A Book of Burlesque: Sketches of English Stage Travestie and Parody
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I.
THE BEGINNINGS OF BURLESQUE.
Who shall say when the spirit of burlesque first made its appearance onour stage? There were traces of it, we may be sure, in the Mysteriesand Moralities of pre-Elizabethan days; the monkish dramatists were notdevoid of humour, and the first lay playwrights had a rough sense ofridicule. The "Vice" which figured in so many of our rude old dramashad in him an element of satire, and the pictures drawn of his SatanicMajesty were conscious or unconscious caricatures of the popularconception of the Evil One.
In all these cases, however, the burlesque was general. It was of thenature of travestie, and of the vaguest sort. Of particular parody onefinds but few signs in the Elizabethan drama. There is a little of itin Shakespeare, where he pokes fun at the turgidity of contemporarytragedy or at the obscurity of contemporary Euphuism. The Pyramus andThisbe episode is less burlesque than satire. It is an _expose_ ofthe absurdities of the amateur performer, for whom Shakespeare, as aprofessional actor, could have only an amused contempt.
"The Bard" parodied, but he did not burlesque. That was left to theinitiative of the gifted literary Dioscuri, Beaumont and Fletcher."The Knight of the Burning Pestle," which saw the light in 1611, isnot wholly a travestie, but it contains a travestie within itself. Inthe main it is a dramatic exposition of a love story, the scene ofwhich is laid in the middle-class life of the time. Ralph, the Knightof the Burning Pestle, is by no means the hero of the tale; rather ishe an excrescence upon it. A grocer and his wife sit on the stage,and suggest to the actors that Ralph, their apprentice, shall takepart in the performance. They want a play in which a grocer shall do"admirable things," and Ralph is bound to do them. The apprentice, itwould seem, is an amateur actor--he "hath played before," and so findsno difficulty in adapting himself to the situation. When he enters, itis "like a grocer in his shop, with two prentices, reading 'Palmerin ofEngland.'" This gives us the key to the satire. Ralph is to burlesquethe romances of chivalry, which were then so common in England, aselsewhere. "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:--
Certainly those knights are much to be commended who, neglecting their possessions, wander with a squire and a dwarf through the deserts to relieve poor ladies.... There are no such courteous and fair well-spoken knights in this age.
He whom Palmerin would have called "Fair Sir," and she whom Rosiclearwould have called "Right beauteous Damsel," are now spoken ofopprobriously. But why should not Ralph be the means of wiping out thisreproach?--
Why should I not pursue this course, both for the credit of myself and our company? For amongst all the worthy books of achievements, I do not call to mind that I yet read of a grocer-errant: I will be the said knight. Have you heard of any that hath wandered unfurnished of his squire and dwarf? Thy elder prentice Tim shall be my trusty squire, and little George my dwarf. Hence, my blue apron! Yet, in remembrance of my former trade, upon my shield shall be portrayed a burning pestle, and I will be called the Knight of the Burning Pestle. My beloved squire, and George my dwarf, I charge you that henceforth you never call me by any other name but "the right courteous and valiant Knight of the Burning Pestle"; and that you never call any female by the name of a woman or wench, but "fair lady," if she have her desires; if not, "distressed damsel"; that you call all forests and heaths "deserts," and all horses "palfreys."
After this, Ralph reappears at various points in the action. Heinterposes, Quixote-like, in the aforesaid love-affair, and getsbelaboured by the favoured lover for his pains. Later, he puts up atan inn, and, about to leave, is surprised when the tapster draws hisattention to the fact that the reckoning is not paid:--
_Ralph._ Right courteous Knight, who for the order's sake Which thou hast ta'en, hang'st out the holy Bell, As I this flaming pestle bear about, We render thanks to your puissant self, Your beauteous lady, and your gentle squires, For thus refreshing of our wearied limbs, Stiffen'd with hard achievements in wild desert.
_Tapster._ Sir, there is twelve shillings to pay.
_Ralph._ Thou merry squire Tapstero, thanks to thee For comforting our souls with double jug: And if adventurous fortune prick thee forth, Thou jovial squire, to follow feats of arms, Take heed thou tender ev'ry lady's cause, Ev'ry true knight, and ev'ry damsel fair, But spill the blood of treacherous Saracens, And false enchanters that with magic spells Have done to death full many a noble knight.
_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 notbate a penny....
_Ralph._ Sir knight, this mirth of yours becomes you well; But, to requite this liberal courtesy, If any of your squires will follow arms, He shall receive from my heroic hand A knighthood, by the virtue of this pestle.
The host, however, insists upon receiving his twelve shillings, and thegrocer's wife, in great fear lest harm shall befall her Ralph, requestsher husband to pay the money. In a subsequent scene, Ralph conquersthe giant Barbaroso, and releases his captives. By-and-by he goes intoMoldavia, where he touches the heart of the king's daughter, but tellsher that he has already pledged his troth to Susan, "a cobbler's maidin Malte Street," whom he vowed never to forsake. At the end of theplay he comes on to explain, at length, that he is dead, taking theopportunity to recount his various performances.
