BURLESQUE OF HISTORY.

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 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:—

To which Romulus replies:—

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:—

Later, Remus says to Romulus:—

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 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:—

Again:—

Here, too, is a clever bit of word-play:—

On this occasion Joan was impersonated by Mr. Thomas Thorne, Mr. David James being the Duke of Burgundy, 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 piece has little; of punning, as usual, it is all compact. Vivien says to Merlin:—

And again,—

Arthur says to Guinevere:—

Also, when he has lost his ladle-love:—

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 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 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 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

Charnsunnette d'Anne Boleyn,

Arngtitulay

"Ler Shevaliay ay sar Bellay."

I.

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:—

After this, one thinks comparatively little of such sallies as:—

At one point we have:—

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. 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 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 machin 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 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.

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