ACT III.

THE AMERICAN BURLESQUE.

THE AMERICAN BURLESQUE.

"The best in this kind are but shadows, and the worst are no worse, if imagination amend them." _A Midsummer-Night's Dream_, Act v. Sc. 1.

The burlesque among serious writers has a bad reputation. George Eliot, in _Theophrastus Such_, says that it debases the moral currency; and George Crabb, in his _English Synonymes_, thus dismisses it: "Satire and irony are the most ill-natured kinds of wit; burlesque stands in the lowest rank."

Burlesque, from the Italian _burlare_, "to joke," "to banter," "to play," has been defined as "an expression of language, a display of gesture, an impression of countenance, the intention being to excite laughter." In art caricature is burlesque, in literature parody is burlesque, in the drama comic pantomime, comic opera, travesty, and extravaganza are burlesque. All dramatic burlesque ranges under the head of farce, although all farce is not burlesque. Burlesque is the farce of portraiture on the stage; farce on the stage is the burlesque of events. Bret Harte's _Condensed Novels_ and George Arnold's _McArone Papers_ are representative specimens of burlesque in American letters; Arthur B. Frost's famous domestic cat, who supped inadvertently upon rat poison, is an excellent example of burlesque in American art. What America has done for burlesque on the stage it is the aim of the following pages to show.

Hipponax, of Ephesus, who lived in the latter half of the sixth century before Christ, is credited with having been "The Father of Burlesque Poetry." He was small and ill-favored physically, and his natural personal defects were the indirect cause of the development of his satirical powers and of his posthumous fame. Two sculptors of Chios caricatured him grossly in a statue publicly exhibited, and he, in return, fired his muse with the torch of hatred, and burned them in effigy with terrible but clever ridicule. He parodied the _Iliad_, in which he made Achilles an Ionian glutton; he did not spare his own parents; he poked fun at the gods themselves; he impaled Mrs. Hipponax with a couplet upon which she is still exhibited to the scoffers, and he is only to be distinguished from his long line of successors by the curious fact that he does not seem to have spoken with derision of his mother-in-law! His tribute to matrimony is still preserved in choice iambics, roughly translated as follows: "There are but two happy days in the life of a married man--the day of his marriage, and the day of the burial of his wife." From this it will be seen that twenty-five centuries or more look down upon the Benedict of the modern burlesque, who leaves his wife at home when he travels for pleasure!

Aristophanes, the comic poet of Athens, who wrote fifty-four comedies between the years 427 and 388 B.C., may be termed "The Father of the Burlesque Play." He satirized people more than things, or than other men's tragedies, and to his school belong Brougham's _Pocahontas_ and _Columbus_, rather than the same author's _Dan Keyser de Bassoon_, or _Much Ado About a Merchant of Venice_. The plots of Aristophanes are as original as his wit. In _The Wasps_ he caricatured the fondness of the Athenians for litigation; in _The Birds_ his object was to convince the Athenians of the advantages of a clean political sweep; in _The Female Orators_ he satirized the Sorosis and the women suffragists of his time; in _The Feast of Ceres_ he pointed out how useful and ornamental woman is in her own sphere; and in _Peace_, written to urge the close of the Peloponnesian war, he reached the sublimity of burlesque in creating a stage heroine who never utters a word. The argument of _The Knights_ will give a very fair idea of the plots of his plays. Athens is represented as a private house, whose master, Demos (the people), has more servants and more servants' relations than he can comfortably wait upon or decently support. Nicias and Demosthenes are his slaves, and Cleon, a political boss of the period, is his butler and confidential valet. Demos is irritable, superstitious, inconstant in his pursuits, and dull in character. Agoracritus, a sausage-seller, subverts the plots and the plans of the demagogue Cleon--originally played by Aristophanes himself--shows the householder that his favorite servant is utterly unworthy of the public trust, and brings the entertainment to a close with the discomfiture of the Ring and the relief of the taxpayers. Demos is said to have been the prototype of "John Bull," the personification of the Englishman, as he was first exhibited by Dr. Arbuthnot in the early part of the eighteenth century, and _The Knights_ is regarded as "an historical piece of great value, because it furnishes a faithful picture of the nation and of its customs." What curious ideas of American life and manners will posterity gather from _Adonis_ and _Evangeline_!

Classical critics credit Aristophanes with being distinguished for the exuberance of his wit, for his inexhaustible fund of comic humor, and for the Attic purity and great simplicity of his language; while at the same time he is accused of introducing, when it suits his purpose, every variety of dialect, of coining new words and expressions as occasion offers, and of making bad puns, whether occasion offers or not; in all of which his disciples persistently and consistently follow him.