The fun is never very brilliant; and the "Knight of the Pestle," albeitby writers so distinguished, is not, for the present-day Englishman,particularly exhilarating reading. One can imagine, however, how drollit seemed to our ancestors, with whom it remained popular for over halfa century, surviving till the time of Mistress Eleanor Gwynne, who oncespoke the prologue to it.
Our first burlesque, then, was a satire upon exaggerated fiction. Oursecond was a satire upon extravagant plays. It is possible that "TheRehearsal" was represented before "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, Dukeof Buckingham; but probably there were several hands engaged in it. Itwas the outcome of the boredom and the laughter caused by the wildnessand bombast of the Restoration plays. There were some things in thestage of that day which the wits could not abide:--
Here brisk insipid rogues, for wit, let fall Sometimes dull sense; but oft'ner none at all. There, strutting heroes, with a grim-fac'd train, Shall brave the gods, in King Cambyses' vein. For (changing rules, of late, as if man writ In spite of reason, nature, art, and wit) Our poets make us laugh at tragedy, And with their comedies they make us cry.
So runs the prologue to "The Rehearsal," which was destined to strikethe first blow at the mechanical dramas that had succeeded themasterpieces of the Shakespearian period. Bayes, the playwright whosetragedy is supposed to be "rehearsed," is usually accepted as a skitupon Dryden, whose dress, speech, and manner were openly mimicked byLacy, the interpreter of the part. But there is reason to believethat Davenant first sat for the portrait, and in the end Bayes becamea sort of incarnated parody of all the Restoration playwrights. Thispreposterous play travesties a whole school of dramatic writing. Dramasby Dryden, Davenant, James and Henry Howard, Mrs. Behn, and Sir WilliamKilligrew and others, are directly satirised in certain passages; butin the main the satire is general. For instance, in one place fun ismade of the prevalence of similes in the dramas aimed at. PrincePrettyman, in the rehearsed play, falls asleep, and Chloris, coming in,finds him in that situation:--
_Bayes._ Now, here she must make a simile.
_Smith_ (one of the spectators). Where's the necessity of that, Mr. Bayes?
_Bayes._ Because she's surpris'd. That's a general rule: you must ever make a simile when you are surpris'd; 'tis the new way of writing.
Elsewhere it is confusion of metaphor, very common among thesecon
d-rate "tragedians," that is derided. Says the physician in theplay:--
All these threat'ning storms, which, like impregnant clouds, do hover o'er our heads (when once they are grasped but by the eye of reason), melt into fruitful showers of blessings on the people.
_Bayes._ Pray mark that allegory. Is not that good?
_Johnson_ (another spectator). Yes, that grasping of a storm with the eye is admirable.
In one place, Smith, the aforesaid onlooker, complains that, amid allthe talk, the plot stands still; to which Bayes replies, "Why, what thedevil is the plot good for but to bring in fine things?" At anotherjuncture we have the first hint of a bit of persiflage which Sheridanafterwards imitated in "The Critic." It has reference to the portentousreticence of some of the dialogue in Restoration plays. An usher and aphysician are on the stage:--
_Phys._ If Lorenzo should prove false (which none but the great gods can tell) you then perhaps would find that---- (_whispers_).
_Usher._ Alone, do you say?
_Phys._ No, attended with the noble---- (_whispers_).
_Usher._ Who, he in grey?
_Phys._ Yes, and at the head of---- (_whispers_).
_Usher._ Then, sir, most certain 'twill in time appear, These are the reasons that have induc'd 'em to't; First, he---- (_whispers_). Secondly, they---- (_whispers_). Thirdly, and lastly, both he and they---- (_whispers_).
[Exeunt whispering.
"Well, sir," says Smith to Bayes, "but pray, why all this whispering?""Why, sir," replies the dramatist, "because they are supposed to bepoliticians, and matters of state ought not to be divulg'd."
In its direct travestie "The Rehearsal" is often very happy. Drydenhad claimed for his tragedies that they were written by "th' exactestrules"; so Bayes exhibits to his friends Smith and Johnson what hecalls his "Book of Drama Commonplaces, the mother of many plays,"containing "certain helps that we men of art have found it convenientto make use of." "I do here aver," he says, "that no man yet the sune'er shone upon has parts sufficient to furnish out a stage, exceptit were by the help of these my rules." Davenant, in his "Love andHonour," had portrayed a mental and spiritual struggle between thosepotent forces. Bayes, accordingly, is made to introduce a scene inwhich Prince Volscius, sitting down to pull on his boots, wonderswhether he ought or ought not to perform that operation:--
My legs, the emblem of my various thought, Show to what sad distraction I am brought. Sometimes, with stubborn Honour, like this boot, My mind is guarded, and resolv'd to do't: Sometimes, again, that very mind, by Love Disarmed, like this other leg does prove. Shall I to Honour or to Love give way? Go on, cries Honour; tender Love says, Nay; Honour aloud commands, Pluck both boots on; But softer Love does whisper, Put on none.
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 whichthe host supplied his guests with a collation out of his clothes--acapon from his helmet, cream out of his scabbard, and so on. In likemanner, Pallas, in Mr. Bayes's tragedy, furnishes forth the twousurping kings:--
Lo, from this conquering lance Does flow the purest wine of France: And to appease your hunger, I Have in my helmet brought a pie; Lastly, to bear a part with these, Behold a buckler made of cheese.
