followed at the St. James's, two years later, by the same writer's "Ulysses."

Still tracing the course of Planché's labours in burlesque, we come next to the production, at the Haymarket in 1845, of "The Golden Fleece"—perhaps, on the whole, the most delightful of the series. In this ingenious and brilliant piece, the two parts of which were entitled respectively "Jason in Colchis" and "Medea in Corinth," Planché had taken the narrative of Apollonius Rhodius and the tragedy of Euripides, and had built upon them a composition in which he sought less to cast ridicule upon the legends selected than to travestie what he called "the modus operandi of the classical period, which really illustrates the old proverbial observation that there is but one step from the sublime to the ridiculous." He brought again upon the stage the ancient Chorus, incarnated in a single person, who explained the action of the piece as it went on, not hesitating even to interrupt it when the humorous opportunity occurred. Charles Mathews undertook the part, heralded by a jocose announcement on the "bills" to the effect that "The lessee has, regardless of expense, engaged Mr. Charles Mathews to represent the whole body of the chorus, rendering[Pg 52] at least fifty-nine male voices entirely unnecessary." In the opening scene, the Chorus thus described his functions:—

Later in the piece, announcing the approach of King Æetes (Bland), the Chorus interposed with:—

In the course of the piece Mathews sang, among other things, an excellent ditty, to the tune of "The Tight Little Island":—

But perhaps the most successful parody in "The Golden Fleece" was that on "The Fine Old English Gentleman," assigned to Mme. Vestris as Medea. This is worth quoting in full:—

"Medea," it will be remembered, was the title and subject of a burlesque by Robert Brough, brought out at the Olympic in 1856, with Robson in the title-part, Emery as Creon (King of Corinth), and Julia St. George as Jason. Medea ("the best of mothers, with a brute of a husband," as the sub-title has it) was one of Robson's most impressive rôles, being charged at more than one point (notably in the closing scene, which was played by all the characters in serious fashion) with real tragic intensity. In the lighter vein were such episodes as the duet with Jason (to the air of "Robinson Crusoe"), which I quote as illustrative of the neatness and humour with which Brough constructed such trifles:—

The last of Planché's classical burlesques was produced at the Lyceum in 1848. It was on the subject of "Theseus and Ariadne," and was fortunate in the services of Charles Mathews as Dædalus. In this character Mathews sang a song which Planché had written for private performance and had brought "down to date" for the occasion. It is one of the happiest mélanges ever put together, beginning—

The only song, of the kind, worthy to compare with this, is the description of the Heavy Dragoon sung by Colonel Calverly in the "Patience" of Mr. Gilbert, who, as a master of light badinage and intricate rhythm and rhyme, is the lineal descendant of the author of "Theseus and Ariadne."

After Planché, the most notable of the deceased writers of "classical" burlesque is undoubtedly Francis Talfourd. Planché's knowledge of the Greek mythology and drama was admittedly derived from translations and from dictionaries; Talfourd was a university man, and had an at-first-hand acquaintance with the masterpieces which he[Pg 56] so skilfully travestied. The marks of this are visible in all his "classical" pieces, and notably in the first of them—"Alcestis, the Original Strong-minded Woman, being a most Shameless Misinterpretation of the Greek drama of Euripides." This was played at the Strand in 1850. The "argument" prefixed to it is an excellent bit of punning:—

In one place Alcestis, apropos of the marriage which is being forced upon her, cries bitterly:—

In 1851 came "Thetis and Peleus," in which Talfourd had a collaborator. In 1857 he produced, at the Haymarket, "Atalanta, or the Three Golden Apples," inserting in the "bill" a comic note to the effect that "Lest he should be accused of murdering a good subject, the Author begs to state that it was Foun' Ded from unknown causes many years ago." Miss Oliver was the Atalanta, and Miss Wilton the Cupid. Among the other characters is Mississarris, Atalanta's duenna, "the Guard of the Old Greek Stage, with, in this instance, an eye to the Males, subsequently attached to the old Coach, Paidagogos," played by Compton. One of the cleverest scenes in the piece is designed and written in parody of the balcony scene in "Romeo and Juliet." Hippomenes, the hero, is seen climbing "over the garden wall," guitar in hand. Descending, he soliloquises:—

Elsewhere Hippomenes delivers himself of a superexcellent pun. Some one says to him, referring to his studies,—"But think of your degree"; to which he replies:—

After "Atalanta"[11] came Talfourd's "Pluto and Proserpine, or the Belle and the Pomegranate," played at the Haymarket in 1858, and his "Electra in an Electric Light," performed at the Haymarket the year following. In "Pluto and Proserpine," as in his other pieces, the original myth is followed closely. One passage supplies a happy parody of the famous "palace-lifting-to-eternal-summer" speech in "The Lady of Lyons." Pluto has appeared to Proserpine as a young man, and has laid siege to her heart in proper form. He is careful not to disclose his identity. At last Proserpine says:—

"Pluto and Proserpine" has the usual supply of puns, as in the following couplet:—

But Talfourd, like Planché, could rise above mere jeux d'esprit, and furnish, when necessary, bits of persiflage which deserve to linger in the memory. Thus, in one of the scenes, Pluto addresses Cerberus in a fashion intended to suggest Launce's colloquy with his dog in "The Two Gentlemen of Verona":—

I have already referred to three classical burlesques by H. J. Byron. A fourth exists in the "original classical pastoral" called "Pan," which first saw the light at the Adelphi in 1865. Pan, it may be recorded, was impersonated by Mr. J. L. Toole. He had a good deal to say, and much of it was in the form of jeux de mots. Take, for example, the passage in which Pan discovers that Syrinx, whom he loves, is in love with Narcissus. He calls down thunder from the skies; and then follows this tirade:—

This is a very fair specimen of Byron's rather careless method; and another is at hand in the following lines, which are spoken after the Carian captain has shown to Pan a jar of wine:—

To the burlesques by William Brough already mentioned may be added "Endymion, or the Naughty Boy who cried[Pg 62] for the Moon" (St. James's, 1860), and "Pygmalion, or the Statue Fair" (Strand, 1867). The former,[12] of course, has to do with the fabled fondness of Diana for Endymion, and vice versâ. The goddess sees the youth lying asleep upon Mount Latmos, and, descending, kisses him:-

Before Endymion has seen Diana, he is asked by Actæon whether he is in love; to which he replies:-

When, again, Actæon asks Endymion whether he ever shoots, he replies, "No, I don't care about it":—

Among the personæ in the piece is Pan, whom we find addressing the fauns in this punning style:—

In "Pygmalion"[13] we are asked to suppose that Venus is indignant with the sculptor for his lack of susceptibility to female charms. Cupid therefore undertakes to punish him by making him fall in love with his new statue,[Pg 64] Galatea. To this statue Venus, at Pygmalion's request, gives life; but she withholds the power of loving. Galatea, therefore, is for ever slighting the sculptor's affection. Here is the opening of their first interview, which the curious may compare with the similar situation in Mr. Gilbert's "Pygmalion and Galatea:"—

In the end, Psyche infuses soul into Galatea, and she and the sculptor understand each other.

In 1883 Mr. H. P. Stephens submitted to Gaiety audiences a one-act piece which he called "Galatea, or Pygmalion Re-versed." In this Galatea was the sculptor, and Pygmalion the statue; and with Miss Farren as the former, and Mr. Edward Terry as the latter, the result was eminently laughable. Cynisca, by the way, was turned into a man (Cyniscos), and was played by Elton.

Two mythological burlesques stand to the credit of Gilbert Abbott a'Beckett—"The Son of the Sun, or the Fate of Phaeton," played at the Fitzroy Theatre so long ago as 1834; and "The Three Graces," a two-act piece, seen at the Princess's in 1843, with Oxberry, Wright, and Paul Bedford in the cast. Both of these travesties are very smoothly and gracefully written, with fewer puns than the author afterwards permitted himself. "The Three Graces," moreover, is not very prolific in contemporary allusion; though here and there, as in the following passage, between the heroines—Aglaia, Thalia, and Euphrosyne—there is some gentle satire:—

In "The Son of the Sun" there is an episode which helps to illustrate the condition of the drama in London at that period (1834). Apollo is questioning the Muses who have just returned from London to Olympus:—

Mr. Burnand has written more "classical" burlesques than any man living or dead. A university man, like Talfourd, he has displayed complete mastery of mythologic themes, submitting them to ingenious perversion, and adorning them with a wealth of pun and parody of which it is impossible, in these brief limits, to give more than a few samples. He has shown special interest in the legends connected with the siege of Troy,[14] producing three burlesques more or less connected with that event. First, in 1860, came "Dido," at the St. James's, with Charles Young as the heroine; next, in 1866, "Paris, or Vive Lemprière," at the Strand;[15] next, in 1867, "The Latest Edition of Helen, or Taken from the Greek," at Liverpool.[16] Helen of Troy, I may note, en parenthèse, had been the heroine of two other travesties: one by Vincent Amcotts—"Fair Helen" (Oxford, 1862); the other by Mr. Robert Reece—"Our Helen" (Gaiety, 1884).

In "Dido," Mr. Burnand's genius for word-play is agreeably manifested. I take some lines at random:—

Æneas comes on first as a begging sailor, with "I'm starving" inscribed on a paper suspended from his neck. He strikes up a song, but soon stops it:—

In 1863 Mr. Burnand brought out, at the Royalty, "Ixion, or the Man at the Wheel,"[17] which proved to be one of the happiest of his efforts. This he followed up, at the same theatre, two years later, with "Pirithous," in which the adventures of Ixion's son were as humorously depicted. In the interval he had produced at the Olympic "Cupid and Psyche" (December, 1864), a burlesque on an ever-popular subject. Years before—so early as 1837—a piece called "Cupid," written by Joseph Graves, had been represented at the Queen's and Strand, with Wild and Miss Malcolm at the one house and Hammond and Miss Daly at the other as the God of Love and his beloved. In "Cupid," however, there was little verbal wit. The god figured as a gay deceiver, who had promised marriage to Psyche, but had refused to "implement" the undertaking. Whereupon Jupiter decides that Cupid shall be shot dead by Psyche; but she, using the god's own arrows, does but transfix him with the love she yearns for. Cupid sings, early in the piece, a parody of "The Sea! the Sea!" beginning—

But, otherwise, Graves's "book" is not particularly brilliant, Though smoothly written and fairly brisk in action.

In "Cupid and Psyche" Mr. Burnand made Psyche the daughter of a king, who, because she will not marry and thus relieve him of the anxiety caused by a certain Prophecy, chains her to a rock on the sea-shore. To this he is incited by Venus, who regards Psyche as her rival[Pg 70] in beauty. Psyche is duly rescued and espoused by Cupid, who (as in the old myth) remains invisible to her until her curiosity gets the better of her prudence; and, in the end, Venus abates her enmity, and the union of the pair is duly recognised. In one place, Psyche, entering, distractedly, in search of Cupid, cries:—

At the very end of the piece, there is a skilful bit of rhyming. Psyche "comes down" and says:—

Among other "classical" burlesques may be mentioned Mr. Burnand's "Arion," seen at the Strand in 1871, with Mr. Edward Terry, Mr. Harry Paulton, and Miss Augusta Thomson; and H. B. Farnie's "Vesta," produced at the St. James's in the same year, with Mr. John Wood and Mr. Lionel Brough. Mr. Burnand's "Sappho" (1866), and "Olympic Games" (1867), also call for mention. John Brougham's "Life in the Clouds" belongs to 1840; Tom Taylor's "Diogenes and his Lantern" to 1849; the Brothers Brough's "Sphinx" to the same year; William Brough's "Hercules and Omphale" to 1864; and Mr. Reece's "Agamemnon and Cassandra, or The Prophet and Loss of Troy," to 1868.

IV.

As Planché was, in effect, the Father of Classical Burlesque, so was he also, even more irrefragably, the Father of the Burlesque of Faërie—of the fairy tales of the nursery, and especially of those derived from French sources. Memorable, indeed, was the production of Planché's "Riquet with the Tuft [18]"; this piece was the precursor of something like twenty others from the same pen, all written on the same principle and in the same vein. Planché had been to Paris, and had there seen Potier playing in "Riquet à la Houppe." He came home and straightway wrote his own version of the story, partly in verse, partly in prose, having in Charles Mathews a Riquet not equal indeed to Potier, but with obvious merits of his own. Vestris was the Princess Emeralda, and James Bland Green Horn the Great—Rebecca Isaacs, then only a little girl, being the Mother Bunch. The result was complete success, carrying with it great encouragement to the dramatist to persevere in the new path on which he had entered.

These fairy pieces of Planché's were not burlesques quite[Pg 73] in the sense in which his classical pieces were, but they belong, nevertheless, to the burlesque genre. Each treats lightly and humorously a story already in existence; each includes parodies of popular lyrics, as well as songs written to the airs of popular ditties; and the burlesque spirit animates the whole. Every now and then, the writer, rising superior to parody, produces a lyric which has a definite accent of its own. Here, for example, in "Riquet with the Tuft," is a song accorded to the grotesque and misshapen hero. It has genuine wit as well as genial philosophy:—

The origin of "Riquet with the Tuft" is to be found in Perrault's "Contes de ma Mère l'Oye." Planché went to the same source for his "Puss in Boots: an original, comical, mews-ical fairy burletta" (Olympic, 1837), in which Charles Mathews was an incomparable Puss, with Bland as Pumpkin the Prodigious, Vestris as the Marquis of Carabas, and Brougham as a very Irish ogre. In this there was a good deal of prose dialogue, of which the following scene between Puss and the three maids-of-honour may be taken as a diverting specimen:—

The subject of "Puss in Boots" was afterwards handled by H. J. Byron.[19] In this case we find the monarch of the piece called Noodlehead IX.; the Princesses are named Biddi, Coobiddi, and Chickabiddi; and there are two woodcutters called Gnarl and Knot. The puns in the dialogue on the word cat are even more numerous than in the older piece, and somewhat more varied. As thus:—

In the course of the piece King Noodlehead sings a song in which some fun is made of the conventionalities of Italian opera:—

One of the prettiest and wittiest of Planché's adaptations from Perrault's store was "The Sleeping Beauty in the Wood," seen at Covent Garden in 1840. The Beauty was the Princess Is-a-Belle—of course, Mme. Vestris; the inevitable King—Thomas Noddy of No-Land—was the inevitable Bland; James Vining was Prince Perfect; and Brougham was a woodcutter—one Larry O'Log. But the most whimsical character in the piece was played by Harley—the Baron Factotum, "Great-Grand-Lord-Everything," who may be compared with Pooh-Bah in Mr. Gilbert's "Mikado." In "The Mikado," Ko-Ko is "Lord High Executioner of Titipu," and Pooh-Bah is "Lord High Everything Else"—he is "First Lord of the Treasury, Lord Chief Justice, Commander-in-Chief, Lord High[Pg 77] Admiral, Master of the Buckhounds, Groom of the Backstairs, Archbishop of Titipu, and Lord Mayor, both acting and elect, all rolled into one." The Baron Factotum is even more embarrassed with offices and duties. As he says at one juncture:—

Planché went again to Perrault—directly or indirectly—[Pg 78] for his "Blue Beard" (1839) and his "Discreet Princess" (1855). The last named (from "L'Adroite Princesse") was notable as including in its cast Robson as Prince Richcraft, and Emery as Gander the Stupendous. In "Blue Beard" Bland played the Baron Abomelique (the hero), Mme. Vestris the heroine (Fleurette), and John Brougham, the actor-dramatist, an Irish character—the O'Shac O'Back. How often has this fascinating subject been dealt with since! Dozens of pantomimes have had it for a basis; the burlesques founded on it are not quite so numerous. The best known are those by H. J. Byron (1860) and Mr. Burnand (1883); there are also two others by H. T. Arden and Frank Green.