Samuel Foote, who lived in an age of epithets, was called "The British Aristophanes." He respected no person and no thing. He satirized every subject, sacred or profane, which struck his fancy, from Chesterfield's Letters to the Stratford Jubilee; and he caricatured everybody, from Whitfield to the Duchess of Kingston. His serious attempt at Othello, in the beginning of his career as an actor, was considered a master-piece of unconscious burlesque, only inferior, in its extravagance and nonsense, to his Hamlet, and he failed in every legitimate part he undertook to play. As a mimic, however, in dramatic productions of his own writing, he met with immense success; and as a writer of stage burlesque he ranks very high. He made Italian opera ridiculous in his _Cat Concert_; he gave serious offence to a hard-working, respectable trade in _The Tailors, a Tragedy for Warm Weather_; he attacked the medical profession in _The Devil on Two Sticks_; he parodied sentimental romance of the _Pamela_ school in his _Piety in Pattens_; and he offended all right-thinking persons, heterodox as well as orthodox, in _The Minor_, a travesty upon the methods of Wesley and his Church.

_The Most Lamentable Comedy and Most Cruell Death of Pyramus and Thisbie_, originally published in the year 1600, if not the earliest burlesque in the English language, is certainly the model upon which are based all subsequent productions of the same class which have been written for the British or American theatre. Stevens believes the title to have been suggested to Shakspere by Dr. Thomas Preston's _Lamentable Tragedy Mixed Ful of Pleasant Mirth--Conteyning the Life of Cambises, King of Percia_. The story of Pyramus and Thisbe is to be found in the fourth book of Ovid's _Metamorphoses_; and a volume called _Perymus and Thesbye_ was entered on the Stationers' Register in 1562-63. Arthur Golding's translation of Ovid was published in 1567, and several other versions of the tale were extant before the birth of Snout or Bottom, the incidents, of course, being the same in all. Shaksperean scholars find traces of other works in the different speeches of the hard-handed men of Athens, but the general impression is that the author's purpose was to travesty the verse of Golding. Limander and Helen are intended for Leander and Hero; Shafalus and Procrus for Cephalus and Procris, and Ninny for Ninus; a form of verbal contortion displayed by the modern burlesquer in _Sam Parr_ for _Zampa_, and _The Roof Scrambler_ for _Sonnambula_; while the lines--

"Whereat, with blade, with bloody, blamefull blade, He brauely broacht his boiling bloody breast,"

read like the blank-verse mouthed by the deep tragedians of the negro minstrel stage of to-day.

_The Midsummer-Night's Dream_, with Mr. Hilson as Snout and Mr. Placide as Bottom, was performed, "for the first time in America," at the Park Theatre, New York, on the 9th of November, 1826, when the stage in this country was upwards of three-quarters of a century old, and had a literature of its own, comparatively rich in comedy and tragedy, and when its burlesque, such as it was, undoubtedly felt the influence of _Pyramus and Thisbe_.

The second great burlesque upon the British stage was _The Rehearsal_, by George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, in the reign of the Second Charles, first acted in 1672. It was original in design and brilliant in execution. It introduced a popular author, John Dryden, engaged in superintendence of a rehearsal of one of his own tragedies--the tragedy in this instance consisting of clever parodies of portions of all the dramas then in vogue. _The Rehearsal_ does not seem to have been produced in this country, although _The Critic_ of Sheridan, obviously based upon it, was performed at the John Street Theatre, New York, November 24th, 1788, when President Washington honored the entertainment with his presence. The cast has not been preserved, although William Winter believes Mr. Wignell to have played Puff, Mr. Ryan Whiskerandos, and Mrs. Morris (the second wife of Owen Morris) Tilberina. _The Critic_ still survives, as Mr. Daly's audiences well remember.

Burlesque upon the American stage, although not yet American burlesque, dates back to the very beginning of the history of the theatre in this country, when _The Beggar's Opera_, by John Gay, "written in ridicule of the musical Italian drama," was presented at the theatre in Nassau Street, New York, on the 3d of December, 1750, with Thomas Kean as Captain Macheath. _The Beggar's Opera_ was first acted at Lincoln's Inn Fields in 1727, and took the town by storm. The Archbishop of Canterbury preached a sermon against it; Sir John Fielding, the police-justice, officially begged the manager not to present it on _Saturday evenings_, as it inspired the idle apprentices of London, who saw it on their night off, to imitate its hero's thieving deeds; and a certain critic condemned it as "the parent of that most monstrous of all absurdities, the comic opera." Nevertheless it was immensely popular, and enjoyed an unusually long run. As a literary production it is distinguished for its combination of nature, pathos, satire, and burlesque. It brought fame to its author, and, indirectly, something like wealth; and it made a duchess of Lavinia Fenton, who was the original Polly. As that monstrous absurdity the comic opera is without question the parent of that still more monstrous absurdity the burlesque proper, Polly Peachum and Captain Macheath may be considered the very Pilgrim Parents of burlesque in the New World. They were followed almost immediately (February 25, 1751) by _Damon and Phillada, a Ballad Farce_, by Colley Cibber. Their Plymouth Rock very soon became too small to hold them; their descendants have taken possession of the whole land, and every _Mayflower_ that crosses the Atlantic to-day brings consignments of British blondes to swell their number. Before the Revolution Fielding's _Tom Thumb; or, The Tragedy of Tragedies_, a clever travesty, with Mrs. Hallam (Mrs. Douglas) as Queen Dollalolla, and Kane O'Hara's _Midas_, "a burlesque turning upon heathen deities, ridiculous enough in themselves, and too absurd for burlesque," had taken out their naturalization papers. _The Critic_, as has been shown, declared his intentions very shortly after the establishment of peace; and _Bombastes Furioso_ became a citizen of New York as early as 1816.

