_Agl._ Euphrosyne, we shall be miss'd by Venus.
_Eup._ With her we easily can make our peace, If something, her attractions to increase, We take from earth.
_Agl._ Why, yes, that's very true, If we could only meet with something new.
_Eup._ That mixture for the hair, what is it call'd? It's advertised as "solace for the bald."
_Eup._ Or what's that's stuff-- For which, I saw the other day a puff? Something to be upon the features sprinkled, And offering "Consolation to the wrinkled."
_Eup._ That's very true; Want them, indeed! the ladies never do; But when such little purchases are made, Of course 'tis only to encourage trade.
_Agl._ They've got on earth a very odd idea Of what the Graces really are, I fear.
_Eup._ They have indeed: I chanced one day to go Into a first-rate milliner's _depôt_, That is _par excellence_--the first of places To meet with earthly notions of the Graces.
_Agl._ That's very true--and there what did you see?
_Eup._ Things unbecoming either of us three.
_Agl._ What wear they on their heads? I think I've known Mortals who've dress'd them something like our own.
_Eup._ Bonnets they lately wore, but oh, so small, They nearly dwindled into none at all.
In "The Son of the Sun" there is an episode which helps to illustrate the condition of the drama in London at that period (1834). Apollo is questioning the Muses who have just returned from London to Olympus:--
_Apol._ Euterpe, Music's Muse, I understand That you had lodgings somewhere in the Strand.
_Eut._ Oh! the Lyceum! Yes; I had a bout of it For a short time, until they burnt me out of it.
_Apol._ Melpomene, Thalia,--still remain Your temples, I suppose, near Drury Lane?
_Thal._ Our temples! Yes; as usual they stand, Extensively superb, and coldly grand. But, oh! the worship's wholly chang'd! Ah me! it is A cruel thing--they've turn'd out us poor deities.
My friend Melpomene's dagger, and her bowl, Are in the clutches of a noisy soul With Madame Melodrama for her name.
_Thal._ And as for me, my place--a pretty pass!-- Is taken by a vulgar thing, called Farce.
_Thal._ Bless me, don't you know? Shakspeare is trampled on.
Mr. Burnand has written more "classical" burlesques than any man living or dead. A university man, like Talfourd, he has displayed complete mastery of mythologic themes, submitting them to ingenious perversion, and adorning them with a wealth of pun and parody of which it is impossible, in these brief limits, to give more than a few samples. He has shown special interest in the legends connected with the siege of Troy,[14] producing three burlesques more or less connected with that event. First, in 1860, came "Dido," at the St. James's, with Charles Young as the heroine; next, in 1866, "Paris, or Vive Lemprière," at the Strand;[15] next, in 1867, "The Latest Edition of Helen, or Taken from the Greek," at Liverpool.[16] Helen of Troy, I may note, _en parenthèse_, had been the heroine of two other travesties: one by Vincent Amcotts--"Fair Helen" (Oxford, 1862); the other by Mr. Robert Reece--"Our Helen" (Gaiety, 1884).