But it was to the "Contes des Fées" of Madame D'Aulnoy that Planché was most largely indebted for his fairy stories. The list (extending from 1842 to 1854) is quite an imposing one. First came "Fortunio, and his Seven Gifted Servants," based on "Belle-Belle, ou le Chevalier Fortuné." Next, "The Invisible Prince, or the Island of Tranquil Delights," taken from "Le Prince Lutin." "Le Rameau d'Or" suggested "The Golden Branch," and "The King of Peacocks"[20] had its origin in "La Princesse Rosette." From "Le Serpentin Vert" was derived "The Island of Jewels"; from "L'Oiseau Bleu," "King Charming, or the Blue Bird of Paradise"; from "La Grenouille Bienfaisante," "The Queen of the Frogs"; from "La Biche au Bois,"[21] "The Prince of Happy Land,[Pg 79] or the Fawn in the Forest"; from "La Princesse Carpillon," "Once upon a Time there were Two Kings"; and from "Le Nain Jeune," "The Yellow Dwarf and the King of the Gold Mines." "Beauty and the Beast" was taken from a tale by Mme. le Prince de Beaumont; but Planché claimed that the treatment was wholly new. He had Vestris for his Beauty, Harrison the tenor for his Beast, and Bland for his Sir Aldgate Pump, the father of Beauty. "The Good Woman in the Wood" was from a story by Mme. de la Force; and "Young and Handsome" from a faërie by the Countess de Murat. "Graciosa and Percinet" likewise had a French origin.

It was, however, in each case only for the fable that Planché had to give thanks: everything else—even in most instances the nomenclature—was his own. And that nomenclature was often very ingenious and amusing. Thus, in "Fortunio," we have an impecunious noble called Baron Dunover (played by Morris Barnett). In "The Invisible Prince" the name of the Queen of Allaquiz is Blouzabella; her son is the Infante Furibond;[22] and among her courtiers are the Marquis of Anysidos, Count Palava Torquemova (who introduces the ambassadors), and Don Moustachez de Haro y Barbos (Captain of the Guard). In the same piece, the Princess of the Island of Tranquil Delights is called Xquisitelittlepet, and her ladies in waiting are Toxaloto-tittletattle and Itsaprettipetticoat. Soyez Tranquille (with a clever suggestion of Soyer) is the chef de cuisine in "The King of the Peacocks," in which there is also an Irishman,[Pg 80] The O'Don't Know Who, and a German, the Baroness Von Huggermugger. Planché's kings and queens have mostly comic names. There is Giltgingerbread the Great, with Tinsellina, his consort, in "The Island of Jewels." There is Henpeckt the Hundredth in "King Charming"; there is Fulminoso the Pugnacious in "The Queen of the Frogs"; there is Periwigulus the Proud in "Once upon a Time there were Two Kings." Henpeckt, again, has a valet called Natty, and a porter called Nobby. Elsewhere we come across an usher named Antirumo, an Indian named Tan-tee-vee (of the tribe of Tal-hee-ho), and an evil genius named Abaddun. The Yellow Dwarf is christened, very appropriately, Gambogie.[23]

"The Yellow Dwarf," it may here be chronicled, is the title of a burlesque by Gilbert Abbott a'Beckett and by Mr. Robert Reece; A'Beckett's being produced in 1842, Planché's in 1854, and Mr. Reece's in 1882. "Beauty and the Beast" has been made the subject of travestie by Mr. Burnand. The "Fortunio" of Planché was also rivalled in the "Lady Belle Belle, or Fortunio and his Seven Magic Men" of H. J. Byron (Adelphi, 1863).[24] This last was in a thoroughly H. J. Byronic vein, with a Count Collywobbol among its characters and the usual supply of puns and[Pg 81] parodies. Here are a few of the best of the puns. The Princess Volante is a very Atalanta in her fondness for race running:—

"The White Cat," by Planché (1842), has among its personæ Wunsuponatyme, King of Neverminditsnamia; Prince Paragon; and Jingo, a Court fool. In "The Fair One with the Golden Locks" (1843), the King is called Lachrymoso,[25] and the woman of the bedchamber Molly-mopsa. Finally, there is "The Seven Champions of Christendom" (1849), in which Charles Mathews played Charles Wag, Esq., "in attendance on" St. George of England. With this ends the list of Planché's compositions of this kind—a remarkable contribution to the stage literature of wit and humour.

From Planché's "Seven Champions of Christendom" to the "St. George and the Dragon" of Gilbert Abbott a'Beckett (1845) and the "Sir George and a Dragon, or We[Pg 82] are Seven" of Mr. Burnand (1856) is a natural and easy transition. In A'Beckett's piece, Kalyba, the sorceress, has stolen St. George when a child, in order that he might fall in love with her, and so rescue her from prophesied destruction. Getting rid of her with a wave of her own wand, he turns up with his fellow Champions at Memphis, where King Ptolemy is in a state of impecuniosity, the Dragon having swallowed up all his resources. The monster demands the King's daughter Sabra, but St. George contrives to trick him out of the legal securities he holds, and eventually destroys him by the power of the steam press. There is a vein of allegory running through the piece, which has, however, its share of jeux de mots. Thus, Kalyba's handmaid says to her:—

Elsewhere there is some sarcasm at the expense of the newspapers. St. George says to Sabra:—

In Mr. Burnand's version, which is the longer of the two, there is much more story, and there are many more puns. St. George has not so prominent a place in the action, which is more elaborate and varied; while the dialogue is in the writer's most rollicking mood. Take, for example, these, lines of Kalyba's, addressed to her sirens:—

A popular subject with the writers of burlesque for Christmastide has been the time-honoured one of[Pg 84] Cinderella. The first travestie of any importance was by Albert Smith and Kenny, seen at the Lyceum so long ago as 1845. Next came H. J. Byron's version at the Strand in 1860, followed by Mr. Green's in 1871, Mr. Wilton Jones's (at Leicester) in 1878, and Mr. Reece's (at the Gaiety) in 1883. A provincial burlesque on this topic was called "Done-to-a-Cinderella," and in America there has been a "Cinder-Ellen." Mr. Reece's piece was called, simply, "Our Cinderella"; Mr. Jones's, "Little Cinderella." Byron's was christened "Cinderella, or the Lover, the Lackey, and the Little Glass Slipper." It has been a great favourite with the public ever since it was first played with Maria Simpson as Cinderella, Miss Oliver as the Prince (Popetti), Miss Charlotte Saunders as his valet Dandino, John Clarke as the Baron Balderdash, and Rogers and Miss Lavine as Clorinda and Thisbe. Over and over again has this clever piece of work served as the basis of pantomime "openings" both in town and country.

Following the traditional story closely enough, it bristles with the puns in which Byron revelled, and which he poured forth with singular and somewhat exhausting lavishness. Thus, we find Dandino saying:—

A little farther on Dandino and the Prince, who are about to exchange characters for the nonce, have the following little contest in pun-making:—

An even better instance of Byron's tendency to run a pun to death is to be found in this colloquy between the Prince and Cinderella. The latter says:—

More acceptible in, pantomime than in travestie, "Little[Pg 86] Red Riding Hood" has nevertheless been the heroine of at least one burlesque which has made its mark—namely, that which Leicester Buckingham brought out at the Lyceum just thirty years ago, under the auspices of Edmund Falconer. He had Miss Lydia Thompson for his Blondinette (Red Riding Hood), and Miss Cicely Nott for the young lady's lover, Colin. The fairy element was freely introduced, and instead of the wolf of the original there was a Baron Reginald de Wolf ("the would-be abductor of Blondinette, who finds he is sold when she 'ab duck'd herself to escape him"). Here and there one gets in the "book" a glimpse of parody; as in—

Passing over "Jack the Giant Killer," which H. J. Byron made the subject of a burlesque, and "Jack and the Beanstalk," which was treated in the same vein by the late Charles Millward, we come to the travesties suggested by stories in the "Arabian Nights' Entertainments." These are fairly numerous. We may note, in particular, some of the versions of the tales of Aladdin, Ali Baba, Prince[Pg 87] Camaralzaman, and Abon Hassan, which seem to have offered most attractions to our comic writers.

The first "Aladdin" of importance was that given to the world by Gilbert Abbott a'Beckett in 1844. This was entitled "The Wonderful Lamp in a New Light," and had Wright for its Aladdin and Paul Bedford for its Magician. Next in order of time comes H. J. Byron's "Aladdin, or the Wonderful Scamp,"[26] which has shared the fate of his "Cinderella" as a basis for pantomimes. In this his fondness for jeux de mots is as patent as ever, as well as the ease (without conspicuous finish) with which he fitted words to the songs of the day. Of direct parody there is little in this "Aladdin," which, however, opens with a brief suggestion of "The sea, the sea," sung by the Vizier:—

During the last twenty years there have been four other notable burlesques on the "Aladdin" subject—Mr. Alfred[Pg 88] Thompson's (1870), Mr. Green's (1874), Mr. Reece's (1881), and Mr. Geoffrey Thorn's (1890). With Mr. Reece's are associated pleasant memories of the bright "street boy" of Miss Farren, Mr. Edward Terry's whimsical magician, and the grace and refinement of Miss Kate Vaughan's Badroulbadour.

Second only to "Aladdin" in acceptability both to authors and to public, is the story of "Ali Baba, or the Forty Thieves." Here, again, A'Beckett is (with Mark Lemon) to the fore with the travestie called "Open Sesame, or a Night with the Forty Thieves." This was produced at the Lyceum Theatre, and had Mr. Frank Matthews for its Ali Baba, Mrs. Alfred Wigan for its Ganem, Wigan himself for its O'Mustapha (he was an Irish Mussulman), the beautiful Miss Fairbrother for its Abdallah, Keeley for its Hassarac, Miss Georgina Hodson for its Cogia, and Mrs. Keeley for its Morgiana. There was a cast for you! How many burlesque casts of our own time could lay claim to so much talent and beauty? Cassim, in this piece, had to make one admirable pun:—

A'Beckett, however, did not lay himself out for punning in and out of season. His chief merit is the neatness of his style and the pervading nature of his wit.

The most famous of all the Ali Baba travesties was that "joint-stock" burlesque, "The Forty Thieves," written by members of the Savage Club, and performed by the authors themselves at the Lyceum, in 1860, for the benefit of the families of two literary men just then deceased. Planché wrote the prologue for this piece, and it was at once so brilliant and so admirably delivered by Leicester Buckingham that it nearly obtained the extraordinary honour of an encore. It was followed, three years later, by H. J. Byron's "Ali Baba, or the Thirty-Nine Thieves (in accordance with the author's habit of taking one off!)."[27] Abdallah, the captain of the thieves (played by Miss Ada Swanborough), was here depicted as a rascal of the quiet, elegant order, in sharp contrast to the Surrey-side villainy of his lieutenant, Hassarac. A colloquy between these gave Byron an opportunity of satirising the melodramatic criminal of the "good old times":—

In 1872 Mr. Reece wrote for the Gaiety a piece called "Ali Baba à la Mode"; in 1880 he prepared for the same theatre another version called "The Forty Thieves."[28] This latter, if I remember rightly, was the first of the burlesques in three acts. It presented in Mr. Terry (Ali Baba), Miss Farren (Ganem), Mr. Royce (Hassarac), and Miss Vaughan (Morgiana), a quartett which is specially well remembered for the verve and vivacity of its performance.

The fortunes of Prince Camaralzaman have been pictured on the burlesque stage by the Brothers Brough, by Messrs. Bellingham and Best, by H. J. Byron, and by Mr. Burnand.[29] "Camaralzaman and Badoura, or the Peri who loved the Prince," was the Broughs' title, and they[Pg 91] had the assistance of Mrs. Keeley, of Keeley (as a Djinn), of Bland (as the Emperor Bung), of Miss Reynolds (as Badoura), and of Miss Horton (as the hero). Dimpl Tshin was the name given to one of the characters, and Skilopht that of another. The original story was followed in the main. Camaralzaman declines to marry at his father's request, and is incarcerated. In that position he soliloquises:—

The Broughs were always ingenious in their word-plays. Says one of the characters in this burlesque:—

In the piece by Messrs. Bellingham and Best—"Prince Camaralzaman, or the Fairies' Revenge"[30]—we find, amid many well-conceived and well-executed puns, a rather successful adaptation of the "To be, or not to be" soliloquy, possessing the merit of being quite in keeping with the character of the matrimony-scorning Camaralzaman:—

In another passage, the "spiritualistic" craze is satirised in a so-called "chant":—

Two of the burlesques on "Arabian Nights" topics are from the pen of Francis Talfourd. First came—in 1852, at the Olympic—"Ganem, the Slave of Love" (with Miss Fanny Maskell as Fetnah, the caliph's favourite); and later—in 1854, at the St. James's—"Abon Hassan, or the Hunt after Happiness" (with Mr. Toole as Haroun-al-Raschid). In the former piece the wealth of felicitous punning is remarkable. Thus, in his very, first speech, Ganem, coming in intoxicated, says:—

"Abon Hassan" is less freely endowed with verbal pleasantry, but it has its fair share of puns, and the songs are numerous and bright. At the close, the hero, addressing the audience, allows himself to drop into the reflective mood:—

On German faërie our comic dramatists have not drawn at all largely. Such pieces as Gilbert Abbott a'Beckett's "Knight and the Sprite, or the Cold-Water Cure," with Ondine as its heroine; H. J. Byron's "Nymph of the Lurleyburg, or the Knight and the Naiads," based on the Lurline legend; and Mr. Burnand's "Rumpelstiltskin, or the Woman at the Wheel," founded on one of the Brothers Grimm's narratives, are exceptional incursions in this field. The first was seen at the Strand in 1884, with Mrs. Walter Lacy as Sir Hildebrand, and with Hall and Romer in other parts. "The Nymph of the Lurleyburg" has often done duty for the purposes of Christmas extravaganza. When it was first performed—in 1859—Miss Woolgar was the Sir Rupert the Reckless, Mr. Toole the Seneschal, and Paul Bedford the Baron Witz, the locale being the Adelphi. Mr. Burnand introduced into[Pg 96] "Rumpelstiltskin" (Royalty, 1864) a few modifications of the German tale, inventing and importing new characters. In one of the scenes he furnished a diverting suggestion of the situation in "The Ticket of Leave Man," when there comes the sudden and effective revelation of "Hawkshaw the Detective!" Among the personæ are King Tagarag the Tremendous, Prince Poppet, Baron Higgle-de-Piggle, Wriggleletto (the court spy), Jolinosio (a miller), and Fraulein Splitaharter (the belle of the village). Miss Ada Cavendish was the Princess Superba.

"The Vampire"—a burlesque by Mr. Reece, which was played at the Strand in 1872—appears to have owed its origin about equally to the German legend, the romance which Lord Byron wrote on the subject, and the play which Dion Boucicault founded on the topic in 1852. As, however, the legend was the inspiration alike of romance, play, and travestie, the travestie may be mentioned here. Mr. Reece had drawn the Vampire as a being so fond of "blood," that he sought to possess it in the shape of the notebooks of two "sensation"-novelists, one of whom, Lady Audley Moonstone, was admirably represented by Mrs. Raymond.[32] The following specimen of the dialogue has been handed down to us. Some one says to a Welsh corporal:—

In the realm of Spanish legend there have been still fewer explorers. Albert Smith took one of Washington[Pg 97] Irving's tales of the Alhambra, and fashioned it into "The Alhambra, or The Beautiful Princess," played at the Princess's in 1851, with the Keeleys, Wigan, Harley, Flexmore, and Miss Vivash. H. J. Byron afterwards went to the same source for "The Pilgrim of Love," in the first cast of which—at the Haymarket in 1860—we find the names of Mrs. Buckingham White as the Pilgrim, Chippendale as his tutor, Compton as the King of Toledo, Rogers as the King of Granada, and C. Coghlan as Mafoi, a Frenchman: a rather notable collocation of distinguished players.

The Fables of Æsop have inspired at least one travestie—"Leo the Terrible," by Stirling Coyne and Francis Talfourd. In this piece (brought out at the Haymarket in 1852) all the characters but four wore the heads of beasts or birds—a lion (Bland), a wolf (Buckstone), a fox, an owl, a ram, a poodle, a cat (Miss Maskell), and so on. The four exceptions were Sir Norval de Battersea, Timoleon Sindbad Potts (Keeley), Æsop, and Gay; and the play opened with a rencontre between the two last-named worthies. Æsop began with a vocal parody on "The Light of other Days":—

In the end, the various animals express repentance for the wrong they have committed; and Æsop, in recognition thereof, restores them to the shapes they formerly presented.