As Satan in the proverb builds invariably a chapel hard by the house of prayer, so does the demon of burlesque as surely erect his hovel next door to the palace of the legitimate tragedian. He spoils by his absurd architecture every neighborhood he enters; he even cuts off the views from the Castle of Elsinore, and disfigures the approaches to the royal tombs of the ancient Danish kings. John Poole's celebrated travesty of _Hamlet_, one of the earliest of its kind, was first published in London in 1811. George Holland, afterwards so popular upon the American stage for many years, presented Poole's play on the occasion of his first benefit in this country, March 22, 1828, appearing himself as the First Grave-digger and as Ophelia. This was about the beginning of what, for want of a better term, may be styled "legitimate burlesque" in the United States. It inspired our managers to import, and our native authors to write, travesties upon everything in the standard drama which was serious and ought to have been respected; and it led to burlesques of _Antony and Cleopatra_, _Douglas_, _Macbeth_, _Othello_, _Romeo and Juliet_, _Manfred_, _The Tempest_, _Valentine and Orson_, _Richard the Third_, _The Hunchback_, and many more; and between the years 1839, when William Mitchell opened the Olympic, and 1859, when William E. Burton made his last bow to the New York public, was laid out and built between Chambers Street and the site of Brougham's Lyceum, on Broadway, corner of Broome Street, that metropolis of burlesque upon the ruins of which the dramatic antiquary, whose name is Palmy Days, now loves to sit and ponder.

The titles of its half-forgotten streets and buildings, collected at random from its old directories, then known as the bills of the play, will recall pleasant memories and excite gentle wonder. There were, among others, _A Lad in a Wonderful Lamp_, _The Bohea Man's Girl_, _Fried Shots_ [_Freischütz_], _Her Nanny_, _Lucy Did Sham Her Moor_, and _Lucy Did Lamm Her Moor_, _Man Fred_, _Cinder Nelly_, _Wench Spy_, _Spook Wood_, _Buy It Dear_, _'Tis Made of Cashmere_ [_Bayadere; or, The Maid of Cashmere_], _The Cat's in the Larder, or, The Maid with the Parasol_ [_La Gazza Ladra; or, The Maiden of Paillaisseau_], _The Humpback_, _Mrs. Normer_, and _Richard Number Three_.

Of this metropolis William Mitchell was the first Lord Mayor. He was the inaugurator, if not the creator, of an entirely new school of dramatic architecture, which was as general, and sometimes as absurd, as the style which has since spread over the country at the expense of the reputation of good Queen Anne; and he led the popular taste for a number of years, to the great enjoyment of his clients, if not to their mental profit. William Horncastle, a good singer and a fair actor, and Dr. William K. Northall were his assistants in dramatic construction, and the authors of many of his extravagant productions. One of his earliest and most popular burlesques was entitled _La Mosquito_. It was based upon _The Tarantula_ of Fanny Elssler, and was presented at the close of his first season. An extract from the bill will give a fair idea of the quality of the fooling:

"First time in this or any other country, a new comic burlesque ballet, entitled _La Mosquito_, in which Monsieur Mitchell will make his first appearance as _une Première Danseuse_, and show his agility in a variety of terpsichorean efforts of all sorts in the genuine Bolerocachucacacavonienne style.... The ballet is founded on the well-known properties of the mosquito, whose bites render the patient exceedingly impatient, and throws him into a fit of slapping and scratching and swearing delirium, commonly termed the '_Cacoethes Scratchendi_,' causing the unfortunate being to cut capers enough for a considerable number of legs of mutton. The scene lies in Hoboken," etc.

Concerning Mitchell's performance, Dr. Northall writes, in _Before and Behind the Curtain_: "We shall long remember the comic humor with which he burlesqued the charming and graceful Fanny. The manner of his exit from the stage at the conclusion of the dance was irresistibly comic, and the serious care with which he guided himself to the side scenes, to secure a passage for his tremendous bustle, was very funny."

Mr. Mitchell's other famous burlesque parts were Man Fred, Hamlet, Willy Walters (in _The Humpback_), Sam Parr, Jap (in _Loves of the Angels_), Antony, and Richard Number Three. Very few portraits of this old actor, either in character or otherwise, are known to the collectors. The accompanying print is from a drawing made by Charles Parsons while seated in the pit of the old Olympic half a century ago, when the draughtsman--a mere lad--was beginning his professional career. The original sketch was given to Mr. Mitchell by the young artist, who received in return a pass to the theatre--the highest ambition of the boys of that period.