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--
He who dares love, and for that love must die, And, knowing this, dares yet love on, am I,--
the latter caps it with--
He that dares drink, and for that drink dares die, And knowing this, dares yet drink on, am I.
Again, while Almanzor says to his rival in love--
Thou dar'st not marry her, while I'm in sight; With a bent brow, thy priest and thee I'll fright,--
Drawcansir, snatching the bowls of wine from the usurpers, cries--
Whoe'er to gulp one drop of this dare think, I'll stare away his very power to drink.
The simile of the boar and the sow has often been quoted; it seemsto have been always a favourite with our playgoing ancestors. In "TheConquest of Granada" we read:--
So two kind turtles, when a storm is nigh, Look up, and see it gathering in the sky.... Perch'd on some dropping branch, they sit alone, And coo and hearken to each other's moan.
Mr. Bayes imitated this in what he called "one of the most delicate,dainty similes in the world, egad":--
So boar and sow, when any storm is nigh, Snuff up, and smell it gath'ring in the sky.... Pensive in mud they wallow all alone, And snort and gruntle to each other's moan.
The example set by Buckingham in "The Rehearsal" was followed, morethan half a century later, by Henry Fielding, in "The Tragedy ofTragedies, or the Life and Death of Tom Thumb the Great." This wasbrought out in 1730, in two acts, and was so immediately and largelysuccessful that the author was induced to expand its two acts intothree. It was afterwards published, with elaborate notes, setting fortha number of "parallel passages" from Dryden downwards, and with apreface, in which the supposed editor, H. Scriblerus Secundus, gravelyassigned the origin of the "tragedy" to the age of Elizabeth. Aproposof parallel passages, the editor says:--
Whether this sameness of thought and expression [on the part of the authors quoted] ... proceeded from an agreement in their way of thinking, or whether they have borrowed from our author, I leave the reader to determine. I shall adventure to affirm this of the Sentiments of our author, that they are generally the most familiar which I have ever met with, and at the same time delivered with the highest dignity of phrase; which brings me to speak of his diction. Here I shall only beg one postulatum--viz., that the greatest perfection of the language of a tragedy is, that it is not to be understood; which granted (as I think it must be), it will necessarily follow that the only ways to avoid this is by being too high or too low for the understanding, which will comprehend everything within its reach.
The editor goes on to say that "our author excelleth" in both thesestyles. "He is very rarely within sight through the whole play, eitherrising higher than the eye of your understanding can soar, or sinkinglower than it careth to stoop."
Fielding does not adopt in "Tom Thumb" the machinery of "TheRehearsal." "Tom Thumb" is a burlesque tragedy, standing by itself, andintended for representation in the serious spirit which should animateall 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 inmarriage the hand of Huncamunca, the daughter of King Arthur. As heobserves:--
I ask not kingdoms, I can conquer those; I ask not money, money I've enough; For what I've done, and what I mean to do, For giants slain, and giants yet unborn Which I will slay--if this be call'd a debt, Take my receipt in full: I ask but this-- To sun myself in Huncamunca's eyes.
"Prodigious bold request," remarks the King; but he decides,nevertheless, to give Huncamunca to Tom Thumb. Unhappily, Lord Grizzleis enamoured of the princess, and, in revenge, leads an insurrectionagainst the Court. He is, however, conquered by the little hero, whois about to be wedded to his charmer, when, alas! as he is marchingin triumph through the streets, he is swallowed by "a cow, of largerthan the usual size." Queen Dollallolla, who is 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 killshimself, exclaiming--
So when the child, whom nurse from danger guards, Sends Jack for mustard with a pack of cards, Kings, queens and knaves throw one another down, Till the whole pack lies scatter'd
and o'erthrown; So all our pack upon the floor is cast, And all I boast is--that I fall the last.
We have here a happy satire upon the sanguinary conclusions givento the tragedies of the seventeenth century. Great pains, too, aretaken, throughout the "tragedy," to travestie that _bete noire_ of thehumourists, the dragged-in simile, to which not even "The Rehearsal"had given the _coup de grace_. The ghost of Tom Thumb's father is madeto say--
So have I seen the bees in clusters swarm, So have I seen the stars in frosty nights, So have I seen the sand in windy days, So have I seen the ghost on Pluto's shore, So have I seen the flowers in spring arise, So have I seen the leaves in autumn fall, So have I seen the fruits in summer smile, So have I seen the snow in winter frown.
Whereupon the king says, "D--n all thou hast seen!" Grizzle, when onthe point of expiring, cries--
Some kinder sprite knocks softly at my soul, And gently whispers it to haste away. I come, I come, most willingly I come. So, when some city wife, for country air, To Hampstead or to Highgate does repair, Her to make haste her husband does implore, And cries, "My dear, the coach is at the door": With equal wish, desirous to be gone, She gets into the coach, and then she cries, "Drive on!"
Some of the mock similes in "Tom Thumb" are among the most familiarthings in literature. We all remember the lines--
So, when two dogs are fighting in the streets, When a third dog one of the two dogs meets, With angry teeth he bites him to the bone, And this dog smarts for what that dog has done.