In this department the artists in travestie have not done so much as might have been expected. Even when we include in the word "history" such things as myths, legends, and traditions, we find that the historical, in comparison with the other fields open to the parodists, has been quite "second favourite." Particularly little has been achieved in the burlesque of foreign persons and events; and, in the case of our own celebrities, the only really familiar figure on the comic stage has been that of "Bluff King Hal." King Arthur, Alfred the Great, Elizabeth, Oliver Cromwell, have made rare appearances in motley. In the by-paths of history, general and local, the burlesque writers have devoted themselves most frequently to popular personages like Herne the Hunter, the Lady Godiva, Robin Hood, Dick Whittington, Guy Fawkes, Claude Duval, and Richard Turpin.

The story of Rome has supplied subjects for two of the most notable burlesques of the past twenty years—the "Romulus and Remus" of Mr. Reece, and the "Field Marshal Julius Cnæsar" of Mr. Burnand. The former was played at the Vaudeville in 1872, and had for its chief[Pg 100] interpreters Messrs. James and Thorne, who had not yet wholly surrendered burlesque for comedy. Mr. James was Romulus, and Mr. Thorne was Remus; and they came on in the first scene as children, dressed in pinafores and socks, and carrying toys. The pair begin by quarrelling as to which of them was born first. Remus rests his claim on his superior size:—

When the two grow up (as they do between the first scene and the second), the question is, which is to be King of Rome—a question decided eventually by personal combat, in which Remus falls. Ultimately the pair decide to be partners in the throne—an obvious allusion to the position held by the two actors in reference to the Vaudeville Theatre.

The date of the production of "Romulus and Remus" (1872) could be fixed by the aid of a brief passage introduced in travestie of a scene between Cromwell and the King in Mr. Wills's "Charles I.," then "running" at the Lyceum. Early in the piece we have these lines:—

In this piece Apollo (Miss Nelly Power) figures as a sort of Chorus, commenting on the action and interposing in it; while Baccharia (Miss Maria Rhodes) is represented as the sister of Tatius and a husband-huntress. The burlesque has all Mr. Reece's ingenuity in jeu-de-mot work. For instance:—

Mr. Burnand's "Julius Cnæsar" made the walls of the Royalty resound with laughter in the autumn of 1870. In the spring of 1869 William Brough had brought out at the Strand his version of the tale of Joan of Arc, whom he[Pg 102] represented as the leader of a troop of Amazons, extremely interested in Woman's Rights. She comes, as in history, to the French king's assistance; but, falling in love with a young English soldier, is captured by the invaders and condemned to resume female attire,—a sentence which in the end she manages to evade. A leading part is played by the Duke of Burgundy, who is for ever uncertain on which side he shall fight, and whose name provides frequent opportunity for punning. Thus:—

On this occasion Joan was impersonated by Mr. Thomas Thorne, Mr. David James being the Duke of Burgundy,[Pg 103] Miss Eleanor Button the King, Miss Bella Goodall the Dunois, and Miss Amy Sheridan the Lionel. In the present year Joan of Arc has again become the subject of "respectful perversion,"—this time by Messrs. J. L. Shine and "Adrian Ross," and after a fashion to which I shall draw attention in my final chapter.

Of foreign notabilities, the only other subject of burlesque worth mentioning is Christopher Columbus, who gave the title to, and was the principal character in, a piece written by Mr. Alfred Thompson, and performed at the Gaiety two-and-thirty years ago. He was also the hero of a travestie by John Brougham, played in America.

The first English personage in burlesque, in point of historical order, is the legendary King Arthur, who was the chief figure in an "extravaganza" produced at the Haymarket in 1863.[33] Of this the author was William Brough, who owed considerably more to Malory than to Tennyson. There was a scene in which, as in the "Idylls," Vivien makes Merlin the victim of his own spell; but otherwise the laureate's withers were unwrung. Arthur (Miss Louise Keeley) becomes King of Britain by virtue of his power to draw the magic sword from the stone in which it is embedded. He is looking forward to wed Guinevere (Miss Wright), when suddenly she is captured by Cheldric, the Saxon invader, from whom, however, she is successfully re-captured by the aid of Vivien (Miss Romer) as the wielder of Merlin's wand. Sir Launcelot (Miss Lindley) is exhibited less as the lover of Guinevere than as a warrior; another prominent knight is the cowardly Sir Key, represented by Compton. Of direct parody, as I have said, the[Pg 104] piece has little; of punning, as usual, it is all compact. Vivien says to Merlin:—

Guinevere, on her part, is equally afflicted with the punning mania. While immured in Cheldric's castle, she soliloquises:—

In Australia, twenty-three years ago, there was produced a burlesque called "King Arthur, or Launcelot the Loose, Gin-ever the Square, and the Knights of the Round Table, and other Furniture"; the perpetrator's name was W. M. Akhurst. Of recent years, the only prominent travestie of the subject has been that produced in 1889, by Messrs. Richard Butler and Henry Chance Newton ("Richard-Henry"), who entitled their work "Launcelot the Lovely, or the Idol of the King." Here, again, Tennyson and Malory were both very loyally and lightly treated, and, though Mr. Arthur Roberts as Launcelot was eminently funny, the prepossessions of the audience were in no way shocked.

The romantic tale of the loves of Fair Rosamond and His Majesty Henry II. has naturally attracted the notice of the travestie writers. In one instance, I regret to record, it fared very ill at the hands of the "dramatist." One T. P. Taylor brought out at Sadler's Wells in the 'thirties a one-act piece which he called "Fair Rosamond according to the History of England," in which the story was at once modernised and degraded. Henry became a Mr. Henry King—"a ruler, having been a stationer"; the Queen necessarily figured as "Mrs. Ellinor King." Rosamond herself was transmogrified into "a black girl, fair yet faulty," talking in "darkey" patois, and furnished with a father, black like herself, who combined the profession of fiddler and boot-black. The piece appears to have been successful in its day, but, to read, it is both vulgar and without a spark of wit.

Happily, the subject was taken up in our own time by Mr. Burnand, whose "Fair Rosamond, or the Maze, the[Pg 106] Maid, and the Monarch," seen at the Olympic in 1862, is among the most vivacious of his productions.[34] Here the writer boldly breaks away from historical tradition. He makes Henry in love with Rosamond, it is true; but Rosamond (Miss Hughes), on her side, has given her heart to Sir Pierre de Bonbon (Horace Wigan)—a Frenchman, as his name betokens. As Rosamond sings in the finale:—

Rosamond, therefore, being innocent, it stands to reason that it would not be fair to poison her, as in the story; and so the Queen (played originally by Robson) is made to excuse her clemency in not forcing the girl to accept the "cup" she offers her:—

One of the most amusing scenes in the burlesque is that in which Ellinor meets Henry for the first time after hearing of his infidelity:—

Following the stream of time, we arrive next at a travestie of the insurrection, in the reign of Richard II., in which Wat Tyler was the prime mover. Tyler deserves celebration in the history of burlesque as the hero of the only work of this kind produced by Mr. George Augustus Sala. This well-known littérateur came out as a writer of travestie at the Gaiety in 1869, but has not been tempted to repeat the achievement. The fact is to be regretted, for[Pg 108] his "Wat Tyler, M.P." had many strokes of wit and satire. Wat, being named Tyler, naturally became, in a piece of this genre, a hatter. He is portrayed as aspiring to Parliament, succeeding in his candidature, resisting payment of a tax upon chignons, heading a revolt against the powers that were, penetrating triumphantly into the royal palace, there getting drunk, and being, in the end, overpowered by the forces of the King. In his address to the electors from the hustings, there is a pleasant amalgam of pun and sarcasm. Tyler (who was impersonated by Mr. Toole) begins by saying:—

Beaumanners, who is in love with Tyler's daughter Ellen (Miss Constance Loseby), was represented by Miss Ellen Farren,[35] to whom Mr. Sala assigned the delivery of some of his best puns—as, for instance:—

Jane Shore has been the heroine of a burlesque written by Mr. Wilton Jones, and brought out in the provinces eleven years ago. Messrs. "Richard Henry" have also composed a travestie of her story, as handed down by chroniclers. In Mr. Jones's piece reliance was placed, as of old, upon humorous situation and ear-splitting pun. I give an example of both qualities. Jane has denounced Richard, Duke of Gloucester, as the murderer of the Princes in the Tower, and he now proclaims her doom:—

In three well-known travesties, Henry VIII. plays the most conspicuous part—in William Brough's "Field of the Cloth of Gold" (1868, Strand), in Mr. Burnand's "Windsor Castle" (Strand, 1865), and Mr. Conway Edwardes' "Anne Boleyn" (Royalty, 1872). I name these in the order in[Pg 111] which they deal with historical events. In "The Field of the Cloth of Gold" Katherine of Arragon is Queen, with Anne Boleyn (Miss F. Hughes) as maid of honour and (as Her Majesty suspects) a rival. To this suspicion Anne makes reference in the following lines:—

In "Windsor Castle" the King is in love, more or less, with Anne (Mr. Thomas Thorne), but inclined to let his vagrant fancy wander after Mabel Lynwood (Miss Ada Swanborough), who turns out to be Anne's sister. Anne, it is recorded, sang like a siren, and was especially addicted to a few French ditties. Of these Mr. Burnand makes her sing a diverting parody, printed, in "the book of the play," in French "as she is pronounced." The song is called

In "Anne Boleyn," again, Anne (E. Danvers) is at last Queen, but with her life embittered by King Henry's flirtations with Jane Seymour (Miss Harriet Coveney). Thus, in one place, Anne exclaims:—

The King himself describes the course of his feelings towards Anne in the following ditty:—

"The Field of the Cloth of Gold" (which was revived in London, with only tolerable success, a year or two ago) has to do mainly with the meeting of Henry VIII. and Francis I. (Mr. David James) on that historic spot—an event which is here surrounded with the most ludicrous circumstances possible. There is a sub-plot which deals with the loves of Constance de Grey (Miss A. Swanborough) and the Earl of Darnley (Miss Lydia Thompson), as interrupted and jeopardised by the pretensions and machinations of Sir Guy the Cripple (Mr. Thomas Thorne). The comic incidents are somewhat pantomimical, and the main merit of the piece lies in the humour of its dialogue, which is always sparkling. One of the puns in this burlesque is among the very best ever perpetrated, and is, indeed, a historical possession. Need I quote it? The King has crossed over from Dover to Calais on a stormy day, and arrives in a very "indisposed" condition:—

But the piece is full of quips almost equally good. Mark the puns that the two kings fire off at each other when they foregather on the Field of the Cloth of Gold:—

Surrey, in "Windsor Castle," is represented not only as poet but as composer, and in the combined characters puts together a love song addressed to his Geraldine.[Pg 115] Unfortunately, when he comes to sing it to her, he finds he has forgotten some of the words:—

"Anne Boleyn" is particularly prolific in good puns, in the making of which the author showed himself an adept. It would be a pleasure to quote a few of them, but I give instead some lines in which, speaking through the mouth of one of his characters, the writer satirises the methods of the old-fashioned drama:—

Good Queen Bess was added to Mr. Burnand's gallery in 1870, when his "E-liz-a-beth, or the Don, the Duck, the Drake, and the Invisible Armada," was brought out at the Vaudeville, with Mr. Thorne as the Queen, Mr. David James as Whiskerandos, and George Honey as Drake. The "Maiden Queen" has not been greatly tantalised by the burlesque writers, who, on the other hand, have made very free with a gentleman who much disturbed her successor—Guy Fawkes. Mr. Burnand handled him in 1866 (at the Strand); H. J. Byron followed suit at the Gaiety in 1874; last year we had the "Guy Fawkes, Esq." of Messrs. "A. C. Torr" (Fred Leslie) and H. F. Clark; and I believe that Mr. Wilton Jones, too, has written a travestie on the subject. Charles II. was burlesqued by Mr. Gilbert Arthur a'Beckett in 1872, the locale being the Court Theatre, and the full title of the piece "Charles II., or Something like History." In this, as in Mr. Reece's "Romulus and Remus," there was some parody of the Lyceum "Charles I."—Mr. Righton, as Cromwell, imitating both Mr. Irving and George Belmore, besides indulging in the cancan! W. J. Hill was the King, and Mme. Cornèlie[Pg 117] D'Anka the Queen (Catherine of Braganza). Pepys, Rochester, and Lily the Astrologer also figured in the piece. Cromwell was afterwards the leading personage in the "Oliver Grumble" of Mr. George Dance (Novelty, 1886).

About the names of such heroes and heroines as the Lady Godiva, Dick Whittington, Robin Hood, Herne the Hunter, and those distinguished footpads Claude Duval and Dick Turpin, there hangs a good deal that is clearly mythical. Still, some myths have more real vitality than absolute fact; and who does not believe firmly that the Lady Godiva rode round Coventry "clothed on" with nothing but her chastity, and, by taking away a grinding tax, "built herself an everlasting name"? Her adventure has been burlesqued at least twice—once by Francis Talfourd and a collaborator, at another time by Mr. H. Chance Newton. The Talfourd piece was called "Godiva, or Y^e Ladye of Coventrie and Y^e Exyle Fayrie" and produced at the Strand in 1851. Mr. Newton christened his work "Giddy Godiva." In the earlier burlesque, "y^e exyle fayrie" Ignota (Miss Romer) is introduced merely as a dea ex machinâ in the interests of the heroine (Miss Marshall), who, in a passage of Shakespearean reminiscence, discusses the undertaking to which she has been incited by her husband:—

A prominent character in the piece is Our Own Reporter, "Y^e Specyall Commyssionere and Correspondente of y^e Busie Bee" (John Reeve), who would fain play the part of Peeping Tom, and who, early in the play, sings a song wittily descriptive of his ordinary avocations:—

Three burlesques have been devoted to the life and adventures of Sir Richard Whittington. There was, first, the "Whittington Junior, and his Sensation Cat," of Mr. Reece (Royalty, 1870); next, the "Young Dick Whittington" of Mr. Wilton Jones (Leicester, 1881); and next, the "Whittington and his Cat" of Mr. Burnand (Gaiety, 1881). Mr. Reece had Miss Henrietta Hodson (Mrs. Labouchere) for his Whittington, while Miss Farren was Mr. Burnand's. Robin Hood has had at least as many burlesque biographies as Whittington. A travestie, written by Stocqueler, Shirley Brooks, and Charles Kenny, and produced at the Lyceum in 1846, with the Keeleys, Wigan and Frank Matthews, was followed in 1862, at the Olympic, by one from the pen of Mr. Burnand. Mr. Reece wrote one, called "Little Robin Hood," which was seen at the Royalty in 1871, and this was revived—in three-act form—at the Gaiety in 1882, with Mr. Arthur Williams as a particularly droll Richard I. Robin Hood, it may also be noted, was a prominent character in Mr. Burnand's "Hit or 'Miss,'" at the Olympic in 1868. Herne the Hunter (who has a place in Mr. Burnand's "Windsor Castle") was made the leading personage in, and gave the title to, a travestie composed by Messrs. Reece and Yardley, and performed at the Gaiety[Pg 120] in 1881. Five years later, at the Folly, we had "Herne the Hunted," in which Mr. H. P. Stephens had a hand, as well as Messrs. Yardley and Reece. Claude Duval was turned into a burlesque hero by Mr. Burnand, and strutted his hour upon the stage at the Royalty in 1869; followed longo intervallo by Turpin—here called "Dandy Dick Turpin, the Mashing Highwayman,"—whom Mr. Geoffrey Thorn (Charles Townley) made the chief personage of a travestie performed in London in 1889.

VI.

Travestie of the drama and things dramatic has naturally played a large part in the history of English stage burlesque. Side by side with the producers and interpreters of tragedy, melodrama, and plays of sentiment, have been the possessors of the humorous spirit, who—whether as writers or as actors—have been quick to see the points in which works of serious plan and treatment have been open to the shafts of ridicule and raillery. As we have seen, most of the earliest efforts in English stage burlesque were directed against the extravagant tragedies of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. As time went on, and the limits of the serious drama became more extended, so did the limits of burlesque expand, and, from the days of John Poole downwards, the large variety of serious dramatic production has co-existed with a corresponding variety in the subject and style of the travesties submitted to the public.