Mitchell was forced to retire from the mayoralty before the close of his last season at the Olympic, in 1849-50, having been deposed the previous year by William E. Burton at the Chambers Street house. As Lester Wallack said in his _Memories_, Burton did everything that Mitchell did, and did it in a better way, with better players and better plays. His first burlesque was a cruel treatment of the opera of _Lucia_, followed immediately by a heartless travesty of Dibdin's _Valentine and Orson_. These were succeeded by _The Tempest_, in which Mrs. Brougham (Miss Nelson), a lady of enormous physical size, played Ariel. A little while later Mr. Brougham played Macbeth to the Macduff of Thomas B. Johnstone, the Banquo of Oliver B. Raymond, and the Lady Macbeth of Burton himself. Mark Smith made a fascinating Norma, Leffingwell played the Stern Parient in _Villikens and his Dinah_, and Charles Fisher, in white tights, a tunic, gauze wings, and a flowing wig, pirouetted with Mrs. Skerrett in a production called _St. Cupid_, in which Mr. Burton appeared as Queen Bee, a Gypsy Woman.

It would be an easy matter to fill many of these pages with stories of the humorous productions and the laughable performances of Burton and Brougham on the Chambers Street boards. The literature of the American theatre overflows with anecdotes of their quarrels and their reconciliations upon the stage, their jokes upon each other, their impromptu wit, their unexpected "gags"--which were always looked for--the liberties they took with their authors, their audiences, and themselves, and, above all, with their incomparable acting in every part, whether it was serious or frivolous.

The last, and in many respects the greatest, of the trio of actors, authors, and managers who may be considered the founders of American burlesque, began his brilliant but brief reign at the Lyceum, at Broome Street, late in 1850, about the time of the retirement of Mitchell, and long before his later rival, Burton, was ready to lay down his sceptre. If America has ever had an Aristophanes, John Brougham was his name. His _Pocahontas_ and _Columbus_ are almost classics. They rank among the best, if they are not the very best, burlesques in any living language. Their wit is never coarse, they ridicule nothing which is not a fit subject for ridicule, they outrage no serious sentiment, they hurt no feelings, they offend no portion of the community, they shock no modesty, they never blaspheme; and, as Dr. Benjamin Ellis Martin has happily expressed it, their author was "the first to give to burlesque its crowning comic conceit of utter earnestness, of solemn seriousness."

The Lyceum was opened on the 23d of December, 1850, with "an occasional rigmarole entitled _Brougham, and Co._," which introduced the entire company to the public. The next absurdity was _A Row at the Lyceum_, with Mr. Florence in the gallery, Mr. Brougham himself in the pit, and the rest of the _dramatis personæ_ upon the stage; and shortly before the abrupt close of Mr. Brougham's management he presented _What Shall We Do for Something New?_ in which Mrs. Brougham appeared as Rudolpho, Mrs. Skerrett as Elvino, and Mr. Johnstone as Amina, in a travesty upon _La Sonnambula_.

Upon the same stage, on Christmas Eve, 1855, but under the management of the elder Wallack, Brougham produced his "Original, Aboriginal, Erratic, Operatic, Semi-civilized, and Demi-savage Extravaganza of _Pocahontas_." The scenery, as announced, was painted from daguerreotypes and other authentic documents, the costumes were cut from original plates, and the music was dislocated and reset, by the heads of the different departments of the theatre. Charles Walcot played John Smith, "according to this story, but somewhat in variance with his story"; Miss Hodson played the titular part, and Mr. Brougham represented "Pow-Ha-Tan I., King of the Tuscaroras--a Crotchety Monarch, in fact a Semi-Brave." At the close of the opening song (to the air of "Hoky-poky-winky-wum") he thus addressed his people:

"Well roared, indeed, my jolly Tuscaroras. Most loyal corps, your King encores your chorus;"

and until the fall of the curtain, at the end of the second and last act, the scintillations of wit and the thunder of puns were incessant and startling. "May I ask," says Col-o-gog (J. H. Stoddart), "in the word _lie_, what vowel do you use, sir, _i_ or _y_?"

"Y, sir, or I, sir, search the vowels through, And find the one most consonant to you."

Later the King cries:

"Sergeant-at-arms, say, what alarms the crowd; Loud noise annoys us; why is it allowed?"

And Captain Smith, describing his first introduction at the royal court, says:

"I visited his Majesty's abode, A portly savage, plump and pigeon-toed; Like Metamora, both in feet and feature, I never met-a-more-a-musing creature."

In a more serious but not less happy vein is the apostrophe to tobacco, by the smoking, joking Powhatan, as follows:

"While other joys one sense alone can measure, This to all senses gives ecstatic pleasure. You _feel_ the radiance of the glowing bowl, _Hear_ the soft murmurs of the kindling coal, _Smell_ the sweet fragrance of the honey-dew, _Taste_ its strong pungency the palate through, _See_ the blue cloudlets circling to the dome, Imprisoned skies up-floating to their home-- I like a dhudeen myself!"