And these--
So, when the Cheshire cheese a maggot breeds, Another and another still succeeds; By thousands and ten thousands they increase, Till one continued maggot fills the rotten cheese.
The burlesque contained within the pages of "Tom Thumb" covers aconsiderable field. Dryden is once more very freely satirised, somenine or ten of his plays being held up to ridicule. But much attentionis at the same time paid to dramas which saw the light after theproduction of "The Rehearsal." Thus, there are allusions to the"Mithridates," "Nero," and "Brutus" of Nathaniel Lee, which belongto 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 toThomson's "Sophonisba," which had come out only in the year precedingthat in which "Tom Thumb" was performed. "O Sophonisba, Sophonisba O"(which had already been parodied in the 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--
For two I must confess are gods to me, Which is my Abradatus first, and thee.
And, in a like spirit, Huncamunca, after wedding Tom Thumb, is quitewilling to wed Grizzle:--
My ample heart for more than one has room: A maid like me Heaven form'd at least for two. I married him, and now I'll marry you,--
thereby reminding us of the obliging defendant in Mr. Gilbert's "Trialby Jury," who is ready to "marry this lady to-day, and marry the otherto-morrow." In the third act of "Cato" is a simile which Fieldingparodies thus--putting it into the mouth of Grizzle:--
So have I seen, in some dark winter's day, A sudden storm rush down the sky's highway, Sweep through the streets with terrible ding-dong, Gush thro' the spouts, and wash whole crowds along, The crowded shops the thronging vermin screen, Together cram the dirty and the clean, And not one shoe-boy in the street is seen.
Finally, we have this equally well-known passage, suggested by theremark of Lee's Mithridates that he "would be drunk with death":--
_Doodle._ My liege, I a petition have here got.
_King._ Petition me no petitions, sir, to-day; Let other hours be set apart for business. To-day it is our pleasure to be drunk, And this our queen shall be as drunk as we.
It was the fate of "Tom Thumb" to be transformed--so far as it waspossible to transform it--into a burlesque of Italian opera as wellas of conventional drama. "Set to music after the Italian manner," itwas brought out in 1733 as "The Opera of Operas," and had considerablevogue in the new guise thus given to it. It had been preceded in 1727by Gay's "Beggar's Opera"; but that famous work was a social andpolitical satire rather than a travestie of the exotic lyrical drama.It may be regarded as a species of prototype of the burletta or balladopera of later days. Not even the transformed "Tom Thumb"[1] could becalled an effective _reductio ad absurdum_ of the Italian opera ofthose days. For that the public had to wait a short time longer.
[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.
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 awhole class of dramas--the same class as that which had suggested thecomposition of "Tom Thumb."
Carey says, in his prologue:--
To-night our comic muse the buskin wears, And gives herself no small romantic airs; Struts in heroics, and in pompous verse Does the minutest incidents rehearse; In ridicule's strict retrospect displays The poetasters of these modern days, Who with big bellowing bombast rend our ears, Which, stript of sound, quite void of sense appears; Or else their fiddle-faddle numbers flow, Serenely dull, elaborately low.
"Chrononhotonthologos" is a short piece, in one act and seven scenes.It is described in its sub-title as "the most tragical tragedythat ever was tragedised by any company of tragedians," and itbears out the description tolerably well. When the curtain rises,there enter two courtiers of Queerummania--Rigdum-Funnidos andAldiborontiphoscophornio. Says the latter to the former:--
Aldiborontiphoscophornio! Where left you Chrononhotonthologos?
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 outthat he should be so inclined to doze, and very angry, consequently,with the God of Sleep. Says he:--
Sport not with Chrononhotonthologos, Thou idle slumb'rer, thou detested Somnus;
and "exits in a huff." Whereupon the two courtiers, who have retired,re-enter:--
_Rigdum._ The King is in a most cursed passion! Pray who is the Mr. Somnus he's so angry withal?
_Aldi._ The son of Chaos and of Erebus, Incestuous pair! brother of Mors relentless, Whose speckled robe, and wings of blackest hue, Astonish all mankind with hideous glare: Himself, with sable plumes, to men benevolent Brings downy slumbers and refreshing sleep.
_Rigdum._ This gentleman may come of a very good family, for aught I know; but I would not be in his place for the world.
_Aldi._ But lo! the king his footsteps this way bending, His cogitative faculties immers'd In cogibundity of cogitation.
Thereupon the king re-enters, followed almost immediately by thecaptain of the guard, who informs him that "th' antipodean pow'rsfrom realms below have burst the entrails of the earth" and threatenthe safety of the kingdom. "This world is too incopious to containthem; armies on armies march in form stupendous"--"tier on tier, highpil'd from earth to heaven." The king, however, is not alarmed. Hebids Bombardinian, his general, draw his legions forth, and orders thepriests to prepare their temples for rites of triumph:--
Let the singing singers, With vocal voices, most vociferous, In sweet vociferation, out-vociferise Ev'n sound itself.