Among those travesties a prominent place has been taken by the pieces devoted to the burlesque of Shakespeare—not because they have been particularly numerous, for they have not been so—nor because they have been[Pg 122] uniformly successful, for the earlier specimens were singularly weak—but because of the general daring of the attempts, and because also of the genuine sense of fun exhibited by such baiters of "the Bard" as Gilbert a'Beckett, Francis Talfourd, Stirling Coyne, William Brough, Andrew Halliday (Duff), F. C. Burnand, H. J. Byron, and W. S. Gilbert. The business of burlesquing Shakespeare has never, so far as I can see, been taken up in a wholesale or an intentionally irreverent spirit. The seventeenth and eighteenth-century satirists left "the Bard" severely alone, and it was not until 1810 that the first formal travestie of Shakespeare—Poole's "Hamlet Travestie"—saw the light.[36] The author then made all due apology for his temerity, at the same time pointing out the absurdity of the idea that any amount or kind of burlesque could possibly sully the fame of the dramatist. Two years later, in the course of his preface to the fourth edition of his work, Poole ironically congratulated "those who, on its first appearance, were apprehensive for the reputation of Shakespeare," upon the fact "that, notwithstanding Three Editions already before the public, he is neither expelled from our libraries, nor banished from our stage."

The truth is, a brilliant burlesque does harm to nobody; and a bad burlesque does but recoil upon the head of its author and his exponents. Poole's "Hamlet Travestie" is[Pg 123] marked by the best intentions, but, as a whole, it makes dreary reading. The opening colloquy between Hamlet, King Claudius, and Queen Gertrude will give, to those who have not already perused the piece, a notion of the quality of the dialogue:—

It was part of Poole's method to put the soliloquies into the form of songs, and so we find the lines beginning "O that this too too solid flesh would melt!" appearing in the following form:—

The time-honoured "To be or not to be" is sung in this version to the tune of "Here we go up, up, up":—

The "annotations" appended to the text of the burlesque are in parody of the performances of the commentators, who at least are fair game for chaff of this sort, and on whom Poole, in his preface, lavishes some excellent indignation.

Of subsequent burlesques of "Hamlet" there have not been many, but some of them have been really clever and commendable. There was, for instance, Talfourd's, published at Oxford in 1849; there was the "Hamlet à la Mode" of Messrs. G. L. Gordon and G. W. Anson, performed at Liverpool in 1877; there was the "Very Little Hamlet" of Mr. William Yardley, seen at the Gaiety in 1884; and last, but assuredly not least, we have had the "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern" of Mr. Gilbert, which, written originally without thought either of public or of private representation, has been enacted at a benefit matinée during the present year.

In "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern," which is an unpretentious little "skit," covering only some sixteen or seventeen printed pages, Mr. Gilbert supposes that Hamlet is the son (not the step-son) of Claudius. "Rosencrantz is a lover of Ophelia, to whom Hamlet is betrothed, and they lay their heads together to devise a plan by which Hamlet[Pg 126] may be put out of the way. Some Court theatricals are in preparation." Now, once upon a time, Claudius had written a tragedy, which was damned, and to which no one is allowed to make reference on pain of death. "Ophelia and Rosencrantz persuade Hamlet to play his father's tragedy before the king and court. Hamlet, who is unaware of the proscription, does so; and he is banished, and Rosencrantz happily united to Ophelia."

In the first act, Rosencrantz, who has never seen Hamlet (apparently, because the former has been abroad), asks Ophelia what the Prince is like, and that gives Mr. Gilbert an opportunity for some characteristic satire. Ophelia says of Hamlet that he is "alike for no two seasons at a time":—

In the second act, the Queen, observing that Hamlet is about to soliloquise, urges Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to "prevent this, gentlemen, by any means":—

The third act opens with a passage in which the turns and rhythm of Shakespearean prose are happily imitated:—

After Poole published his "Hamlet,"[37] Shakespearean burlesque slumbered until 1834, when Maurice G. Dowling[Pg 129] produced at Liverpool his "Othello Travestie." In this dull production, the Moor of Venice figures as "an independent nigger from the Republic of Hayti," and talks in "darkey" dialect (as does the same writer's Clifford in "Fair Rosamond"). Here, for example, is this Othello's address to the Senate (written and sung to the air of "Yankee Doodle"):—

W. J. Hammond played Othello in this piece, both at Liverpool, and afterwards at the Strand Theatre, where popular Miss E. Daly was the Desdemona and H. Hall the Iago. What can these presumably capable actors have thought of their rôles? The text of the burlesque is almost wholly without humour, of which, however, there is a gleam in the complaint made by Cassio that he has been ruined by a pint of beer:—

H. J. Byron's "Rival Othellos" (played at the Strand in 1876) was not a travestie of the tragedy; but it gave opportunity for some clever burlesque of tragic acting.

We come now to the first (and, so far as I know, the only) travestie of "King John," which happily was essayed by the capable pen of Gilbert Abbott a'Beckett. The year was 1837, the locale the St. James's Theatre, and Hall the representative of the title-part, with Mme. Sala as Lady Constance. The play was lucky in being dealt with by so deft a workman. The subject was not very promising, and all was done with it that was possible. The scene in which[Pg 131] the King incites Hubert to get rid of Arthur was thus travestied:—

Here, again, is the perversion of the famous scene between Hubert and the boy:—

Elsewhere King John sings, to the air of "The Light of other Days," this excellent parody:—

The first burlesque of "Romeo and Juliet" was brought out at the Strand in the same year as that which saw the birth of A'Beckett's "King John." The author was Maurice G. Dowling, who succeeded in producing something worthy to rank with his "Othello." In his "Romeo and Juliet" Montagu and Capulet are rival basket-makers, "Mr." Mercutio being foreman to the former, who also has "Mr. Ben Volio" in his employ. Tybalt is a fireman and ratcatcher to the Duke of Mantua; "Mr." Friar Laurence, a "black-and-white-smith" at Gretna Green. Romeo talks in illiterate fashion, and at one point sticks a pin into Paris's back! Miss Daly was the Juliet, and she and Hammond (as Romeo) had to speak, in the balcony scene, such lines as these:—

The Friar's directions to Juliet are given in the course of a song, of which the following is the opening verse:—

When, in 1859, Andrew Halliday produced, at the Strand, a "Romeo and Juliet Travestie, or the Cup of Cold Poison,"[Pg 135][38] he did better, I need hardly say, than his predecessor. His treatment of the balcony scene, for instance, was at least not vulgar:—

For the rest, the burlesque followed many lines of the original closely enough,[39] save that, at the end, Romeo, Juliet, Mercutio, Tybalt, and Paris, were all revived, much to the indignation of Shakespeare, a statue of whom appeared, with finger held up in a menacing manner.

After "Romeo and Juliet," the first of Shakespeare's plays to be burlesqued was "Richard III.," of which Charles Selby, the comedian, and Stirling Coyne, the well-known man of letters, each perpetrated a travestie in 1844. Selby's piece [40] was founded on the Colley Cibber adaptation, and introduced Henry VI., who, at the end, was represented as coming to life again and quietly assuming the crown which Richmond was about to take. Richard also is resuscitated, after a fashion very popular in burlesques of Shakespeare. Of literary merit Selby's work had little.

Take, for example, his arrangement of the scene in which Richard woos the Lady Anne:—

Twenty-four years later, Mr. Burnand took up this subject. His work was called "The Rise and Fall of Richard III.," and was performed at the Royalty. His treatment of the wooing scene may well be contrasted with that of Selby. For instance:—

In puns, and good puns too, this piece is particularly prolific. Thus, Richard's mother says of him that

Richmond, by the way, is supposed to be fresh from France, and talks broken English. The Duchess aforesaid asks him:—

But perhaps the best pun in the piece is that which is made apropos of the fact that Catesby and Tyrell have fallen over the coal-scuttle on the stairs and hurt themselves:—

Talfourd's "Macbeth, somewhat removed from the Text of Shakespeare," was first performed in 1847 at Henley-on-Thames during the regatta; next, at the Strand, in 1848; afterwards at the Olympic, in 1853. At the last-named theatre it had the advantage of the aid of Robson in the title-part, of G. Cooke as Duncan, and of Mrs. A. Phillips as Lady Macbeth. It paraphrases the original fairly well until near the close, when, after Macduff has slain Macbeth, Duncan reappears (like Henry VI. in Selby's piece) and takes the crown from Malcolm. Similarly, Macbeth, his wife, and Banquo turn up again, and announce their willingness to die nightly.

In the first act Lady Macbeth comes in reading her husband's letter, as follows:—

The first burlesque of "The Tempest" made its appearance at the Adelphi in 1848. It was from the pen of the Brothers Brough, and was entitled "The Enchanted Isle, or Raising the Wind on the most Approved Principles." "O." Smith was Prospero, with Miss Taylor as his daughter Miranda; Miss Woolgar being the Ferdinand, with Paul Bedford for her father—the Ariel Mme. Celeste, and the Caliban Munyard. Some years were destined to elapse before the subject again attracted the burlesque writer; and the writer then was Mr. Burnand, who gave to his work the name of "Ariel," submitting it to the public in 1883 at the Gaiety. Miss Ellen Farren took the title-part, with Mr. Henry Monkhouse as Prospero, Mr. Frank Wyatt as Sebastian, Mr. Dallas as Alonso, and Miss Connie[Pg 142] Gilchrist as Miranda. This "perversion" was in three acts, and was one of the productions which led the way to the New Burlesque.

To Talfourd belongs the distinction of being the first to burlesque "The Merchant of Venice." He called his work "Shylock, or the Merchant of Venice Preserved: an entirely New Reading of Shakespeare, from an edition hitherto undiscovered by modern authorities, and which it is hoped may be received as the stray leaves of a Jerusalem Hearty-Joke." This came out at the Olympic in 1853, and again Talfourd had Robson as the exponent of his principal character. Again, too, he followed his original with some care, burlesquing rather in detail than on broad lines. Take, for example, his "reading" of a portion of the trial scene. Shylock has been foiled by Portia, and wishes to leave the court:—

Gratiano, in this version, is represented as a flunkey, in which character he makes love to Nerissa:—

Everywhere the puns are as clever as they are bright. Portia says to Nerissa:—

We come now to the production, at the Lyceum in 1856, of William Brough's perversion of "The Winter's Tale,"—"Perdita, or the Royal Milkmaid."[41] This was fitted with a prologue in which Time sang an effective song, descriptive[Pg 144] of the author's aims and intentions, and winding up with this ingenuous verse:—

When Autolycus appears upon the scene, with his pedlar's box, he is made to excuse his "conveying" propensities in a ditty suggested by the then popular song called "Bobbing Around":—

Mr. Burnand has written two burlesques on "Antony and Cleopatra"—one brought out under that title at the Haymarket in 1866; the other produced at the Gaiety in 1873, under the name of "Our Own Antony and Cleopatra." A third travestie of the tragedy, called "Mdlle. Cleopatra," and written by Mr. W. Sapte, junior, was seen at the Avenue in the present year.

VII.

We now pass to a department of burlesque writing larger in extent and greater in variety than any other—that in which the finger of ridicule has been pointed at poetic and melodramatic plays (other than those of Shakespeare). This department is far-reaching in the matter of time. It goes back, for subject, so far as Lee's high-sounding "Alexander the Great" (better known, perhaps, as "The Rival Queens"), which, first produced in 1678, was travestied by Dibdin, in "Alexander the Great in Little," a "grand tragi-comic operatic burlesque spectacle," originally seen at the Strand in 1837, with Hammond as Alexander and Mrs. Stirling as Roxana. Seven years later there was performed at the Surrey a burlesque, by Montagu Corri, of Lillo's famous tragedy "George Barnwell" (1730), here called "Georgy Barnwell"—a title which H. J. Byron altered to "George De Barnwell" when in 1862 he travestied the old play at the Adelphi.

Home's "Douglas", which was given to the public in 1756, appears to have escaped stage satire until 1837, when it was taken in hand by William Leman Rede. The Adelphi was the scene of the production, and the performers[Pg 147] included "O." Smith as Glenalvon, J. Reeve as Norval, and Mrs. Stirling as Lady Randolph. The piece does not supply very exhilarating reading. The ultra-familiar soliloquy, "My name is Norval," is here put into lyric form, and comes out as follows:—

We have already seen that, in his "Quadrupeds of Quedlinburgh," Colman junior extracted some fun out of scenes in "The Stranger," "Pizarro," and "Timour the Tartar." The first of these plays was made the subject of more elaborate satire in 1868, when Mr. Robert Reece wrote for the New Queen's Theatre his burlesque called "The Stranger, Stranger than Ever!" This, with Miss Santley as Peter, Mr. Lionel Brough as the Stranger, and Miss Henrietta Hodson as Mrs. Haller, had many points of attraction. In this reductio ad absurdum the lady's chief complaint is that her husband first neglected her and then deserted her, taking away the children. Moreover, "he[Pg 148] taught the infants all the comic songs," and so, "instead of gloating over Peter Parley, the boy declared himself as Champagne Charley." In despair the deserted one set to work and took in washing:—

As usual with Mr. Reece, the puns are excellent. Tobias says of the stranger that

"Pizarro," which nowadays has quite gone out of the theatrical repertory, was dealt with from the comic point of view by Leicester Buckingham, whose "Pizarro, or the Leotard of Peru," was seen at the Strand in 1862, with Johnny Clarke as the hero, and Miss Swanborough, Miss Charlotte Saunders, Miss Bufton, Miss Fanny Josephs, Miss Fanny Hughes, and Rogers, in other parts. Of the "literature" of this piece the following is a very fair example: it is supposed to be spoken by Rolla:—

"The Wood-Demon," by "Monk" Lewis, played originally in 1811, suggested to Albert Smith and Charles Kenny a travestie, of the same name, which they brought out at the Lyceum in 1847. "Timour the Tartar," another of Lewis's dramas, received equally satiric treatment at the[Pg 150] hands of John Oxenford and Shirley Brooks, whose work made its appearance at the Olympic in 1860. In the last-named year Messrs. Francis Talfourd and H. J. Byron founded on Pocock's "Miller and his Men" (1813) a "mealy-drama," similarly entitled, which was played at the Strand.

Jerrold's "Black-ey'd Susan," first performed in 1822, waited till 1866 for the travestie by Mr. Burnand, to which I have already adverted. This "Latest Edition of Black-eyed Susan, or the Little Bill that was Taken Up,"[42] was made specially gay by a wealth of song and dance; but it had other merits. Here, for instance, is an amusing soliloquy by Dame Hatley:—

Here also is the Wolsey-ish speech made by Captain Crosstree, after he has revealed himself as "alive and kicking," at the close:—

Five years after the production of Jerrold's play, the London stage was surfeited for a time with adaptations from the French, all bearing upon the evils of the gaming-table. These bore such titles as "The Gambler's Fate," "Thirty Years of a Gambler's Life," and so on, and were brought out at Drury Lane, the Surrey (by Elliston), and the Adelphi (by Terry and Yates). They did not last, however; and "The Elbow-Shakers, or Thirty Years of a Rattler's Life," in which Fox Cooper made fun of them, was scarcely needed to effect their overthrow. Reeve and Yates were the two Elbow-Shakers, but the piece had little intrinsic value.

In 1867, at the Haymarket, Mr. Gilbert Arthur a'Beckett brought out a travestie of Planché's "Brigand" (1829),[Pg 152] under the title of "The Brigand, or New Lines to an Old Ban-Ditty." In this, Massaroni, the hero, was represented by Compton as a poltroon, objecting very much to the dictation of Marie Grazia as portrayed by Ione Burke. Young Mr. Kendal also had a part in this production. Nor had we yet done with the old school of melodrama. Yet another specimen thereof was destined to come under the lash of the parodist—namely, the piece called "My Poll and my Partner Joe," written by J. T. Haines, first seen at the Surrey in 1838, and interpreted by T. P. Cooke as Harry Halyard, R. Honner as Joe Tiller, and Miss Honner as Poll (Mary Maybud). The "happy thought" of burlesquing this typical piece came to Mr. Burnand, who, in his travestie named after the original, made, at the St. James's in 1871, a success second only to that of "Black-ey'd Susan." It was in this burlesque that Mrs. John Wood (as Mary) had so notable a triumph with her song, "His Heart was true to Poll," which she still sings sometimes in public. Miss Emma Chambers was the Harry in this piece, and Mr. Lionel Brough the Black Brandon, with Harry Cox, Gaston Murray, and Miss Sallie Turner in other parts.

