To be, or not to be, at his suggestion, A pose plastique, is yet a doubtful question! To bare my arms against a sea of troubles, And by a pose to end them! Each day doubles The people's wrongs, the proud Earl's heavy tax; To help to ease them I would not be lax; But then to ride--riding, by some low scrub Perhaps be seen!--Ah, bother--there's the rub! The fear that still my courage may be less When I have shuffled off this mortal dress, Must give me pause.
A prominent character in the piece is Our Own Reporter, "Y^e Specyall Commyssionere and Correspondente of y^e _Busie Bee_" (John Reeve), who would fain play the part of Peeping Tom, and who, early in the play, sings a song wittily descriptive of his ordinary avocations:--
_Rep._ I'm a mercantile man, and my living is got By selling of articles----
_Rep._ They're white and black, they're short and long, And some of them sometimes go for a song; And during my time, of labour by dint, I've set up many a column of----
_Rep._ No, no; that's not the sort of thing to make up the business that I do!
_Rep._ I'm a military man, for I often have a shot At public foes with----
_Rep._ If I fire at you 'twill be no joke, For you'll hear the report, but see no smoke; And my charge is prepared with what do you think? By a devil and steam, of paper and----
_Rep._ No, no; that's not the sort of thing to make up the business that I do!
_Rep._ I'm a literary man, and I can put a blot On a proud snob's scutcheon----
_Leofric and Godwin._ Hey! what? what? what?
_Rep._ And if I mention the people's woes, And show you up, why down you goes; And the flow of language that I possess Will open the tide of the Public----
_Rep._ Just so! Now you know the sort of thing that makes up the business that I do!
Three burlesques have been devoted to the life and adventures of Sir Richard Whittington. There was, first, the "Whittington Junior, and his Sensation Cat," of Mr. Reece (Royalty, 1870); next, the "Young Dick Whittington" of Mr. Wilton Jones (Leicester, 1881); and next, the "Whittington and his Cat" of Mr. Burnand (Gaiety, 1881). Mr. Reece had Miss Henrietta Hodson (Mrs. Labouchere) for his Whittington, while Miss Farren was Mr. Burnand's. Robin Hood has had at least as many burlesque biographies as Whittington. A travestie, written by Stocqueler, Shirley Brooks, and Charles Kenny, and produced at the Lyceum in 1846, with the Keeleys, Wigan and Frank Matthews, was followed in 1862, at the Olympic, by one from the pen of Mr. Burnand. Mr. Reece wrote one, called "Little Robin Hood," which was seen at the Royalty in 1871, and this was revived--in three-act form--at the Gaiety in 1882, with Mr. Arthur Williams as a particularly droll Richard I. Robin Hood, it may also be noted, was a prominent character in Mr. Burnand's "Hit or 'Miss,'" at the Olympic in 1868. Herne the Hunter (who has a place in Mr. Burnand's "Windsor Castle") was made the leading personage in, and gave the title to, a travestie composed by Messrs. Reece and Yardley, and performed at the Gaiety in 1881. Five years later, at the Folly, we had "Herne the Hunted," in which Mr. H. P. Stephens had a hand, as well as Messrs. Yardley and Reece. Claude Duval was turned into a burlesque hero by Mr. Burnand, and strutted his hour upon the stage at the Royalty in 1869; followed _longo intervallo_ by Turpin--here called "Dandy Dick Turpin, the Mashing Highwayman,"--whom Mr. Geoffrey Thorn (Charles Townley) made the chief personage of a travestie performed in London in 1889.