And so he joked and smoked his way into a popularity which no stage monarch has enjoyed before or since. _Pocahontas_ ran for many weeks, and was frequently repeated for many years. The story of the sudden departure of the original Pocahontas one night without a word of warning, and the successful performance of the piece by Brougham and Walcot, with no one to play the titular part at all, is as familiar in the theatrical annals as the sadder stories of Woffington's last appearance, and the death of Palmer on the stage; and no doubt it will be remembered long after _Pocahontas_ itself, despite its cleverness, is quite forgotten.

"_Columbus el Filibustero_, a New and Audaciously Original, Historico-plagiaristic, Ante-national, Pre-patriotic, and Omni-local Confusion of Circumstances. Running through Two Acts and Four Centuries," was first performed at Burton's Theatre (Broadway, opposite Bond Street, afterwards the Winter Garden) on the 31st of December, 1857; Mark Smith playing Ferdinand, Lawrence Barrett Talavera, Miss Lizzie Weston Davenport Columbia, and Mr. Brougham himself Columbus. It is a more serious production than _Pocahontas_; the satire is more subtle, and the thought more delicate. It contains no play upon words, is not filled with startling absurdities, and is pathetic rather than uproariously funny. While _Pocahontas_ inspires nothing but laughter, _Columbus_ excites sympathy, and oftentimes he has moved his audiences to the verge of tears. He is a much-abused, simple, honest old man, full of sublime ideas, and long ahead of his times. He dreams prophetic dreams, and in his visions he

"sees a land Where Nature seems to frame with practised hand Her last most wondrous work. Before him rise Mountains of solid rock that rift the skies, Imperial valleys with rich verdure crowned For leagues illimitable smile around, While through them subject seas for rivers run From ice-bound tracks to where the tropic sun Breeds in the teeming ooze strange monstrous things. He sees, upswelling from exhaustless springs, Great lakes appear, upon whose surface wide The banded navies of the earth may ride. He sees tremendous cataracts emerge From cloud-aspiring heights, whose slippery verge Tremendous oceans momently roll o'er, Assaulting with unmitigated roar The stunned and shattered ear of trembling day, That, wounded, weeps in glistening tears of spray."

In short, he sees so much that is beyond the comprehension of the ordinary play-goer, that for thirty years he has been left in absolute retirement in that Forrest Home for good old plays which is styled _French's Minor Drama_.

One of Brougham's last burlesque productions was his _Much Ado About a Merchant of Venice_, presented March 8, 1869, at the little theatre on Twenty-fourth Street, New York, which has since borne so many names, and now, rebuilt, is known as the Madison Square. He played Shylock, Miss Effie Germon Lorenzo, and Mrs. J. J. Prior Portia. This was his final effort at theatrical management. He appeared in _Pocahontas_ as late as 1876, but Shylock was his last original burlesque part which is worthy of serious mention.

Francis Talfourd's _Shylock; or, The Merchant of Venice Preserved, a Jerusalem Hearty Joke_, is a much older production than Brougham's travesty of the same play, with which it should not be confounded. Frederic Robson was the original Shylock in London, Tom Johnstone in New York (at Burton's, October 9, 1853). M. W. Leffingwell gave an admirable performance of Talfourd's _Shylock_ in September, 1867, on the stage of this same little Twenty-fourth Street theatre, assisted by Miss Lina Edwin as Jessica. Mr. Leffingwell was a very versatile actor although he excelled in burlesque and broadly extravagant parts. He will be remembered as Romeo Jaffier Jenkins, in _Too Much for Good Nature_, and in travesties of _Cinderella_ and _Fra Diavolo_. In the last absurdity, as Beppo, made up in very clever imitation of Forrest as the Gladiator, and enormously padded, he strutted about the stage for many moments, entirely unconscious of a large carving-fork stuck into the sawdust which formed the calf of his gladiatorial leg. His look of agony and his roar of anguish--perfect reflections of Forrest's voice and action--when his attention was called to his physical suffering, made one of the most ludicrous scenes in the whole history of American burlesque. Mr. Forrest is said to have remarked of a lithograph of Leffingwell in this part, that while the portrait of himself was not so bad, the characteristics were somewhat exaggerated! Leffingwell was, no doubt, the original of the full length, life-sized effigy of Forrest which serves as the sign for a cigar store on one of the leading thoroughfares of New York to-day.

Madame Tostée, in 1867, with the _Grand Duchess_, and Miss Lydia Thompson, the next season, with _Ixion_--although neither of these can be considered American burlesques--gave new life to burlesque in America; and for a number of years burlesque was rampant upon the American stage; many leading comedians of later days, who will hardly be associated with that style of performance by the theatre-goers of the present generation, devoting themselves to travestie and extravaganza. Among the most successful of these may be mentioned William J. Florence, Stuart Robson, James Lewis, and Harry Beckett. The last gentleman was exceedingly comic, and at the same time always refined and artistic in such parts as Minerva in _Ixion_, Hassarac in _The Forty Thieves_, the Widow Twankey in _Aladdin_, Maid Marian in _Robin Hood_, and Queen Elizabeth in _Kenilworth_ long before he became the established low comedian of Mr. Lester Wallack's company, and won such well-merited popularity by his clever representations of characters as divergent as Tony Lumpkin, Harvey Duff, in _The Shaughraun_, and Mark Meddle.