Now comes the turn of the poetic drama, as represented in and by the works of Lord Byron, Sergeant Talfourd, the first Lord Lytton, and Mr. W. S. Gilbert. The first of Lord Byron's plays to be burlesqued was "Manfred," which fell to the lot of Gilbert Abbott a'Beckett in 1834. In the "burlesque ballet opera," called "Man-Fred," which thus issued from A'Beckett's pen, Man-Fred figured as a master-sweep, very much perturbed and disturbed by the Act in reference to chimney-sweeping which had just been[Pg 153] passed, and which, he plaintively declares, has killed the trade:—

His lady-love, Ann Starkie, is equally unfortunate in her business—that of apple-seller. As she remarks:—

In the course of the piece Ann appears disguised as Mme. Grisi, and some badinage is directed at the "stars" of the Italian Opera.

A'Beckett further undertook, along with Mark Lemon, a skit upon another of the Byronic dramas—"Sardanapalus"—which they reproduced as "Sardanapalus, or the 'Fast' King of Assyria." The Adelphi was the theatre of operations; 1853 was the year; and while Miss Woolgar was Sardanapalus, Paul Bedford was Arbaces, Keeley was Salymenia (mother of the Queen), Miss Maskell was Beleses, and Miss Mary Keeley was Altada. Arbaces is here shown as impervious to the charm of melody:—

In 1858 came, from the workshop of H. J. Byron, the[Pg 154] first travestie of his "noble kinsman's" play, "Mazeppa." This, produced at the Olympic, had Robson for its hero, with other parts in the hands of Horace Wigan, Mr. Lewis Ball, Miss Wyndham, Miss Bromley, and Mrs. W. S. Emden. Of its punning dialogue, which throughout is in the genuine H. J. Byronic manner, the following is a fair example. Olinska is conversing with her father, the Castellan:—

The subject of "Mazeppa" was afterwards treated by Mr. Burnand in a burlesque brought out at the Gaiety in 1885.

Of Sergeant Talfourd's dramatic works the only one, apparently, that has been travestied is "Ion," which had to submit to the ridicule of Fox Cooper in 1836. In that year Cooper's perversion was played both at the Garrick Theatre and at the Queen's, in the first case with Conquest as the[Pg 155] hero, in the latter with a lady in the rôle—an arrangement quite defensible, inasmuch as, in the original play, the name-part had been played (at the Haymarket) by Ellen Tree.

The pseudo-Elizabethanisms of Sheridan Knowles naturally attracted the attention of the comic playwrights. The opportunities were, indeed, only too tempting; and so I have to record the production of burlesques based upon five plays—"The Wife," "Virginius," "Alfred the Great," "William Tell," and "The Hunchback." The first named has for its full title "The Wife: a Tale of Mantua." The "burlesque burletta," by Joseph Graves (Strand, 1837), is called "The Wife: a Tale of a Mantua Maker." Mariana (first played by Ellen Tree) here becomes Mary Ann Phipps, the said mantua-maker; Floribel is Flora, a servant-of-all-work. Leonardo and Ferrardo Gonzaga figure as Marmaduke Jago, landlord of the Green Man, and Zachariah Jago, usurping that dignity; Count Florio is Floor'em (a police-sergeant), Julian St. Pierre is Jack Peters—and so forth. The travestie is fairly close, but the wit and humour are not of brilliant quality. Even less to be commended is "Virginius the Rum 'Un," perpetrated by William Rogers, the comedian, and performed at Sadler's Wells in the same year as Graves's effort. This is but a tedious assault upon "Virginius." The scene is laid in Islington, and Virginius is a butcher. Appius Claudius, here called Sappyis, is a sergeant of police. Dentatus is "Tentaties"; Icilius is "Isilyus." Claudius claims Virginia as his apprentice, and Virginius stabs her with a skewer; the instrument, however, sticks only in her stay-bone, and so no harm is done.

"Virginius" had very much more justice done to it when Leicester Buckingham made it the basis of a burlesque at the St. James's in 1859. Then Charles Young was the Virginius, Mrs. Frank Matthews the Virginia, and Miss Lydia Thompson a "Mysterious Stranger," introduced, apparently, only for the sake of a pas seul. In this piece the puns are very plentiful, if not always good. Thus, Virginia says:—

Virginius, like so many other burlesque characters, delivers himself of a reminiscence of "To be or not to be," and at the close it is found that Virginius has not really killed his daughter, because she "pads."

"Alfred the Great," one of Knowles' historical plays, suggested portions of the burlesque called "Alfred the Great, or the Minstrel King," which Robert B. Brough wrote for the Olympic in 1859. In this, Robson was the King, Miss Herbert his aide-de-camp, and F. Vining his commander-in-chief, with other parts by Horace Wigan and Miss Hughes. Knowles's "William Tell" (1825), or the story embodied in it has been the basis of half[Pg 157] a dozen travesties. First came Mr. Burnand's "William Tell," at Drury Lane, in 1856; next, Leicester Buckingham's, at the Strand, in 1857; next, Talfourd's "Tell! and the Strike of the Cantons, or the Pair, the Meddler, and the Apple!" at the Strand, in 1859-60; next, again, Byron's "William Tell with a Vengeance! or the Pet, the Parrot, and the Pippin," at the Strand, in 1867; a few days later, A. J. O'Neill's "William Tell," at Sadler's Wells; and, lastly—so far—Mr. Reece's "William Tell told Over Again," at the Gaiety, in 1876. "The Hunchback" has been "guyed" less often than might have been expected, considering its popularity. Mr. Burnand brought out at the Olympic, in 1879, "The Hunchback Back Again," and this comic version of the hackneyed old play is not likely to be superseded.

The first Lord Lytton's verse-plays—bristling as they do with fustian and bombast—have naturally been frequently travestied. Note the number of occasions on which "The Lady of Lyons" has fallen a prey to the irreverent. Altogether there have been six notable burlesques of this drama. H. J. Byron wrote two, the first of which—"The Latest Edition of the Lady of Lyons"—was produced at the Strand in 1858. This, in the following year, was freshened up and re-presented to the public as "The Very Latest Edition" of the popular drama.

In 1878, at the Gaiety, came Mr. Herman Merivale's "vaudeville," "The Lady of Lyons Married and Settled," which is not only quite the best of the travesties on this topic, but one of the cleverest ever written. It sparkles with good things from beginning to end. Claude, it seems, has "taken to philosophy, and says we are all descended from monkeys."[Pg 158] It is not surprising, therefore, to find him singing a long song in praise of the Darwinian theory:—

This has some claim to rank with the ditties on the same subject by Lord Neaves and Mortimer Collins. But Claude has also gone in for something less innocent than Darwinianism. He is flirting with Babette, a pretty laundry-maid, the beloved of Gaspar. Of her, Gaspar sings as follows, in a clever parody of "Sally in our Alley":—

In the course of the piece there is a good deal of direct parody of Lytton's style, both in prose and verse. For example, Claude says at one point to Babette:—

After Mr. Merivale's piece came one on the same subject by Mr. W. Younge (1879); another by Mr. Clifton (Lyne), played in the country in 1882; and yet another, by Mr. Reece (also played in the country) in 1884. This last was entitled "The Lady of Lyons Married and Claude Unsettled."

Ten years after the first burlesque of "The Lady of Lyons" appeared the first burlesque of Lord Lytton's "Rightful Heir." This was "The Frightful Hair" of Mr. Burnand, seen at the Haymarket in 1868-9. In 1868 also, publicity was given to "The Right-Fall Heir" of Mr. H. T. Arden.

In the autumn of 1873 Mr. Irving revived at the Lyceum Lord Lytton's "Richelieu," and the play was speedily followed at the Olympic by the "Richelieu Redressed" of Mr. Reece. This is remarkable, to begin with, as being written throughout in blank verse—an agreeable[Pg 161] departure from the time-honoured couplet. The general travestie is close, and there is a certain amount of direct parody, as where Richelieu is made to say that

In the "curse of Rome" scene, Richelieu draws around himself "the awful circle of the Daily Press!" Fun, too, is made of the well-known exit of Baradas at the words "All in despite of my lord Cardinal," and also of the various ways in which actors are wont to pronounce the simple word "Julie." The piece has a strong political flavour throughout, in compliment, no doubt, to the general election, which was then in prospect. Richelieu thus soliloquises:—

Of Richelieu's genius for suspicion the Duke of Orleans and his party thus discourse:—

It was characteristic of Mr. W. S. Gilbert that he should himself set the example of burlesquing his own work. I have already made reference to "The Happy Land," the travestie of his "Wicked World," which he and Mr. Gilbert Arthur a'Beckett prepared for the Court Theatre in 1873. It was in this piece that the personal appearance of three prominent living statesmen was closely imitated by certain of the performers, with the result of bringing down upon the culprits the veto of His High-and-Mightiness the Lord Chamberlain. In 1876 two of Mr. Gilbert's plays were burlesqued—"Broken Hearts" and "Dan'l Druce"; the former under the name of "Cracked Heads," the latter under that of "Dan'l Tra-Duced"; both being brought out at the same theatre—the Strand, and both being the work of the same author—Mr. Arthur Clements, who, however, had in "Cracked Heads" the assistance of Mr. Frederick Hay. "Dan'l Druce" was not a particularly good subject; but "Broken Heads," with its occasionally overstrained sentiment, was fairly open to polite ridicule. In the original,[Pg 163] the Lady Vavir feigns love for a sun-dial, while the Lady Hilda expends much sentiment upon a streamlet. In "Cracked Heads" the Lady Vapid bestows her affections upon a clock, and the Lady Tilda hers upon a pump. Says the latter to the former:—

In this genial little piece, presented at the Strand in 1876, Mr. Edward Terry was the monster, here called Monsta; Miss Lottie Venne and Miss Angelina Claude were the ladies Tilda and Vapid, and Mr. Harry Cox was the Prince Florian, here called Dorian. It will be remembered, by the way, that it has been the fate of one of Mr. Gilbert's comic operas to be parodied—surely a case of gilding refined gold! The opera was "Ruddigore," which was chaffed, more or less effectively, in the little pièce d'occasion called "Ruddy George, or Robin Redbreast," brought out at Toole's Theatre in 1887.

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[Pg 164] 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:—

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:—

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

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[Pg 167] 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:—

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:—

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

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

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:—

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 [Pg 172] humour, as when Pierre satirises the conventional stage pronunciation of his name:—

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:—

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.

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[Pg 175] 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:—

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:—

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:—

Molly is the name here given to Amina; Swelvino, of[Pg 178] 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:—

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:—

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[Pg 180] 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:—

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[Pg 181] 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:—

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

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[Pg 183] 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.

In 1842 Macready revived at Drury Lane Handel's delightful "Acis and Galatea," and the opera was promptly caricatured by W. H. Oxberry in a piece produced three days afterwards at the Adelphi. The travestie of "Acis and Galatea" which was seen at the Olympic in 1863 was from the pen of Mr. Burnand. Its full title was "Acis and Galatea, or the Nimble Nymph and the Terrible Troglodyte"; and the Nimble Nymph (described as "a Nymph of the Sea, who also visits the land—a nymphibious young lady") was played by Miss Hughes. The puns were prolific, and so were the parodies, the best of which are written in caricature of the absurd English translations in the operatic "books of the play." Here, for example, is a setting of the trio in "Trovatore"—"Il tuo sangue":—

Six years after the production of Mr. Burnand's piece, Mr. T. F. Plowman brought out at Oxford "a piece of extravagance," to which he gave the name of "A Very New Edition of Acis and Galatea, or the Beau! the Belle! and the Blacksmith!"

Of Meyerbeer's operas three have been burlesqued in England—"Dinorah," "L'Africaine" and "Robert le Diable." The first of these was parodied in "Dinorah under Difficulties," a burlesque by William Brough, which dates back as far as 1859 (at the Adelphi). "L'Africaine" was handled by Mr. Burnand six years later at the Strand. Three years more, and "Robert le Diable" was being travestied at the Gaiety by Mr. Gilbert, under the title of "Robert the Devil, or the Nun, the Dun, and the Sun of a Gun."[47] This last is on the old lines of "palmy-day" burlesque, and has not much in it that is characteristically Gilbertian. The lyrics are written chiefly to operatic airs, and there is no room, therefore, for rhythmical invention. In the dialogue, however, one comes across an occasional[Pg 185] passage which strikes one as quite Gilbertian in its cynicism. Take, for example, these lines from the scene in which fun is made of the Tussaud "Chamber of Horrors":—

Some of the puns in the piece are worth recording. Thus, Alice says of a porter, to whom half a crown has been given:—

Weber's "Der Freischutz" has been travestied both by Mr. Burnand and by H. J. Byron, both productions taking place in 1866, within two days of each other—the one at the Strand, and the other at the Prince of Wales's. Mr.[Pg 186] Reece is responsible for a burlesque of Flotow's "Martha," performed at the Gaiety in 1873, with Miss Constance Loseby, Miss Rachel Sanger, Mr. Lionel Brough, and Mr. Aynsley Cook in the leading parts.

Wagnerian "music-drama" has more than once been desecrated on the burlesque stage. First of all there came, at the Royalty in 1869, the "Flying Dutchman" of William Brough; then Messrs. Green and Swanborough brought out at the Strand, in 1876, "The Flying Dutchman" (with M. Marius and Miss Lottie Venne); and the "Little Lohengrin" of Mr. Bowyer saw the light in 1884 at the Holborn Theatre.

So much for the German school. Of the French composers, Auber has had more pieces travestied in this country than has any one of his fellows. There is "Masaniello," for instance, and "Fra Diavolo," and "Les Diamans de la Couronne." "Masaniello, or the Fish 'oman of Naples," was the title given by Robert B. Brough to the "fish tale, in one act," which he wrote for the Olympic in 1857. He had, for the impersonator of his hero, Robson, whose presence in the cast suggested to Mrs. Wigan the addition to the mad scene of sundry indications of the actor's former successes at the Olympic. The result was very successful. Masaniello came on, crying—

He then breaks off into a portion of the dagger dance from "Macbeth Travestie," following this up with a scrap from[Pg 187] Italian opera and part of the hornpipe in "The Yellow Dwarf." Then Borella says:—

After this, Robson was wont to introduce a bit of "business" from "The Discreet Princess," ending with a ditty from the "Medea" burlesque. The travestie of the pantomime-action of the dumb girl Fenella was naturally another feature of Brough's work, which had the usual supply of puns, and, altogether, more than the usual amount of literary and dramatic merit. The little travestie, called[Pg 188] "Masse-en-Yell-Oh," written by Messrs. Harry Paulton and Mostyn Tedde for the Comedy in 1886, was an unpretending piece of work, not challenging comparison with its predecessor.

Auber's "Fra Diavolo" was another of the operatic originals on which H. J. Byron based his comic fancies. He wrote, to begin with, "Fra Diavolo, or the Beauty and the Brigands," first seen at the Strand in 1858; and then, twenty years after, "Young Fra Diavolo," which made its appearance at the Gaiety. "Les Diamans de la Couronne" fell to the lot of Mr. Reece, who, in 1875, prepared for the Holborn Theatre the piece entitled "The Half-crown Diamonds," a revised edition of which found its way to the stage of the Imperial Theatre just five years later.

