Planché's "Olympic Revels" proved so brilliantly successful that he was encouraged to follow it up, at the end of the year, with a companion composition--"Olympic Devils, or Orpheus and Eurydice." In this work, James Bland, the son of the lady who "created" Planché's Coquetinda, made his first appearance in burlesque, and among the female Bacchantes who took part in the groupings was a clever young girl, named Leonora Pincott, who was destined one day to be a great public favourite as "Mrs. Alfred Wigan." In "Olympic Devils" Planché's style is seen to excellent effect. Note, as an instance, the remarks addressed by Minos, Lord _Low_ Chancellor, to the Fates:--
I vow you Fates are most industrious spinsters! Miss Clotho there--man's destiny beginning-- Life's thread at tea, like a tee-totum spinning. And then Miss Lachesis that same thread measures, Taking great pains, but giving little pleasures. Last comes Miss Atropos, her part fulfilling, And cuts poor mortals off without a shilling. The saddest sister of the fatal three, Daughter, indeed, of _shear_ necessity! Plying her awful task with due decorum, A never-ceasing game of "snip-snap-snorum"! For help, alas! man pleads to her in vain-- Her motto's "Cut and _never_ come again."
I am a lunatic for lack of thee! Mad as a March hare--oh, _ma chère_ amie!
But Planché had a higher wit than that of punning. His satire and sarcasm have an agreeable, because not too pungent, cynicism--as in such little scraps of song as this (following upon the scene in which Orpheus, hearing that his wife is flirting with Pluto, cannot resist looking back at her and thus consigning her again to Pluto's tender mercies):--
_Orpheus._ I have looked back--in your snare I am caught, sir-- Pluto, thou'st cut a fond pair to the core! Oh, have I come all this way to be taught, sir, That folks who would thrive must keep looking before?
_Euryd._ You have looked back--in the snare you are caught, sir-- They who cheat him, faith, have none to cheat more! A man of the world--have you yet to be taught, sir, When your wife flirts behind you, to look straight before?
In after years H. J. Byron wrote two burlesques on the legend of Orpheus and his wife, both of them produced at the Strand Theatre,[8] and it is notable that when Planché made, in 1865, at the Haymarket, his last appearance as a writer of extravaganza, it fell to his lot to treat once more of Orpheus and his surroundings.[9]