In January, 1869, Mr. and Mrs. Florence played an engagement of extravaganza at Wood's Museum--now Daly's Theatre--on Broadway, near Thirtieth Street, presenting _The Field of the Cloth of Gold_, in which Mr. Florence assumed the character of Francis First, Louis Mestayer Henry Eighth, Mrs. Florence Lady Constance, Miss Lillie Eldridge La Sieur de Boissy, and Miss Rose Massey (her first appearance in America) Lord Darnley. The feature of this performance, naturally, was the grand tournament upon the plain between Ardres and Guisnes, in which the rival monarchs fought for the international championship with boxing gloves in the roped arena, and according to the rules of the prize-ring, the police finally breaking up the match and carrying both combatants into the ignominious lockup. Older play-goers will remember Mr. Florence years before this as Eily O'Conner, in a burlesque of _The Colleen Bawn_, and as Beppo "a very Heavy Villain of the Bowery Drama in Kirby's days," in _Fra Diavolo_, Mrs. Florence making a marvellous Danny Mann in the former piece.

While Mr. Florence was taking gross liberties with the personality of Francis First at Wood's, Mr. Lewis was doing cruel injustice to the character of Lucretia Borgia at the Waverley Theatre, 720 Broadway, under the management of Miss Elise Holt, who played Gennaro. The palace of the Borgias was "set" as a modern apothecary's shop, where poison was sold in large or small quantities, and Mr. Lewis excited roars of laughter as a quack doctress, with great capabilities of advertising herself and her nostrums. During the same engagement Mr. Lewis played Rebecca in _Ivanhoe_, and Oenone in _Paris_; but he joined Mr. Daly's company a few months later, and the legitimate has since marked him for its own.

At the Fifth Avenue Theatre, and afterwards at Wallack's, in this same summer of 1869, Stuart Robson made a great hit as Captain Crosstree, in F. C. Burnand's travesty of _Black-eyed Susan_, a part originally played in this country during the previous season by Mark Smith. Mr. Robson had the support of Harry Pearson as Doggrass, of Miss Kitty Blanchard as William, and of Miss Mary Cary as Susan. The entertainment, as a whole, was unusually good, full of exquisite drollery and grotesque fancy, although Captain Crosstree eclipsed every other feature. His "make up" was a marvel of absurdity, his naturally slight figure was literally blown to an enormous size, the contrast between his immense physical rotundity and his thin, inimitably squeaky little voice being exceedingly ludicrous.

During this season the Lydia Thompson troupe was in the full tide of its success; William Horace Lingard and Miss Alice Dunning were playing _Pluto_ and _Orpheus in New York_; every negro minstrel and variety performer was burlesquing some person or some thing every night in the week, and opera-bouffe had taken possession of half of the theatres in the land.

The most successful burlesque of those times, and the entertainment which is most fresh in the memory, was "The New Version of Shakspere's Masterpiece of _Hamlet_, as arranged by T. C. De Leon, of Mobile, for George L. Fox," and first presented in New York at the Olympic (formerly Laura Keene's) Theatre, on Broadway, February 14, 1870. Although not an improvement upon the original acting version of the tragedy, it was an improvement upon the general run of burlesques of its generation; it did not depend upon lime-lights or upon anatomical display, and it did not harrow up the young blood of its auditors by its horrible plays upon unoffending words. It followed the text of Shakspere closely enough to preserve the plot of the story; it contained, as well, a great deal that was ludicrous and bright, and it never sank into imbecility or indelicacy, which is saying much for a burlesque. Mr. Fox, one of the few really funny men of his day upon the American stage, was at his best in this travesty of _Hamlet_. Quite out of the line of the pantomimic clown by which he is now remembered, it was as supremely absurd, as expressed upon his face and in his action, as was his _Humpty Dumpty_. It was perhaps more a burlesque of Edwin Booth--after whom in the character he played and dressed--than of Hamlet, and probably no one enjoyed this more thoroughly, or laughed at it more heartily, than did Mr. Booth himself. While Fox at times was wonderfully like Booth in attitude, look, and voice, he would suddenly assume the accent and expression of Fechter, whom he counterfeited admirably, and again give a most intense passage in the wonderfully deep tones of Studley, at the Bowery. To see Mr. Fox pacing the platform before the Castle of Elsinore, protected against the eager and the nipping air of the night by a fur cap and collar, and with mittens and arctic overshoes, over the traditional costume of Hamlet; to see the woful melancholy of his face as he spoke the most absurd of lines; to watch the horror expressed upon his countenance when the Ghost appeared; to hear his familiar conversation with that Ghost, and his untraditional profanity when commanded by the Ghost to "swear"--all expressed, now in the style of Fechter, now of Studley, now of Booth--was as thoroughly and ridiculously enjoyable as any piece of acting our stage has seen since Burton and Mitchell were at their funniest, so many years before. He was startling in his recommendation of a brewery as a place of refuge for Ophelia, and in the church-yard his "business" was new and quite original, particularly the apostrophe to the skull of Yorick, who, he seemed to think, was laughing now on the wrong side of his face. Fox was one of the earliest Hamlets to realize that the skull even of a jester, when it has lain in the earth three-and-twenty years, is not a pleasant object to touch or smell, although very interesting in itself to point a moral, or for its association's sake; and the expression of his face, as he threw the skull of the dead jester at the quick head of the First Grave-digger, was more suggestive to the close observer of the base uses to which we may all return than any "Alas, poor Yorick!" ever uttered.