Hérold's "Zampa" was burlesqued by Mr. T. F. Plowman at the Court in 1872, and by Mr. J. McArdle for the provincial stage in 1876. The "Mignon" of M. Thomas has also been transmogrified into the "Merry Mignon" of Mr. Wilton Jones (1882). The "Carmen" of Georges Bizet has had its mirthful side portrayed in no fewer than four comic pieces—the "Carmen, or Sold for a Song" of Mr. Reece (Folly, 1879); the "Cruel Carmen" of Mr. Wilton Jones (1880); the "Little Carmen" of Mr. Alfred Murray (Globe, 1884); and the "Carmen Up to Data" of Messrs. Sims and Pettitt (Gaiety, 1890). The Carmen of the first of these productions was Miss Lydia Thompson,—of the last, Miss Florence St. John, a charming vocalist, gifted with the true vis comica.

But the most popular, by a long way, of all French operas, for purposes of burlesque, has been the "Faust" of Gounod. Of the many travesties of this, or of the story[Pg 189] embodied in it, the earliest was that of Halford, brought out at the Olympic in 1854. This was followed in 1857 by a piece called "Alonzo the Brave," written by Mr. Burnand for performance by University amateurs at Cambridge, and mingling the story of Alonzo, as told in the ballad, with that of Faust, in a fashion effective, if a little puzzling. In this piece of extravagance (in which, by the way, Mr. Burnand played Mephistopheles), Imogene is the heroine, taking the place of Marguerite in the affections of Faust. For a while, in the absence of Alonzo, she yields to the snares of the tempter; but, in the end, her first sweetheart appears to her as his own ghost, her inconstancy is forgiven, and Faust retires from the scene.

Seven years later Mr. Burnand wrote a burlesque called "Faust and Marguerite" for the St. James's. He had Ashley for his Faust, Charles Mathews and Mrs. Charles Mathews for his Mephistopheles and Marguerite, H. J. Montague for his Valentine, and "Johnny" Clarke for his Martha. In this instance he followed the story of the opera pretty closely till near the end, when Faust was sued for breach of promise of marriage, and escaped the clutches of Mephistopheles only by consenting to pair off with Martha! A visit to a music-hall formed part of the action, and gave occasion for some pointed lines. Said Faust:—

In 1869 Mr. Burnand was to the fore again with "Very Little Faust and More Marguerite," which was played at the Charing Cross Theatre (as the building was then called). A few years later—in 1877—H. J. Byron entered the field with "Little Doctor Faust," in which he had for interpreters the Gaiety artists, headed by Miss Farren and Mr. Edward Terry. Later still—in 1885—came a provincial writer with "Faust in Forty Minutes." In 1886 we had at the Royalty a piece called "Mephisto," of which the only characteristic feature was an imitation of Mr. Irving by Mr. E. J. Henley, clever in its way, but not to be compared for sustained truthfulness to the performance given by Mr. H. E. Dixey in "Adonis" (at the Gaiety) a[Pg 191] week or two previously. In 1886, also, Mr. Burnand brought out at Toole's—with Mr. Toole as Mephistopheles (à la Irving)—"Faust and Loose"; and, two years after, we had at the Gaiety the "Faust up to Date" of Messrs. G. R. Sims and Henry Pettitt, of which more hereafter. A notable fact about "Faust and Loose" is the appearance on the stage, for the first time, of Marguerite's mother—a lady unaccountably neglected by all previous writers, serious or otherwise! In the burlesque she thus introduces herself:—

English serious opera has not often fallen a prey to the[Pg 192] untender mercies of the parodist. Balfe and Vincent Wallace alone have been victimised in that way—Balfe through his "Bohemian Girl" and "Rose of Castile"; Wallace through his "Maritana." The "Bohemian Girl" has taken four different shapes on the burlesque boards. In 1851, as transmogrified by the Brothers Brough, she figured at the Haymarket as "Arline." In 1864, under the auspices of Messrs. Best and Bellingham, she appeared at Sadler's Wells under the same designation. At the command of Mr. W. S. Gilbert she posed at the Royalty in 1868 as "The Merry Zingara." In 1877, as portrayed by H. J. Byron at the Opéra Comique and Gaiety, she appeared as "The Bohemian Gy-url." For his Arline Mr. Gilbert had Miss "Patty" Oliver; for his Gipsy Queen, Miss Charlotte Saunders; for his Count Arnheim, Fred Dewar; and for his Devilshoof, Danvers. Byron's piece was interpreted by the Gaiety Company. "The Rose of Castile," as treated by Mr. Conway Edwardes, was seen in 1872 at the Brighton Theatre as "The Rows of Castile." "Maritana," of course, was the origin and basis of Mr. Burnand's "Mary Turner" (Holborn Theatre, 1867), as well as of Byron's "Little Don Cæsar de Bazan" (Gaiety, 1876), in which Mr. Terry was such an entertaining King Charles.

IX.

The writers of stage travestie have gone less to fiction for subject-matter than might have been expected. Half a dozen romances previous to Scott, half a dozen of Scott's own stories, about the same number of modern novels, and still fewer foreign masterpieces—these represent the sources of all the most important of the burlesques which have been based upon invented prose narrative.

The earliest of the tales which have been thus dealt with is "Robinson Crusoe." Of this time-honoured story, the first whimsical treatment was that which took the shape of a piece called "Crusoe the Second, or the Shipwrecked Milliners," presented at the Lyceum in 1847. This was written by Stocqueler, and had for interpreters Mr. and Mrs. Keeley, with Alfred Wigan (as Crusoe). It was followed, in 1860, at the Princess's, by the "Robinson Crusoe" of H. J. Byron. Seven years later, no fewer than six writers joined in the production of a perversion of Defoe's tale, brought out at the Haymarket in 1867, and bearing the names of H. J. Byron, W. S. Gilbert, T. Hood, jun., H. S. Leigh, W. J. Prowse, and Arthur Sketchley. In this (which was given at a matinée for the benefit of the family of Paul Gray, the artist) the parts were all sustained by well-known[Pg 194] men of art and letters. After this there came, in 1876, at the Folly, the "Robinson Crusoe" of Mr. H. B. Farnie,[48] which, in its turn, was followed, just ten years later, by yet another arrangement of the story, in which Mr. Farnie had the co-operation of Mr. Reece.

To the Adelphi, in 1846, belongs an "extra extravagant extravaganza," founded by Gilbert Abbott a'Beckett and Mark Lemon on the "Peter Wilkins" of Robert Paltock (first printed in 1750). This burlesque had for its full title—"Peter Wilkins, or the Loadstone Rock and the Flying Indians," and had for its chief interpreters—Miss Woolgar as the hero, Paul Bedford as Jack Adams, and Miss E. Chaplin as Youriwkee. Dr. Johnson's "Rasselas" attracted the attention of William Brough, and was made, in 1862, the foundation of a burlesque produced at the Haymarket.

In 1765 Horace Walpole published his mediæval imagining, "The Castle of Otranto," by which so many of us have in our youth been thrilled. In 1848 Gilbert Abbott a'Beckett set himself to make fun of its singularities, and the result was a very brightly written piece, enacted at the Haymarket.[49] In this, Manfred's son Conrad is found imprisoned under the gigantic helmet of Alphonso, and the distracted father at once begins to give way to comic word-splitting:—

In the opening scene, Hippolita, Conrad's mother, ventures to suggest to Manfred that the boy is not of marriageable age, sixteen summers not having yet passed o'er his head:—

In the year following the publication of "The Castle of Otranto," the "Vicar of Wakefield" was given to the world. It appears to have escaped travestie until 1885, when—thinking more, no doubt, of Mr. Wills's "Olivia" than of Goldsmith's chef d'œuvre—Messrs. Stephens and Yardley brought out at the Gaiety "The Vicar of Wideawakefield," in which Mr. Arthur Roberts and Miss Laura Linden sought, not unsuccessfully, to reproduce and heighten some of the artistic peculiarities of Mr. Irving and Miss Ellen Terry. Mrs. Shelley's "Frankenstein," published in 1818, received its first dramatic reductio ad absurdum in 1849, when the Brothers Brough made it the subject of a burlesque;—its[Pg 196] second in 1887, when Messrs. "Richard Henry" turned out at the Gaiety a travestie, of which I shall have something to say in my next chapter. In the Broughs' version Wright was Frankenstein and Paul Bedford the Monster, and much fun was made out of the finishing touches which Frankenstein gave to his work. "O." Smith, Miss Woolgar, and Miss Chaplin were also in the cast.

Sir Walter Scott's novels have obtained a fair amount of notice from the comic dramatists. "Ivanhoe," for example, has exercised the humorous powers of three—of Robert Brough (at the Haymarket in 1850), of H. J. Byron (at the Strand in 1862), and of T. F. Plowman (at the Court in 1871). Byron (who called his work "Ivanhoe in accordance with the Spirit of the Times"[50]) had the aid of Miss Charlotte Saunders as his Wilfred, of Charles Rice as his Brian de Bois-Guilbert, of "Johnny" Clarke as his Isaac of York, of Miss Eleanor Bufton as his Black Knight, of Miss Swanborough as Rowena, of Jenny Rogers as his Rebecca, and of Miss Polly Marshall, Miss Fanny Hughes, and Poynter in other parts. In the provinces he was his own Isaac of York.

"Isaac of York," by the way, was the title given by Mr. Plowman to his effort, which had a good deal of ingenuity and "go." Here, for example, is an extract from the scene at the banquet at which Cedric entertains his guests. Ivanhoe is soliloquising aside, and his utterances[Pg 197] are interrupted by the demands of the personæ sitting at table:—

In another scene Isaac gives vent to a piece of mock-heroic execration directed against Brian de Bois-Guilbert:—

Next to "Ivanhoe" in popularity for travestie we may place "Rob Roy." Mr. Sydney French took it in hand at the Marylebone in 1867, and Mr. William Lowe gave it a very Scotch rendering, in 1880, under the title of "Mr. Robert Roye, Hielan Helen his Wife, and Dougal the Dodger." But the "standard" burlesque on the subject is, of course, Mr. Burnand's "Robbing Roy" (Gaiety, 1879), in which Mr. Terry was such a diverting "Roy," with Miss Farren as Francis, Miss Vaughan as Diana, and Mr. Royce as an admirable Dougal. Of the "Bride of Lammermoor" there have been two burlesque versions—Oxberry's, at the Strand in 1848; and H. J. Byron's, at the Prince of Wales's in 1865. "Kenilworth" has been similarly honoured. There was the piece brought out at the Strand in 1858 by Andrew Halliday and a collaborator, and there was that which Messrs. Reece and Farnie contributed to the Avenue Theatre in 1885. "Guy Mannering" has engaged the attention of Mr. Burnand: we can all remember his "Here's another Guy Mannering," brought[Pg 199] out at the Vaudeville in 1874. For the solitary travestie of "The Talisman," the late J. F. M'Ardle is responsible. It was first played at Liverpool in the year last named.

Lord Lytton's novels and romances have been ridiculed on the stage very much less frequently than have his dramas. "The Very Last Days of Pompeii," by Mr. Reece, and "The Last of the Barons," by Mr. Du Terreaux, are, so far as I know, the only stage works in which his prose fiction has been perverted. The former was seen at the Vaudeville in 1872, and the latter at the Strand in the same year. In "The Last of the Barons," Atkins was the Kingmaker, Mr. Edward Terry portraying Edward IV. as a great dandy, and endowing him with an amusing lisp.

When we turn to the stories of more recent times, we think at once of the "No Thoroughfare" of Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins, and of the "Foul Play" of Charles Reade and Dion Boucicault, as having suffered at the hands of the irreverent scribes. The former romance suggested to Hazlewood junior his "No Thorough-fair beyond Highbury, or the Maid, the Mother, and the Malicious Mountaineer." This was in 1868; and in the following year the elder George Grossmith emulated Hazlewood's example at the Victoria Theatre. "Foul Play" was parodied by Mr. Burnand, not only in the pages of Punch, but in "Fowl Play, or a Story of Chikkin Hazard," produced at the New Queers in 1868.[52] Of the bright writing in this "book," no better specimen could well be[Pg 200] furnished than the song which Wylie sings in description of the scuttling of the Proserpine. This I give in full:—

Among other recent fictions which have obtained the distinction of stage travestie may be named "Lady Audley's Secret," "Little Lord Fauntleroy," and "The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde." In the first of these instances H. J. Byron was the operator—the scene, the St. James's Theatre in 1863. Mrs. Burnett's pretty conception was tortured into "The Other Little Lord Fondleboy" (1888), and Mr. Stevenson's weird invention into "The Real Case of Hide and Seekyll" (Royalty, 1888), for which the younger George Grossmith must bear the blame.

The literature of dramatic parody does not owe much to foreign fiction. Farnie gave us "Little Gil Bias" at the Princess's in 1870, and in the same year Mr. Arthur Wood produced at the Olympic a comic paraphrase of "Paul and Virginia." It was in 1870, too, that Messrs. Eldred and Paulton turned out, at Liverpool, "The Gay Musketeers," which was followed at the Strand in 1871 by "The Three Musket-Dears" of Messrs. J. and H. Paulton. Of the "Monte Cristo Junior" of Messrs. "Richard Henry" I shall have something to say anon.

Dividing Song for the moment into Poem and Ballad, we note that the poems of Lord Byron have been the inspiring cause of at least four notable burlesques. His lordship's "Don Juan" suggested the "Beautiful Haidee" of H. J. Byron (1863) and the "Don Juan Junior" of the "Brothers Prendergast" (1880); while his "Corsair" is the basis of William Brough's "Conrad and Medora" (Lyceum,[Pg 202] 1856), and his "Bride of Abydos" prompted the piece with the same title which H. J. Byron wrote for the Strand Theatre. In "Conrad and Medora" Miss Marie Wilton was "the Little Fairy at the Bottom of the Sea," the title-parts being given to Miss Woolgar and Mrs. Charles Dillon, and that of Birbanto to Mr. Toole. The Bride of Abydos—Zuleika—had Miss Oliver for her representative.

With Byron it seems natural to associate his friend Tom Moore, whose "Lalla Rookh" has had exceptional favour with the parodists. Four of these have been fascinated by her charms—Mr. J. T. Denny in 1885, Mr. Horace Lennard in the previous year, Vincent Amcotts in 1866, and last, but not least, William Brough (at the Lyceum) in 1857. It was to be expected that, when travestying Moore, Brough should parody "The Minstrel Boy," and so we have from him the following lines, sung by Miss Woolgar as Feramorz:—

Elsewhere, Namouna, the Peri, gave utterance to the following reflections on the levelling power of love [53]:—

In this piece Mrs. Charles Dillon was the Lalla Rookh, and Mr. Toole represented "a fabulous personage, not found in the poem," called Khorsanbad.

One, at least, of our burlesque writers—Mr. Gilbert Arthur a'Beckett—has had the courage to tackle a poem of Coleridge; to wit, his "Christabel," from which, however, Mr. A'Beckett derived only certain suggestions for his work. In his "Christabel, or the Bard Bewitched," represented at the Court in 1872, the Bard, Bracy, was played by Mr. Righton, who made a special feature of a travestie of Mr. Irving in "The Bells." He pretended that he had murdered a muffin-man, and that, consuming all he could of the muffins left in the man's basket, he had deposited the remainder in the area. Miss Nelly Bromley was the Christabel.

Scott's "Lady of the Lake" gave Mr. Reece the idea for a burlesque performed at the Royalty in 1866. In the[Pg 204] same year Andrew Halliday brought out at the Adelphi a comic piece, happily entitled "The Mountain Dhu, or the Knight, the Lady, and the Lake." Mr. Toole was the impersonator of the Mountain Dhu, Paul Bedford the Douglas, Miss Hughes the Malcolm Graeme, Miss Woolgar (Mrs. Mellon) the Fitzjames, and Miss Furtado the Lady of the Lake. "The Lady of the Lane" was the title given by H. J. Byron to the travestie from his pen which saw the light at the Strand in 1872. In this case Mr. Edward Terry was the Roderick and Miss Kate Bishop the Ellen, Mrs. Raymond making a great hit as the demented Blanche.