Happily the Antipodeans (who walk upon their hands) are badly beaten,and all run away except their king, with whom, alas! Fadladinida, thewife of Chrononhotonthologos, promptly falls in love. As she
herselfsays to her favourite maiden:--
Oh, my Tatlanthe! Have you seen his face, His air, his shape, his mien, his ev'ry grace? In what a charming attitude he stands, How prettily he foots it with his hands! Well, to his arms--no, to his legs--I fly, For I must have him, if I live or die.
Meanwhile, Bombardinian has invited the King to drink wine with himin his tent. The King accepts, but, not content with liquor, asks forsomething more substantial:--
Hold, Bombardinian, I esteem it fit, With so much wine, to eat a little bit.
The cook suggests "some nice cold pork in the pantry," and is instantlyslain by the irate monarch, who, deeming that Bombardinian is "braving"him, strikes him. Whereupon the General:--
A blow! shall Bombardinian take a blow? Blush! blush, thou sun! start back, thou rapid ocean! Hills! vales! seas! mountains! all commixing crumble, And into chaos pulverise the world; For Bombardinian has receiv'd a blow, And Chrononhotonthologos must die.
[_They fight. He kills the king._
Ha! what have I done? Go, call a coach, and let a coach be call'd; And let the man that calls it be the caller; And, in his calling, let him nothing call, But coach, coach, coach! Oh, for a coach, ye gods!
[_Exit, raving._
The doctor, pronouncing the king dead, is killed by the General, whothen kills himself. The Queen mourns her widowhood, and Tatlantheproposes that she should wed Rigdum-Funnidos. To this, however,Aldiborontiphoscophornio objects; and so, to save discussion, the Queenwill give no preference to either:--
To make the matter easy, I'll have you both; and that, I hope, will please ye.
Produced in 1734, "Chrononhotonthologos" was performed at intervalsuntil 1815, when it was seen at Drury Lane, with Oxberry in thetitle-part and Dowton as the General. After that it remained outof the theatrical repertory until 1880, when Mr. John Hollingsheadrevived it, for one representation, at the Gaiety.[2] It is a slightpiece of work, but contains some elements of comicality. It willalways be esteemed by literary students, if only because the names ofRigdum-Funnidos and Aldiborontiphoscophornio struck the fancy of SirWalter Scott, who bestowed them, in fun, upon the brothers Constable,the publishers. "Aldiborontiphoscophornio" is surely the perfection ofmock-tragedy nomenclature.
It is to Carey that we owe, not only "Chrononhotonthologos," but thefirst really effective burlesque of Italian opera. In 1737 there wasbrought out at the Haymarket "The Dragon of Wantley," a "burlesqueopera," of which Carey had written the dialogue and songs, and forwhich John Frederick Lampe had composed the music. Its object,according to the author, was "to display in English the beauty ofnonsense, so prevailing in the Italian operas." The story was foundedon the old ballad, with which, however, liberties were taken. In thefirst act, the natives of "that part of Yorkshire near Rotherham" areshown in much excitement, due to the ravages of the dragon, which hasjust entered the Squire's residence and consumed all the coffee, toast,and butter that was set out for breakfast. Says one Gubbins:--
This Dragon very modish, sure, and nice is: What shall we do in this disastrous crisis?
To which his daughter Margery replies:--
A thought, to quell him, comes into my Head; No Way more proper, than to kill him dead.
[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.
Not far hence lives "a valiant knight," named Moore, of Moore Hall, whomay 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 ofMargery, and seeks to slay her with a bodkin--a fate from which Moorehappily rescues her. Mauxalinda is then threatened with quartersessions; but she cries--
O give me not up to the Law, I'd much rather beg upon Crutches; Once in a Sollicitor's Paw, You never get out of his Clutches.
Moore thereupon prepares to start for the Dragon's den:
But first I'll drink, to make me strong and mighty, Six quarts of ale, and one of Aqua Vitae.
Duly encountering the monster, Moore kills him (say the stagedirections) with a kick in the rear, the Dragon crying "Oh, oh, oh! theDevil take your toe!" After that, Gubbins declares:--
The Loves of this brave Knight, and my fair Daughter, In Roratorios shall be sung hereafter. Begin your Songs of Joy; begin, begin, And rend the Welkin with harmonious Din.
Thereupon there is this general chorus:--
Sing, sing, and rorio An Oratorio, To gallant Morio, Of Moore Hall. To Margereenia Of Roth'ram Greenia, Beauty's bright Queenia, Bellow and bawl.
"The music," says the chronicler, "was made as grand and pompous aspossible, to heighten the contrast between that and the words"--thusanticipating the comic method which has been utilised with so muchsuccess by Mr. Gilbert and Sir Arthur Sullivan.
