Lord Lytton's novels and romances have been ridiculed on the stage very much less frequently than have his dramas. "The Very Last Days of Pompeii," by Mr. Reece, and "The Last of the Barons," by Mr. Du Terreaux, are, so far as I know, the only stage works in which his prose fiction has been perverted. The former was seen at the Vaudeville in 1872, and the latter at the Strand in the same year. In "The Last of the Barons," Atkins was the Kingmaker, Mr. Edward Terry portraying Edward IV. as a great dandy, and endowing him with an amusing lisp.
When we turn to the stories of more recent times, we think at once of the "No Thoroughfare" of Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins, and of the "Foul Play" of Charles Reade and Dion Boucicault, as having suffered at the hands of the irreverent scribes. The former romance suggested to Hazlewood junior his "No Thorough-fair beyond Highbury, or the Maid, the Mother, and the Malicious Mountaineer." This was in 1868; and in the following year the elder George Grossmith emulated Hazlewood's example at the Victoria Theatre. "Foul Play" was parodied by Mr. Burnand, not only in the pages of _Punch_, but in "Fowl Play, or a Story of Chikkin Hazard," produced at the New Queers in 1868.[52] Of the bright writing in this "book," no better specimen could well be furnished than the song which Wylie sings in description of the scuttling of the _Proserpine_. This I give in full:--
[52] In this piece Mr. Toole was the Robert Penfold, Mr. Lionel Brough the Joseph Wylie, Mr. Gaston Murray the General Rollingstone, Mr. Wyndham the Arthur Waddles, and Miss Ellen Farren (then in her novitiate) the Nancy Rouse.
I'm a werry wicked cove, with my one, two, three _Characters_ in the history as follars Of a sickly gal and me, and a missionary_ee_, In a choker white and nobby pair o' collars. The _Proserpine_ an' guns Weighed such a lot of tuns, And I was the mate and the butler, And as I wanted funs You gave two thousand puns To me to go below, and so to scuttle her.
_Both._ { He's} a werry wicked cove, with { his} one, two, { I'm} { my} three Cha_rac_ters in the history as follars; Of the sickly girl and { he} and the missionary_ee_, { me} In a choker white and nobby pair of collars.