Our present Laureate provoked in 1870 the satiric powers of Mr. W. S. Gilbert, whose "Princess," played at the Olympic, was described by the author as "a whimsical allegory," as well as "a respectful perversion of Mr. Tennyson's poem."[54] In this production Mr. Gilbert wrote his lyrics to the melodies of popular airs, after the manner of the time. The major portion of the travestie is familiar to present-day audiences as having formed, in the main, the text of "Princess Ida," for which Sir Arthur Sullivan composed such charming music. Nevertheless, I cannot refrain from quoting, as a happy specimen of Mr. Gilbert's later manner in burlesque,[55] the speech addressed[Pg 205] by the Princess to her disciples—a speech marked by agreeable naïvétè and happy mock-heroics:—

Into the region of the Ballad the comic playwrights have[Pg 206] made comparatively few incursions. "The Babes in the Wood," "Lord Bateman," "Billy Taylor," "Villikins and his Dinah," and "Lord Lovel,"—these are the stories which have been most in favour with burlesque purveyors. R. J. Byron took up the first-named subject in 1859, when the company at the Adelphi (where the piece was produced) included Miss Woolgar (Sir Rowland Macassar), Mr. Toole and Miss Kate Kelly (the Babes), Paul Bedford (the First Ruffian), and Mrs. Billington (the Lady Macassar). Then, in 1877, there came a provincial version by Messrs. G. L. Gordon and G. W. Anson; and, next, in 1884, at Toole's Theatre, the "Babes" of Mr. Harry Paulton, in which Mr. Edouin and Miss Atherton were the central figures. The first travestie of "Lord Bateman" was made by Charles Selby at the Strand in 1839; then there was the production by R. B. Brough in 1854 at the Adelphi; and, still later, there was the piece by H. J. Byron, at the Globe (1869). Passing over the "Billy Taylor" of Buckstone (1829), we arrive at "The Military Billy Taylor" of Mr. Burnand, which came out forty years later. It is to Mr. Burnand, also, that we owe "Villikins and his Dinah," played by amateurs at Cambridge, as well as "Lord Lovel and the Lady Nancy Bell," which he wrote for the same place and performers.

With the year 1885 there dawned a new epoch for stage travestie in England. The old Gaiety company had broken up, Miss Farren alone remaining; and with the accession of fresh blood there came fresh methods. The manager who had succeeded Mr. Hollingshead recognised the tendencies of the times; and with "Little Jack Sheppard"—a travestie by Messrs. Stephens and Yardley of the well-known story, familiar both in fiction and in drama—a novel departure was made.

In the "palmy" days, burlesque had not, as a rule, formed the whole of an evening's entertainment. The one-act travestie had grown on occasion into two and even three acts; but, until recent years, the one act (in several scenes) had usually been deemed sufficient, the remainder of the programme being devoted to comedy or drama. The musical part of the performance had generally been made up of adaptations or reproductions of popular airs of the day—either comic songs or operatic melodies: very rarely had the music been special and original. The scenery had never been particularly remarkable; nor, save during the various régimes of Vestris, had there been any special splen[Pg 208]dour in the dresses. For the most part, the old school of burlesque did not rely upon a brilliant mise-en-scène. In the prologue to his "Alcestis," produced just forty-one years ago, we find Talfourd expressly drawing attention to the simplicity of the stage show. Speaking of the productions at the houses of serious drama, he said:—

A very different policy was to characterise the New Burlesque. The pieces, having now become the staple of the night's amusement, were to be placed upon the boards with all possible splendour. Money was to be spent lavishly on scenery, properties and costumes. Dancing was to be a prominent feature—not the good old-fashioned "breakdowns" and the like, but choreographic interludes of real grace and ingenuity. The music was to be written specially for the productions, and pains were to be taken to secure artists who could really sing. Something had already been done in each of these directions. So long ago as 1865 Mr. Burnand's "Windsor Forest" had been fitted with wholly new music; and at[Pg 209] the Gaiety, under Mr. Hollingshead, burlesque had grown in elaborateness year by year. Not, however, till the production of "Little Jack Sheppard," in 1885, had the elaboration been so marked and complete in all departments.

Meanwhile, how were the librettists to be affected? Clearly, they would have to give more opportunities than usual for musical and saltatory illustration; and accordingly we find the book of "Little Jack Sheppard" full of lyrics—solos, duets, quartets and choruses, all of them set to new airs by competent composers. At the same time, the authors took care not to omit the element of punning dialogue. In this respect the old traditions were to be maintained. Byron, for instance, might very well have written the lines which follow, in which the interlocutors strive to outdo one another in the recklessness of their jeux de mots:—

"Little Jack Sheppard"—which had for its chief exponents Miss Farren, Mr. Fred Leslie (a brilliant recruit from the comic opera stage), Mr. David James (who had returned for a time to his old love), Mr. Odell, Miss Harriet Coveney, and Miss Marion Hood (who had graduated in Gilbert-Sullivan opera)—was followed at the Gaiety by "Monte Cristo Junior," in which Messrs. "Richard Henry" presented a bright and vivacious travestie of Dumas' famous fiction, greatly aided by the chic of Miss Farren as the hero, and the inexhaustible humorous resource of Mr. Leslie as Noirtier. Here, for example, is a bit of the scene between these two characters in the Château d'If:—

Here, again, is the duet sung by the same characters in the course of the same scene:—

After "Monte Cristo Junior" there came, at the same theatre and from the pens of the same writers, a travestie of "Frankenstein," produced in 1887, with Miss Farren as the hero, and Mr. Leslie as the Monster that he fashions. Here much ingenuity was shown in the management of the pseudo-supernatural business connected with the Monster. Previous to the vivifying of the figure, Frankenstein thus soliloquised:—

In 1888 Mr. G. R. Sims and Mr. Henry Pettitt joined forces in burlesque, and the result was seen in a piece happily[Pg 214] entitled "Faust up to Date." In this version Marguerite (Miss Florence St. John) figures first as a barmaid at an Exhibition. She is a young lady of some astuteness, though she insists upon her general ingenuousness:—

When Valentine returns home and hears the scandal[Pg 215] about his sister, he breaks out into the following terrific curse:—

At the end, when Mephistopheles (Mr. E. J. Lonnen) comes to claim Faust, it turns out that Faust and Marguerite have been duly married, but have been obliged to conceal the fact because Marguerite was a ward in Chancery. Moreover, Old Faust reappears, and insists that, as it was he who signed the bond, it is he and not young Faust who ought to suffer for it.

"Faust up to Date" includes some clever songs and some excruciating puns, of which these are perhaps the most excruciating:—

"Atalanta," the travestie by Mr. G. P. Hawtrey brought out at the Strand in 1888, was fitted with prose dialogue, much of which was very smart and amusing. The songs were numerous and well-turned, and certain details of the travestie were ingenious. Hippomenes, the hero, wins the race he runs with Atalanta, by placing in her path a brand-new "costume," of modern cut and material, which she finds it impossible not to stop for. For the rest, while possessing a decidedly "classical" flavour, "Atalanta" was, in essence, a racing burlesque, abounding in the phraseology of the turf, and introducing in the last scene counterfeit presentments of a number of well-known sportsmen.

An agreeable cynicism ran through both the talk and the lyrics, from one of which—a duet between King Schœneus and his High Chamberlain, Lysimachus—I extract the following satire on turf morale:—

Elsewhere, there is a diverting bit of parody suggested by the extreme cautiousness and bad grammar of some newspaper racing prophecies. Hippomenes and Atalanta are the sole competitors in the race, and the local "tipster" thus discusses their prospects:—

Of "Joan of Arc," the "operatic burlesque" written by Messrs. J. L. Shine and "Adrian Ross" to music by Mr. Osmond Carr (Opéra Comique, 1891), the distinguishing feature—apart from the fact that the music is all original and all the work of one composer—is the neatness of the lyric writing, with which special pains appear to have been taken. Of Joan herself her father is made to sing as follows:—

Of all the songs in the piece, however, perhaps the most vivacious is that in which De Richemont (Mr. Arthur Roberts) describes how he "went to find Emin":—

I have not thought it necessary, in the preceding pages, to offer any apology for stage burlesque. One must regret that it sometimes lacks refinement in word and action, and that in the matter of costume it is not invariably decorous; but that we shall always have it with us, in some form or other, may be accepted as incontrovertible. So long as there is anything extravagant in literature or manners—in the way either of simplicity or of any other quality—so long will travestie find both food and scope. That is the raison d'être of theatrical burlesque—that it shall satirise the exaggerated and the extreme. It does not wage war against the judicious and the moderate. As H. J. Byron once wrote of his own craft:—

In this defence of his calling, Byron had been anticipated by Planché, who, in one of his occasional pieces, introduced the following passage, in which Mr. and Mrs. Wigan and the representatives of Tragedy and Burlesque all figured. When Burlesque entered, Tragedy cried out—

THE BOOK OF THE HOLIDAY SEASON.
THIRD EDITION (WITHIN A FORTNIGHT OF PUBLICATION).

THE BACHELORS' CLUB.
By I. ZANGWILL,
Crown 8vo. 348 pp. 3s. 6d.
With ILLUSTRATIONS by GEORGE HUTCHINSON.

St. James's Gazette: "Some exceedingly clever fooling, and a happy audacity of whimsical invention."

Daily Graphic: "A genuine humourist. We own to having laughed heartily, and appreciated the cleverness and the cynicism."

Star: "Mr. Zangwill has an original way of being funny. He is full of clever and witty, paradoxical and epigrammatical, surprises. His book is a splendid tonic for gloomy spirits."

Evening News: "Not one in a score of the amusing books which come from the press is nearly so amusing as this."

Sunday Times: "Read, laugh over, and profit by the history of 'The Bachelors' Club,' capitally told by a fresh young writer."

Referee: "A new comic writer. There is a touch of the devilry of Heme in Mr. Zangwill's wit."

Scotsman: "Any one who has listened to what the wild waves say as they beat the snores of Bohemia will read the book with enjoyment and appreciate its careless merriment."

Freeman's Journal: "Very clever and amusing; highly interesting, humorous and instructive."

Pictorial World: "One of the smartest books of the season. Brimful of funny ideas, comically expressed."

Man of the World: "Witty to excess. To gentlemen who dine out, the book will furnish a stock of 'good things' upon every conceivable subject of conversation."

Granta: "A book of genuine humour. Full of amusing things. The style is fresh and original."

Newcastle Daily Chronicle: "Really clever and amusing; brimful of genuine humour and fun."

Yorkshire Herald: "A quaint, fresh, delightful piece of humour. Hood or Douglas Jerrold might have written the book."

Northern Daily News: "The reader must be very dyspeptic who cannot laugh consumedly at his funny conceits."

Judy: "It's Zangwillian, which is saying a very great deal indeed in its favour."

A New Series of Monthly Volumes designed to supply the Public with Entertaining Literature by the Best Writers.
Crown 8vo, cloth, with Portrait, 2s. 6d. each.

"If it is well to judge by firstfruits (and, generally speaking, the judgment is right), the new 'Whitefriars Library' should compass the very laudable designs of its projectors. The first monthly volume of the new series may fairly be said to be aflush with the finest promise. Mr. Andrew Lang's 'Essays in Little' is one of the most entertaining and bracing of books. Full of bright and engaging discourse, these charming and recreative essays are the best of good reading. Hard must be 'the cynic's lips' from which Mr. Lang's sportive pen does not 'dislodge the sneer,' harder that 'brow of care' whose wrinkles refuse to be smoothed by Mr. Lang's gentle sarcasms and agreeable raillery.... 'Essays in Little' ought to win every vote, and please every class of reader."—Saturday Review.

"The volume is delightful, and exhibits Mr. Lang's light and dexterous touch, his broad literary sympathies, and his sound critical instinct to great advantage."—Times.

"'The Whitefriars Library' has begun well. Its first issue is a volume by Mr. Andrew Lang, entitled 'Essays in Little.' Mr. Lang is here at his best—alike in his most serious and his lightest moods. We find him turning without effort, and with equal success, from 'Homer and the Study of Greek,' to 'The Last Fashionable Novel'—on one page attacking grimly the modern newspaper tendency to tittle-tattle (in a 'Letter to a Young Journalist'), on another devising a bright parody in prose or verse. Mr. Lang is in his most rollicking vein when treating of the once popular Haynes Bayly, the author of 'I'd be a Butterfly' and things of that sort. With Bayly's twaddling verse Mr. Lang is in satiric ecstasies; he revels in its unconscious inanity, and burlesques it repeatedly with infinite gusto.... His tone is always urbane, his manner always bright and engaging. No one nowadays has a style at once so light and so well bred.... It is always pleasant, and frequently delightful."—Globe.

The services of Messrs. Oscar Wilde, G. A. Sala, Justin M'Carthy, M.P., G. A. Henty, F. C. Burnand, W. Clark Russell, Rudolph C. Lehmann, R. E. Francillon, Harry Furniss, Arthur À Beckett, J. Bernard Partridge, and others, have been secured.

LONDON: HENRY & CO., 6, BOUVERIE STREET, E.C.;
And at all Booksellers' and the Railway Stalls.

A BOOK ABOUT LONDON:
Its Memorable Places, its Men and Women, and its History. Crown 8vo. 6s.

In this volume an attempt has been made to present in a series of striking episodical narratives the principal events in London history, and some of the more striking aspects of London life. Full particulars are given of plots and conspiracies, forgeries and murders, executions and hair-breadth escapes; and many favourite old stories, not easily accessible now, are brought forward in a new dress, with all the light of recent research thrown upon them.

An Alphabetical Index to the principal Streets, Squares, Parks, and Thoroughfares, with their Associations—Historical, Traditional, Social, and Literary. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d.

This work is the result of very extensive labour, and offers, it is believed, a completer view than has before been attempted of the diverse associations which lend so profound an interest to the Streets of London. It contains more than a thousand succinct references to remarkable persons, incidents, and scenes, with illustrative anecdotes and full explanations gathered from a vast number of authentic sources.

A Tale of the Araucanian Indians and the Mythical Trauco People. By the Author of "The Young Castaways," etc. In large crown 8vo, with Frontispiece. 5s.

"A story of pure adventure, full of incident, and related with much smoothness and animation. As a story simply this work appeals to, and will be heartily accepted by, the boys and girls to whom it may be presented."—Globe.

"Another pleasant book for the young from Lady Florence Dixie. The boys and girls—and we hope they are many—who have drunk in delight from her 'Young Castaways' will find their reward in this new story of 'Aniwee.'"—Echo.

"The story is romantic and interesting enough to delight boys and girls alike, and the adventures with the Trauco people are as novel as they are thrilling."—Daily Graphic.

LONDON: HENRY & CO., 6, BOUVERIE STREET, E.C.,
And at all Libraries and Booksellers'.

By the author of "The Golden Hawk." Crown 8vo, tastefully bound, 5s. Illustrated.

"Of all the writers who may be described as belonging to the school of Rider Haggard, Mr. Clive Holland is the most original and the most successful. His 'Raymi' would do no discredit to Mr. Haggard himself. There is room for improvement in the style, but that will come with use. What is of more importance in a new (and presumably young) writer is that he should have the root of the matter in him; and in all the essentials for a good story—character, 'go,' and incidents—Mr. Holland manifests great facility. Hugh Carton, the hero, is put through some sad and dramatic experiences, and not the least enthralling of these is his encounter with Richard Savill, the buccaneer. It is under the most extraordinary circumstances that Hugh makes his acquaintance. Savill is vigorously drawn, so that one is able to realise the man as he was in his habit. Another part of the volume which contains several graphic passages is that devoted to a description of the Children of the Sun, with their rites and customs. Mr. Holland has written a previous romance, with which we are not acquainted, but his present venture certainly warrants the expectation of good work from him in the future."—Daily Chronicle.

"This is a good story—a mixture of the real and the romantic. Both elements are well worked out: the real is so like to Nature, that we are ready to think that the marvellous is not so very remote from it."—Spectator.

"There is abundant play of fancy in the book, as well as some of the ordinary elements of romance."—Queen.

"A good many of the characters have a touch of individuality; and in a literary point of view this book is more carefully written and is more interesting than any of our author's previous works."—Athenæum.

"It is a book that cannot fail to interest any one who takes it up; and to any one who thinks at all it will, as it has done for us, afford a good deal to think about. It is full of exciting incidents and adventures closely drawn from life."—St. Stephen's Review.