From "The Dragon of Wantley," which, as might be expected, hada very considerable vogue, we come to "The Critic, or a TragedyRehearsed"--the last, and not the least, of Sheridan's dramatic works,produced in Drury Lane in 1779. Of so familiar a piece, what is thereto be said? Is it not played with tolerable frequency at "benefits,"for the sake of the "exceptional casts" it can supply? Have not allmiddle-aged playgoers seen and admired the younger Mathews as SirFretful Plagiary and Mr. Puff? Assuredly there are certain featuresof "The Critic" which everybody remembers. Everybody remembers SirFretful's famous lines on the plagiarists, who "serve your bestthoughts as gypsies do stolen children--disfigure them to make 'em passfor their own"; as well as his special addendum about the "dexterous"writer who "might take out some of the best things in my tragedy andput them into his own comedy." Everybody remembers, too, Mr. Puffsno less famous catalogue of the varieties of _reclame_; his remarkthat "the number of those who undergo the fatigue of judging forthemselves is very small indeed"; his explanation of the fact thathe and Shakespeare had made use of the same thought; Lord Burleigh'sshake of the head, which meant so much, and has become proverbial; theSpanish 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" as played and "The Critic" as written andprinted are two very different things. In the acting version, theearlier scenes between Puff and Dangle and Sneer, as well as the latterportion of the "tragedy rehearsed," are very much compressed--no doubtwith advantage to the public, for, clever as "The Critic" is as awhole, certain portions of it are out of date, and would not "go" wellwith a modern audience.
In glancing through the printed version, one is struck anew by thesimilarity that "The Critic" bears to "The Rehearsal," not only inform, but in detail. In both cases a dramatic author rehearses atragedy in the presence of a couple of friends, who interject commentsupon the performance. But the likeness does not end here--possiblybecause the theatrical world of 1779 was, in all essentials, very likethe theatrical world of 1671. Bayes, in "The Rehearsal," says that hehas "appointed two or three dozen" of his friends "to be ready in thepit" (at the _premiere_ of his piece), "who, I'm sure, will clap." Andso Sneer, in "The Critic," expects that he will not be able to getinto Drury Lane on the first night of Puff's play, "for on the firstnight of a piece they always fill the house with orders to support it."Again, Bayes says that
Let a man write never so well, there are, nowadays, a sort of persons they call critics, that, egad, have no more wit in them than so many hobby-horses; but they'll laugh at you, sir, and find fault, and censure things that, egad, I'm sure they are not able to do themselves.
In a similar spirit Sir Fretful stigmatises the newspapers as "the mostvillainous--licentious--abominable--infernal---- Not that I ever readthem--no. I make it a rule never to look into a newspaper."
&nb
sp; In one respect Sheridan's work is quite unlike the Duke ofBuckingham's. It contains no direct travestie or parody of any kind.The burlesque is "at large" throughout. The satire embodied in thedialogue between Puff and his friends reflects upon all old-fashionedplaywriting of the "tragic" sort. Puff opens the second scene of his"Spanish Armada" with a clock striking four, which, besides recordingthe time, not only "begets an awful attention in the audience," but"saves a description of the rising sun, and a great deal about gildingthe eastern hemisphere." He makes his characters tell one another whatthey know already, because, although they know it, the audience donot. He hears the stage cannon go off three times instead of once, andcomplains, "Give these fellows a good thing, and they never know whento have done with it." "Where they do agree on the stage," he says,in another hackneyed passage, "their unanimity is wonderful." In therehearsed tragedy itself the travestie is general, not particular.Here Sheridan satirises a different class of tragedy from that whichBuckingham dealt with. As the prologue (not by Sheridan, however)says:--
In those gay days of wickedness and wit, When Villiers criticised what Dryden writ, The tragic queen, to please a tasteless crowd, Had learn'd to bellow, rant, and roar so loud, That frighten'd Nature, her best friend before, The blustering beldam's company forswore.
The later "tragedy" took another tone:--
The frantic hero's wild delirium past, Now insipidity succeeds bombast; So slow Melpomene's cold numbers creep, Here dulness seems her drowsy court to keep.
Dulness, then, is what Sheridan is chiefly girding at, but he has akeen eye also for the unconscious banalities of the _genre_ he isdealing with. How truly comic, for instance, is the prayer to Marsoffered up by Leicester and his companions!--
Behold thy votaries submissive beg That thou wilt deign to grant them all they ask; Assist them to accomplish all their ends, And sanctify whatever means they use To gain them.
How delicious, too, in their absolute nonsense, are the lines given tothe distraught Tilburina!--
The wind whistles--the moon rises--see, They have killed my squirrel in his cage; Is this a grasshopper?--Ha! no; it is my Whiskerandos--you shall not keep him-- I know you have him in your pocket-- An oyster may be cross'd in love!--who says A whale's a bird?--Ha! did you call, my love?-- He's here! he's there!--He's everywhere! Ah me! he's nowhere!
For the rest, the text of the tragedy, as printed, is very dissimilarfrom the text as played. In representation, most of the fun is got outof intentional perversion of certain words or phrases. Thus, "martialsymmetry" becomes "martial cemetery";
The famed Armada, by the Pope baptised,
becomes
The famed Armada, by the Pope capsised;
"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"; "matchless excellence" into "matchlessimpudence," and so on. This is sorry stuff; and those who desire toappreciate 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 areturn to the methods of "Chrononhotonthologos." In "Bombastes Furioso"(first played in 1816[3]) all satirical machinery was discarded; allthat the author--William Barnes Rhodes--sought to do was to travestiehis originals in a brief and telling story. "Bombastes" is not nowso often performed as it used to be; but not so very long ago it wasturned into a comic opera, under the title of "Artaxominous the Great,"and its humours are fairly well known to the public. Some of these theworld will not willingly let die. One still thinks with amusement ofthe "army" of Bombastes, consisting of "one Drummer, one Fifer, andtwo Soldiers, all very materially differing in size"; of the General'sexhortation to his troops--
[3] The elder Mathews was Artaxominous; Liston, Bombardinian; and Miss H. Kelly, Distaffina. A few years later Munden played Bombardinian, and Farren, Fusbos.