_Hamlet_ at the Olympic was played for ten consecutive weeks. The general cast was not particularly strong or remarkable, except in the Ophelia of Miss Belle Howett. She was serious, and surprisingly effective in the mad scene, and often the superior of many of the representatives of Ophelia in the original tragedy, who unwittingly have burlesqued what the burlesque actress, perhaps as unwittingly, played conscientiously and well.

The travesty of _Hamlet_ by Mr. Fox is dwelt upon particularly here as being in many respects one of the best the American stage has ever seen, and as giving the present writer an opportunity of paying just tribute to the memory of an actor who, like so many of his professional brethren, was never properly appreciated during his life, and who never before--not even in William Winter's usually complete _Brief Chronicles_--has received more than a passing notice in the long records of the stage he did so much to adorn.

George L. Fox was not always the clown and pantomimist of the _Humpty Dumpty_ absurdity in which he is now remembered. He excelled in burlesque, as his Hamlet and Richelieu and Macbeth have shown. As a Shaksperean comedian his Bottom ranks among the best within the memory of men still living, while in standard low comedy, melodramatic, and even in tragedy parts, he had no little experience and some decided success. He made his first appearance in 1830 at the Tremont Street Theatre, in Boston, when he was but five years of age. The play was _The Children of the Alps_, and the occasion a benefit to Charles Kean. He played Phineas Fletcher, in the drama of _Uncle Tom's Cabin_, during its famous run of so many nights at the National Theatre, New York, in 1853-54. He excelled as Mark Meddle, as Trip, as Jacques Strop, in _Robert Macaire_, as Tom Tape, in _Sketches in India_, as Box, as Cox, and as Sundown Bowse, in _Horizon_.

Bottom was his most finished and artistic assumption, Hamlet probably his most amusing, and Humpty Dumpty his most successful. He played the latter part some fifteen hundred times in New York and elsewhere. It was the last part he ever attempted to play, and only as a clown does he exist in the minds of the men of to-day who think of him at all. He first appeared in New York at the National Theatre, in 1850; he was last seen at Booth's Theatre on the 25th of November, 1875--the saddest clown who ever chalked his face. After twenty years of constant, faithful service as public jester--shattered in health, broken in spirit, shaken in mind--he disappeared forever from public view. Alas, poor Yorick!

One of the most popular as well as the longest lived of the contemporary burlesques is _Evangeline_, in the construction or reconstruction of which Mr. Brougham is known to have had a share. As a travesty upon a purely American subject, originally treated, of course, in all seriousness by an illustrious American, Mr. Longfellow, and at the suggestion of an American equally illustrious, Mr. Hawthorne, _Evangeline_ may surely claim to be an aboriginal production; it merits its success, and with a certain degree of national pride it may be recorded here that it has been repeated upon the American stage over five thousand times. In it, at the Fifth Avenue Theatre, in Twenty-eighth Street, New York, during the summer of 1877, Miss Eliza Weathersby, as Gabrielle, made a pleasant impression, William H. Crane appeared as Le Blanc, George H. Knight gave a series of wonderful imitations of the Hero of New Orleans, N. C. Goodwin came prominently before the public, and Harry Hunter, although not the original in the part, created a decided sensation as the Lone Fisherman, one of the drollest dramatic conceptions of modern times. He had no connection whatever with the play, had not a word to say, was entirely unnoticed by his fellow-players, paid no attention to anybody, but was always present--the first to enter, the last to leave every scene. With his ridiculous costume, his palm-leaf fan, his fishing-rod, his camp-stool, he pervaded everything, was ever prominent, never obtrusive, and exceedingly mirth-provoking. It may be added that Henry Dixey, whose Adonis is one of the best of modern burlesque performances, made, during the long run of _Evangeline_, his New York _début_ as the fore-legs of the heifer!

Amusement seekers in the metropolis will remember with pleasure Willie Edouin, Mrs. James Oates, and scores of other burlesque actors, excellent in many ways, whom it will not be possible even to mention here. N. C. Goodwin burlesqued a burlesque at Harrigan and Hart's first theatre, when he played Captain Stuart Robson-Crosstree to the Dame Hadley of Mr. Harrigan and the Black-eyed Susan of Mr. Hart; at the same house G. K. Fortescue played Lousqueeze to Mr. Hart's Hungry-Yet and Mr. Harrigan's Pierre, in a play styled _The Two Awfuls_. The San Francisco Minstrels at the same time presented _The Four Orphans and the Big Banana_, a burlesque upon two dramas of great popularity and no little merit.