"Giving the clever and accomplished novelist all credit for earnestness of purpose, it is scarcely possible to accept wholly the form in which she has urged and illustrated her views; still we must respect and admire the talent with which she pleads the cause she has so much at heart.... The tale is well written, vigorous, and interesting."—Life.

BY MRS A. S. BRADSHAW.

WIFE OR SLAVE?

By the Author of "A Crimson Stain," etc. Second Edition. Crown 8vo, cloth, 2s.

"This story, which has no small merit as a work of imagination, makes its more direct appeal as a fictional presentment of the arguments for advancing the legal status of women, and making marriage a 'co-operation' rather than a 'despotism.'"—Scotsman.

LONDON: HENRY & CO., 6, BOUVERIE STREET, E.C.,
And at all Libraries and Booksellers'.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] "Tom Thumb" was performed in 1740, with Yates as the ghost and Woodward as Noodle, Glumdalca (the giantess) being represented by a man. In 1745 Yates played Grizzle, Tom being enacted by a lady. The burlesque was seen at Covent Garden in 1828.

[2] The parts of Chrononhotonthologos, Bombardinian, Rigdum-Funnidos, Aldiborontiphoscophornio, Fadladinida, and Tatlanthe were then taken by Messrs. Murray, Shine, Soutar, Squire, Mrs. Leigh, and Miss Bella Howard respectively.

[3] The elder Mathews was Artaxominous; Liston, Bombardinian; and Miss H. Kelly, Distaffina. A few years later Munden played Bombardinian, and Farren, Fusbos.

[4] In the preparation of "The Happy Land" (1873) Mr. Gilbert had only a share, the scenario being his, but nearly all the writing being done by Mr. Gilbert Arthur a'Beckett.

[5] An adaptation of John Brougham's American burlesque, "Pocohontas." Into this was introduced a travestie of the Bancroft's garden scene in "School." Mr. Lionel Brough played Captain John Smith.

[6] In "Olympic Revels," as in some other pieces, Planché had the valuable assistance of Charles Dance.

[7] Byron also wrote a burlesque in which Prometheus figures—"Pandora's Box," seen at the Prince of Wales's in 1866.

[8] In 1863 and 1871.

[9] "Orpheus in the Haymarket." An opera buffo, founded on the French of Hector Cremieux. Performed, with music by Offenbach, by David Fisher, W. Farren, Louise Keeley, Nelly Moore, and Miss H. Lindley.

[10] Played at the Olympic in 1834.

[11] Of recent years Atalanta has been made the heroine of a burlesque by Mr. G. P. Hawtrey. Of this I give some account in my final chapter on "The New Burlesque."

[12] Miss Herbert was Diana, and Miss Kate Terry one of the nymphs attending on her. Charles Young was Actæon; Belmore, Pan.

[13] Miss Raynham was the hero; Mr. David James, his apprentice Cambyses; Mr. Thomas Thorne, the Princess Mandane; Miss Ada Swanborough, Venus; Miss Elsie Holt, Cupid; and Miss Eliza Johnstone, Mopsa.

[14] "The Siege of Troy," by the way, was the title and subject of a burlesque by Robert Brough (Lyceum, 1858).

[15] Paris, Miss Raynham; Œnone, Mr. Thomas Thorne; Castor, Mr. David James; Orion, J. D. Stoyle; Venus, Miss A. Swanborough; Juno, Maria Simpson; Jupiter, Miss Eliza Johnstone.

[16] Paris, Miss Raynham; Helen, Miss Furtado. "Helen" is described by the writer as a "companion picture to 'Paris,'"

[17] See p. 40. Eleven years later, Mr. Burnand wrote for the Opera Comique his "Ixion Re-Wheeled," the cast of which included, beside Miss Laverne, Miss Amy Sheridan and Miss Eleanor Bufton.

[18] At the Olympic in 1836.

[19] At the Strand in 1862, with Rogers, Clarke, Miss A. Swanborough, Miss C. Saunders, Miss F. Josephs, and Miss F. Hughes in the principal parts. The full title of the piece was "Puss in a New Pair of Boots."

[20] This, first played at the Lyceum in 1860, was afterwards revived at the St. James's with Miss Kate Terry as the Princess.

[21] Other versions of this tale have been written by Maddison Morton (at Drury Lane), and by Mr. Burnand (at the Holborn in 1868, under the title of "The White Fawn").

[22] This part, originally played (in 1846) by James Bland, was played by Mr. Toole at the Adelphi in 1859, and afterwards by George Honey at the Princess's.

[23] The part of the Yellow Dwarf was first played (Olympic, 1854) by Robson, of whose performance Planché says that "So powerful was his personation of the cunning, the malignity, the passion and despair of the monster, that he elevated extravaganza into tragedy." At one point his delivery of the lines moved Thackeray almost to tears. "It is not a burlesque," he exclaimed: "it is an idyll."

[24] Byron was indebted to Mme. D'Aulnoy for the idea of his "Orange Tree and the Humble Bee, or The Little Princess who was Lost at Sea" (Vaudeville, 1871).

[25] Lachrymoso was played by Mr. Toole at the Adelphi so recently as 1860.

[26] In this the original Aladdin was Miss Marie Wilton; the Princess Badroulbadour, Miss Bufton; Widow Twankay, Rogers; Abanazar, Clarke; The Sultan, Miss Charlotte Saunders; and Pekoe, Miss Fanny Josephs (Strand, 1861).

[27] Miss P. Marshall, Ganem; George Honey, Hassarac; Miss Bufton, Cogia; Miss F. Hughes, Zaide; Miss C. Saunders, Morgiana (Strand, 1863).

[28] A burlesque on the subject of "Ali Baba" was written by Mr. Gilbert Arthur a'Beckett.

[29] In the years 1848, 1865, 1871 and 1884 respectively.

[30] These authors were happy in having Miss Ellen Farren to represent their hero, Miss Henrietta Lindley being the Badoura, W. H. Stephens and Mrs. Stephens the King and Queen, and Mr. Soutar the Skidamalink (King of the Isle of Ebony) (Olympic, 1865).

[31] Another burlesque on the same story, entitled "Abon Hassan, or An Arabian Knight's Entertainment," was brought out at the Charing Cross Theatre in 1869. The author's name was Arthur O'Neil, and the cast included Miss Emily Fowler as the hero, and Mr. Flockton as Haroun Alraschid.

[32] Mr. Edward Terry was the Vampire himself, and other parts were taken by Harry Cox, Miss Rose Cullen, and Miss Topsy Venn.

[33] "King Arthur, or the Days and Knights of the Round Table."

[34] Mr. Frederick Langbridge has printed a burlesque on this subject, with a title somewhat similar.

[35] The cast was particularly good, including Miss Rose Coghlan as the King, Miss Litton as the Queen, Maclean as Walworth, Mrs. Leigh as Mrs. Tyler, Miss Tremaine, and J. B. Rae.

[36] It was performed at Covent Garden in 1813, with Mathews as Hamlet, Blanchard as the King, Liston as Ophelia, and Mrs. Liston as the Queen. It was revived in 1874 on one occasion with Mr. Odell as Hamlet, and shortly afterwards with Mr. Leonard Boyne as the Prince, both actors indulging in an imitation of Mr. Irving's performance.

[37] In "Hamlet Improved," by Colonel Colomb, a Mr. Mendall is supposed to have revised the last act of "Hamlet" in accordance with modern notions. Polonius is alive, having been only wounded by Hamlet; Hamlet's father also is alive, having only pretended to be dead. At the close, the King, Queen, Laertes, and Ophelia, all come to life again. Hamlet is represented by a stuffed figure, the actor chosen for the part having refused to enact it.

[38] This was the piece in which Miss C. Saunders played Romeo, and Miss Marie Wilton Juliet. Maria Simpson was the Mercutio, J. Clarke the Nurse, Rogers the Apothecary, Bland the Friar, and Miss Bufton the Paris.

[39] Juliet was sent to sleep, not by a potion, but by a perusal of the latest work of Mr. Tupper.

[40] Produced at the Strand, with Hammond as Richard, Wigan as Henry VI., Romer as Tressel, Miss L. Lyons as Lady Anne, and so on.

[41] See pp. 39, 40.

[42] See p. 41.

[43] Another burlesque on the same subject, called "Ups and Downs of Deal, and Black-eyed Susan," was seen at the Marylebone in 1867, with Miss Augusta Thomson as Captain Crosstree.

[44] Mr. Merivale was fortunate in the cast of his production (played at the Gaiety in 1878). Mr. Edward Terry was the Claude, Miss Farren the Pauline, Mr. Royce the "Beauseong," Mrs. Leigh the Dowager Morier, and Miss Amalia the Babette, other parts being taken by Messrs. Elton, Maclean, Squire, and Fawcett.

[45] Byron's "Don Juan," brought out at the Alhambra in 1873, was about equally indebted for its plot to the libretto of Mozart's opera and to Lord Byron's poem.

[46] This, says Mr. Burnand in a note, is the poetic for "You'll get on your bonnet and accompany Polyphemus."

[47] In this Miss Farren, as Robert, was supported by Miss Constance Loseby as Raimbault, Miss Emily Fowler as Alice, Miss Annie Tremaine as Prince of Granada, and Joseph Eldred as Gobetto.

[48] With Miss Lydia Thompson as Robinson, Mr. Lionel Brough as Jim Cocks, and Mr. Willie Edouin as Man Friday.

[49] With Keeley as Manfred, Bland as the Marquis Vincenza, Miss P. Horton as Theodore, Miss Reynolds as Isabella, and Mrs. W. Clifford as Hippolita.

[50] This burlesque has been used, during the present year, as the foundation for a travestie played by the Cambridge Amateur Dramatic Company, under the title of "Ivanhoe à la Carte" (in allusion to Mr. D'Oyly Carte's production of Sir Arthur Sullivan's "Ivanhoe"). To this adaptation, it is said, new lyrics were contributed by Messrs. J. K. Stephen and R. C. Lehmann.

[51] Mr. Plowman had Mr. Righton for his Isaac, Miss Kate Bishop for his Ivanhoe, Miss Nelly Bromley for his Rowena, Miss Oliver for his Rebecca, Mr. Alfred Bishop for his Brian de Bois-Guilbert, and Mlle. Cornélie D'Anka for his Richard Cœur-de-Lion.

[52] In this piece Mr. Toole was the Robert Penfold, Mr. Lionel Brough the Joseph Wylie, Mr. Gaston Murray the General Rollingstone, Mr. Wyndham the Arthur Waddles, and Miss Ellen Farren (then in her novitiate) the Nancy Rouse.

[53] Reminding one of H. J. Byron's couplet:—

Love levels all—it elevates the clown,
And often brings the fattest people down.

[54] Mr. David Fisher was the King Hildebrand, and Miss Maria Simpson (Mrs. W. H. Liston), his son Prince Hilarion; Miss Augusta Thomson being the Cyril, Miss Mattie Reinhardt the Princess Ida, Miss Fanny Addison the Lady Psyche, Mrs. Poynter the Lady Blanche, and Miss Patti Josephs the Melissa.

[55] In a sense, all Mr. Gilbert's comic operas are burlesques, for they are full of travestie, especially of the conventionalities of grand opera and melodrama. At the same time, they cannot be called burlesques in the everyday, theatrical sense of the term.

Transcriber's Notes

Variations in spelling, accents, punctuation and hyphenation are as in the original, except in cases of obvious typographical error.

The use of upper or lower case at the beginning of abbreviated proper names (e.g. a'Beckett and A'Beckett) is inconsistent. This inconsistency has been retained.

On page 9
"whether they have borrowed from or author, I leave the reader to determine." the or has been changed to our.






End of Project Gutenberg's A Book of Burlesque, by Willam Davenport Adams

*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A BOOK OF BURLESQUE ***

***** This file should be named 47150-h.htm or 47150-h.zip *****
This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
        http://www.gutenberg.org/4/7/1/5/47150/

Produced by Chris Curnow, Les Galloway and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This
file was produced from images generously made available
by The Internet Archive)


Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
will be renamed.

Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
permission and without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules,
set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark.  Project
Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission.  If you
do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
rules is very easy.  You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
research.  They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks.  Redistribution is
subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
redistribution.



*** START: FULL LICENSE ***

THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK

To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
Gutenberg-tm License available with this file or online at
  www.gutenberg.org/license.


Section 1.  General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
electronic works

1.A.  By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
(trademark/copyright) agreement.  If you do not agree to abide by all
the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.

1.B.  "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark.  It may only be
used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement.  There are a few
things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
even without complying with the full terms of this agreement.  See
paragraph 1.C below.  There are a lot of things you can do with Project
Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
works.  See paragraph 1.E below.

1.C.  The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation"
or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
Gutenberg-tm electronic works.  Nearly all the individual works in the
collection are in the public domain in the United States.  If an
individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
are removed.  Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
the work.  You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.

1.D.  The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
what you can do with this work.  Copyright laws in most countries are in
a constant state of change.  If you are outside the United States, check
the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
Gutenberg-tm work.  The Foundation makes no representations concerning
the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
States.

1.E.  Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:

1.E.1.  The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project
Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
copied or distributed:

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org

1.E.2.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
or charges.  If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the
work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
1.E.9.

1.E.3.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
terms imposed by the copyright holder.  Additional terms will be linked
to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.

1.E.4.  Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.

1.E.5.  Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
Gutenberg-tm License.

1.E.6.  You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
word processing or hypertext form.  However, if you provide access to or
distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version
posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),
you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other
form.  Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.

1.E.7.  Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.

1.E.8.  You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
that

- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
     the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
     you already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  The fee is
     owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
     has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
     Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.  Royalty payments
     must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
     prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
     returns.  Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
     sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
     address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to
     the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."

- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
     you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
     does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
     License.  You must require such a user to return or
     destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
     and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
     Project Gutenberg-tm works.

- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
     money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
     electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
     of receipt of the work.

- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
     distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.

1.E.9.  If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark.  Contact the
Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.

1.F.

1.F.1.  Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
collection.  Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
your equipment.

1.F.2.  LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
fees.  YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3.  YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
DAMAGE.

1.F.3.  LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
written explanation to the person you received the work from.  If you
received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
your written explanation.  The person or entity that provided you with
the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
refund.  If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund.  If the second copy
is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
opportunities to fix the problem.

1.F.4.  Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS', WITH NO OTHER
WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.

1.F.5.  Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
the applicable state law.  The invalidity or unenforceability of any
provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.

1.F.6.  INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.


Section  2.  Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm

Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers.  It exists
because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
people in all walks of life.

Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
remain freely available for generations to come.  In 2001, the Project
Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
and the Foundation information page at www.gutenberg.org


Section 3.  Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
Foundation

The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
Revenue Service.  The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
number is 64-6221541.  Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.

The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
throughout numerous locations.  Its business office is located at 809
North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887.  Email
contact links and up to date contact information can be found at the
Foundation's web site and official page at www.gutenberg.org/contact

For additional contact information:
     Dr. Gregory B. Newby
     Chief Executive and Director
     gbnewby@pglaf.org

Section 4.  Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
Literary Archive Foundation

Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
array of equipment including outdated equipment.  Many small donations
($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
status with the IRS.

The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
States.  Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
with these requirements.  We do not solicit donations in locations
where we have not received written confirmation of compliance.  To
SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
particular state visit www.gutenberg.org/donate

While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
approach us with offers to donate.

International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
outside the United States.  U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.

Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
methods and addresses.  Donations are accepted in a number of other
ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations.
To donate, please visit:  www.gutenberg.org/donate


Section 5.  General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
works.

Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
with anyone.  For forty years, he produced and distributed Project
Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.

Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we do not necessarily
keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.

Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:

     www.gutenberg.org

This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.

PAGE
I.	THE BEGINNINGS OF BURLESQUE	1
II.	THE "PALMY" DAYS	33
III.	"CLASSICAL" BURLESQUE	44
IV.	BURLESQUE OF FAËRIE	72
V.	BURLESQUE OF HISTORY	99
VI.	BURLESQUE OF SHAKESPEARE	121
VII.	BURLESQUE OF MODERN DRAMA	146
VIII.	BURLESQUE OF OPERA	174
IX.	BURLESQUE OF FICTION AND SONG	193
X.	THE NEW BURLESQUE	207