Begone, brave army, and don't kick up a row;
and of the boastful challenge of the General, so promptly accepted byArtaxominous--
Who dares this pair of boots displace Must meet Bombastes face to face.
And the piece bears re-perusal wonderfully well. Its literary merit isassuredly not less than that of "Chrononhotonthologos": it is perhapseven greater. The opening colloquy between the King and Fusbos isgenuinely diverting, embodying as it does one of those mock similes sodear to the satirists of old-fashioned tragedy. The King admits toFusbos that he is "but middling--that is, _so so_!" It is not, however,either the mulligrubs or the blue-devils that disturb him:--
_King._ Last night, when undisturb'd by state affairs, Moist'ning our clay, and puffing off our cares, Oft the replenish'd goblet did we drain, And drank and smok'd, and smok'd and drank again! Such was the case, our very actions such, Until at length we got a drop too much.
_Fusbos._ So when some donkey on the Blackheath road, Falls, overpower'd, beneath his sandy load, The driver's curse unheeded swells the air, Since none can carry more than they can bear.
By-and-by the King confides to Fusbos that his heart is not whollyfaithful to Queen Griskinissa--that he is also hopelessly in lovewith Distaffina, the acknowledged sweetheart of Bombastes. Under thecircumstances he asks for Fusbos' advice:--
Shall I my Griskinissa's charms forego, Compel her to give up the regal chair, And place the rosy Distaffina there? In such a case, what course can I pursue? I love my queen, and Distaffina too.
_Fusbos._ And would a king his general supplant? I can't advise, upon my soul I can't.
_King._ So when two feasts, whereat there's nought to pay, Fall unpropitious on the self-same day, The anxious Cit each invitation views, And ponders which to take and which refuse: From this or that to keep away is loth, And sighs to think he cannot dine at both.
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 abovementioned challenge, reviles Bombastesand knocks down his boots. Then we have the familiar lines:--
_Bomb._ So have I heard on Afric's burning shore A hungry lion give a grievous roar; The grievous roar echo'd along the shore.
_King._ So have I heard on Afric's burning shore Another lion give a grievous roar, And the first lion thought the last a bore.
Next comes the fight between the monarch and the warrior; theKing is killed, and then Fusbos kills Bombastes. Finally, the twodeceased (despite the assertion of Fusbos that they are "dead asherrings--herrings that are red") come to life again, and all endshappily.
Of ordinary parody there is little in the piece, and what there iscan scarcely be said to be of the best. There is a suggestion, in oneditty, of "Hope told a flattering Tale." But better than this is thesong suggested by "My Lodging is on the Cold Ground," which is happyboth intrinsically and as an imitation. Fusbos is the singer:--
My lodging is in Leather Lane, A parlour that's next to the sky; 'Tis exposed to the wind and the rain, But the wind and the rain I defy: Such love warms the coldest of spots, As I feel for Scrubinda the fair; Oh, she lives by the scouring of pots, In Dyot Street, Bloomsbury Square.
Oh, were I a quart, pint, or gill, To be scrubb'd by her delicate hands, Let others possess what they will Of learning, and houses, and lands; My parlour that's next to the sky I'd quit, her blest mansion to share; So happy to live and to die In Dyot Street, Bloomsbury Square.
And oh, would this damsel be mine, No other provision I'd seek; On a look I could breakfast and dine, And feast on a smile for a week. But ah! should she false-hearted prove, Suspended, I'll dangle in air; A victim to delicate love, In Dyot Street, Bloomsbury Square.
At this point, English stage burlesque suddenly takes a new depar
ture,combining, with satire of the contemporary native "boards," satirenot less keen of certain products of the foreign muse. The incidentcame about in this way:--Just before the close of the eighteenthcentury, the English book-market had been flooded with translations ofcertain German plays, including Schiller's "Robbers" and "Cabal andLove," 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 theabsurdities contained within these dramas, and accordingly composedand printed (in June 1798) that well-known skit, "The Rovers, or theDouble Arrangement." In this the plays chiefly parodied are "Stella,""The Stranger," and "Count Benyowsky." By "Stella" was suggested notonly "the double arrangement" (by which Matilda and Cecilia share theaffections of their lover Casimere), but the famous scene in which thetwo women, before they know they are rivals, become, on the instant,bosom friends. Both admit that they are in love, and then--
_Cecilia._ Your countenance grows animated, my dear madam.
_Matilda._ And yours is glowing with illumination.
_Cecilia._ I had long been looking out for a congenial spirit! My heart was withered, but the beams of yours have rekindled it.
_Matilda._ A sudden thought strikes me: let us swear an eternal friendship.
_Cecilia._ Let us agree to live together!
_Matilda._ Willingly.
_Cecilia._ Let us embrace.
