There was copper there and gold, both o' yours not mine, 'Twas a werry awful risk, but I ran 'un; And the Copper, labelled Gold, went aboard the _Proserpine_ And the Gold, labelled Copper, on the _Shannon_. Oh, it went down like a line, On board the _Proserpine_, And it was not my little game to stop'er, And the gold comes safe in the _Shannon_ ship, While you gets the walue for the copper.
The _Proserpine_ went down in a one, two, three, Which she did to the werry bottom; They called out for the boats, and the ropes, and floats, But couldn't get 'em cos I'd _got_ 'em. So they got a boat and sail, As wouldn't stand a gale, And the lady and the gent jumps _in_ her, And the missionary_ee_ Took a pound of tea, But they hadn't got no grub for their dinner.
_Both._ { I'm} a very wicked cove, with my one, two, three, { You're} Which is a quotation from Cocker; But I mourns for that Gal and the Missionaryee Which is both gone down to Davy Jones's Locker.
Among other recent fictions which have obtained the distinction of stage travestie may be named "Lady Audley's Secret," "Little Lord Fauntleroy," and "The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde." In the first of these instances H. J. Byron was the operator--the scene, the St. James's Theatre in 1863. Mrs. Burnett's pretty conception was tortured into "The Other Little Lord Fondleboy" (1888), and Mr. Stevenson's weird invention into "The Real Case of Hide and Seekyll" (Royalty, 1888), for which the younger George Grossmith must bear the blame.
The literature of dramatic parody does not owe much to foreign fiction. Farnie gave us "Little Gil Bias" at the Princess's in 1870, and in the same year Mr. Arthur Wood produced at the Olympic a comic paraphrase of "Paul and Virginia." It was in 1870, too, that Messrs. Eldred and Paulton turned out, at Liverpool, "The Gay Musketeers," which was followed at the Strand in 1871 by "The Three Musket-Dears" of Messrs. J. and H. Paulton. Of the "Monte Cristo Junior" of Messrs. "Richard Henry" I shall have something to say anon.
Dividing Song for the moment into Poem and Ballad, we note that the poems of Lord Byron have been the inspiring cause of at least four notable burlesques. His lordship's "Don Juan" suggested the "Beautiful Haidee" of H. J. Byron (1863) and the "Don Juan Junior" of the "Brothers Prendergast" (1880); while his "Corsair" is the basis of William Brough's "Conrad and Medora" (Lyceum, 1856), and his "Bride of Abydos" prompted the piece with the same title which H. J. Byron wrote for the Strand Theatre. In "Conrad and Medora" Miss Marie Wilton was "the Little Fairy at the Bottom of the Sea," the title-parts being given to Miss Woolgar and Mrs. Charles Dillon, and that of Birbanto to Mr. Toole. The Bride of Abydos--Zuleika--had Miss Oliver for her representative.