The subject of American burlesque can hardly be dismissed here without some brief allusion to a number of very clever parodies seen of late years upon the amateur stage. The poets of the various college associations have turned their muse in the direction of travesty, and with considerable success; one of the best and most popular of the entertainments of the Hasty Pudding Club, the _Dido and Æneas_ of Owen Wister, the grandson of Fanny Kemble, being a production worthy of professional talent. John K. Bangs has written for amateur companies _Katherine_, _The Story of the Shrew_, and _Mephistopheles, a Profanation_. In the first the tamer of Shakspere finds the tables turned, and is himself tamed; while in the latter Faust's mother-in-law, the good fairy of the piece, outwits the evil genius and frustrates his designs; a power of invention on the part of Mr. Bangs which proves him to be, perhaps, the only true son of the Father of Burlesque, Hipponax himself.

But to return to the "palmy days of burlesque," before the period of opera-bouffe, and the coming of the English blondes. When stock companies were the rule, and Mitchell and Burton controlled the stock, singing and dancing were as much a part of every actor's education as elocution and gesture; and it was not considered beneath the dignity of the Rip Van Winkle or the Hamlet of one night to travesty parts equally serious the next. Mr. Booth, early in his career, appeared in such entertainments as _Blue Beard_; and Mr. Jefferson was enormously popular as Beppo, Hiawatha, Pan (in _Midas_), the Tycoon, and Mazeppa--old play-bills recording his appearance as Granby Gag to the Jenny Lind of Mrs. John Wood, "with his original grape-vine twist and burlesque break-down." His performance of Mazeppa at the Winter Garden in 1861 is still a pleasant memory in many minds. In it he sang "his celebrated aria, 'The Victim of Despair'"; and his daring act upon the bare back of the wild rocking-horse of the toy-shops was, perhaps, the most remarkable performance of its kind ever witnessed by a danger-loving public. During his several engagements at the Winter Garden Mr. Jefferson was supported by Mrs. John Wood (particularly as Ivanhoe to his Sir Brian), one of the best burlesque actresses our stage has known. Her Pocahontas was never excelled. She played it at Niblo's to the Powhatan of Mark Smith in March, 1872; and almost her last appearance upon the New York stage was made at the Grand Opera-house in November of the same year, in John Brougham's burlesque _King Carrot_, when that humorist remarked, although not of Mrs. Wood, that he was supported by vegetable "supes."

That burlesque "came natural" to Mr. Jefferson is shown in the wonderful successes of his half-brother, Charles Burke, in burlesque parts. Mr. Burke's admirers, even at the end of thirty-five years, still speak enthusiastically of his comic Iago, of his Clod Meddlenot (in _The Lady of the Lions_), of his Mr. MacGreedy (Mr. Macready), of his Kazrac (in _Aladdin_), and of his Met-a-roarer, in which he gave absurd imitations of Mr. Forrest as the Last of the Wampanoags.

No history of American burlesque could be complete without some mention of the name of Daniel Setchell. His Leah the Forsook, and Mark Smith's Madeline are remembered as pleasantly in New York as his Macbeth and Edwin Adams's Macduff are remembered in Boston. William H. Crane places the Macduff of Adams--he dressed in the volunteer uniform of the first year of the war, and read lines ridiculous beyond measure with all of the magnificent effect his wonderful voice and perfect elocution could give them--as the finest piece of burlesque acting it has ever been his good-fortune to see. But the stories told by the old comedians of the extravagant comedy performances of their contemporaries in other days, if they could be collected here, would extend this chapter far beyond the limits of becoming space.

Whether the burlesque of the present is comparable with the burlesque of the past is an open question, much debated. Mr. Wilson in the _Oolah_, Mr. Hopper as Juliet, Mr. Powers in _The Marquis_, Mr. Goodwin in _Little Jack Sheppard_, Mr. Burgess as the Widow Bedott--if she can be considered a burlesque part--and other men and women who burlesque women and men and things to-day, are, without question, very clever performers; the laughs they raise are as hearty and prolonged as any which paid tribute to the talents of the comedians who went before them; and it is unjust, perhaps, to judge them by high standards which live only in the memory, and grow higher as distance lends enchantment to their view. As Lawrence Barrett has said, "the actor is a sculptor who carves his image in snow." The burlesque which has melted from our sight seems to us, as we look back at it, to be purer and cleaner than the frozen burlesque upon which the sun as yet has made no impression; and the figure of Pocahontas, gone with the lost arts, seems more beautiful than the Evangeline of the modern school. When the Adonis of the present counterfeits the deep tragedian he is guilty of imitation, and of clever imitation, but nothing more; when he represents the clerk in the country store he gives an admirable piece of comedy acting; but he never rises to the sublime heights of Columbus, as Columbus is remembered by those who saw him before Hoolah Goolah was born.

If American burlesque did not die with John Brougham, it has hardly yet recovered from the shock of his death; and he certainly deserves a colossal statue in its Pantheon.