(_They embrace._)
"The Rovers," however, would hardly come within the scope of thepresent volume, were it not that, in 1811, at the Haymarket, therewas produced, by Colman junior, a piece called "The Quadrupeds ofQuedlinburgh, or the Rovers of Weimar," in which the adapter made useof the squib in _The Anti-Jacobin_. Colman's aim in this work was toridicule not only the German plays, including Kotzebue's "Spaniards inPeru" ("Pizarro"), which had lately been brought before the Englishplaygoer, but also the prevailing fancy for bringing animals uponthe stage. At Astley's horses had figured both in "Blue Beard" andin "Timour the Tartar," and dogs had previously been seen in "TheCaravan." To this, as well as to the unhealthy importations fromGermany, allusion was made in the prologue:--
To lull the soul by spurious strokes of art, To warp the genius and mislead the heart, To make mankind revere wives gone astray,
(a hit at "The Stranger"),
Love pious sons who rob on the highway, For this the foreign muses trod our stage, Commanding German schools to be the rage.... Your taste, recovered half from foreign quacks, Takes airings now on English horses' backs; While every modern bard may raise his name, If not on lasting praise, on stable fame.
"The Quadrupeds of Quedlinburgh" was not printed, and one does notknow to what extent Colman took advantage of the text of "The Rovers."It is certain, however, that Casimere, Matilda, and Cecilia, as wellas Rogero (a creation of the original parodists), all appeared in theburlesque, being enacted respectively by Munden, Mrs. Glover, Mrs.Gibbs, and Liston, Elliston taking the _role_ of Bartholomew Bathos,a lineal descendant (no doubt) of Bayes and Puff. We read that, inaddition to the travestie supplied by _The Anti-Jacobin_, fun was pokedat the sentimental sentinel in "Pizarro," and the last scene of "Timourthe Tartar" was closely imitated. The piece was acted thirty-ninetimes, and must therefore have been what, in those days, was accounteda success.
We come now to a travestie of the old-fashioned tragedy which helpsto connect the Old burlesque with the New, inasmuch as it was theproduction of James Robinson Planche. Of his "Amoroso, King of LittleBritain: a serio-comick bombastick operatick interlude," played atDrury Lane in 1818, Planche was not particularly proud. He was veryyoung when he wrote it; he wrote it for amateur performance; and itgot 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); Smithwas Blusterbus (a yeoman of the guard); Mrs. Bland was Coquetinda(the Queen of Little Britain), and Mrs. Orger was Mollidusta (achambermaid). The piece was much applauded, and had the distinction ofbeing quoted in the _Times_. It opens with the King being awakened byhis courtiers, to whom he angrily exclaims:--
Leave at what time you please your truckle beds-- But if you break my rest I'll break your heads.
* * * * *
I swear I'm quite disordered with this rout. Ahem! My lords and gentlemen--get out!
The _Times_ applied the last line to a Parliamentary incident whichhad just occurred; and Planche admits that he was flattered by thecompliment. But he would not include "Amoroso" in the testimonialedition 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 Kingsees Roastando and the Queen salute: he discharges Roastando. The Queensees the King and Mollidusta together: she stabs Mollidusta. The Kingstabs 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 Kingthus declares his passion to Mollidusta:--
When gooseberries grow on the stem of a daisy, And plum-puddings roll on the tide to the shore, And julep is made from the curls of a jazey, Oh, then, Mollidusta, I'll love thee no more.
When steamboats no more on the Thames shall be going, And a cast-iron bridge reach Vauxhall from the Nore, And the Grand Junction waterworks cease to be flowing, Oh, then, Mollidusta, I'll love thee no more.
Amoroso also sings the following pseudo-sentimental ditty:--
Love's like a mutton-chop, Soon it grows cold, All its attractions hop Ere it grows old. Love's like the colic sure, Both painful to endure, Brandy's for both a cure. So I've been told!
When for some fair the swain Burns with desire, In Hymen's fatal chain Eager to try her, He weds soon as he can, And jumps (unhappy man!) Out of the frying-pan Into the fire.
Not to be outdone by the other lovers, the Queen and Roastando warble aduet, in which they confess their feelings for each other:--
_She._ This morning I to Covent Garden went, To purchase cabbages was my intent, But, my thoughts dwelling on Roastando's looks, Instead of cabbages I asked for cooks!
_He._ Last night, neglecting fricasses for stews, On Coquetinda's charms I paused to muse, And, 'stead of charcoal, did my man desire To put some Coquetinda on the fire.
Three months after "Amoroso" had been seen at Drury Lane, there wasproduced at the English Opera House a "serio-comic-bombastic-operaticinterlude," written by George Daniel, and called "Doctor Bolus"--yetanother burlesque of the old-fashioned drama, owing quite as muchto "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 GeneralScaramoucho (Chatterley). The General revolts, and is defeated bythe King. His amour is discovered, and, while the Queen is poisonedwith one of Bolus's "infallible" pills, the General is stabbed byArtipadiades. The Queen, however, revives, and is thereupon stabbed bythe King, who also stabs himself. But, in the end, as in "Amoroso," allthe dead people are resuscitated. There are some gleams of humour inthe dialogue, but not many. Bolus was played by John Wilkinson.