A'Beckett further undertook, along with Mark Lemon, a skit upon another of the Byronic dramas—"Sardanapalus"—which they reproduced as "Sardanapalus, or the 'Fast' King of Assyria." The Adelphi was the theatre of operations; 1853 was the year; and while Miss Woolgar was Sardanapalus, Paul Bedford was Arbaces, Keeley was Salymenia (mother of the Queen), Miss Maskell was Beleses, and Miss Mary Keeley was Altada. Arbaces is here shown as impervious to the charm of melody:—
Such music to my ears is a mere hum;
Of minims let me have the minimum.
Salymenia says to the King's favourite:—
Your conduct, madam, 's not at all correct:
If you're a Myrrha, why don't you reflect?
Of such are the quips and the quiddities with which the piece abounds.
In 1858 came, from the workshop of H. J. Byron, the first travestie of his "noble kinsman's" play, "Mazeppa." This, produced at the Olympic, had Robson for its hero, with other parts in the hands of Horace Wigan, Mr. Lewis Ball, Miss Wyndham, Miss Bromley, and Mrs. W. S. Emden. Of its punning dialogue, which throughout is in the genuine H. J. Byronic manner, the following is a fair example. Olinska is conversing with her father, the Castellan:—
Oli. You hate romance,—are one of its deriders.
(Very romantically) Give me a summer-house with lots of spiders,
A poet-husband too, with rolling eyes,
In a fine phrenzy——
Cas.Poets I despise!
And in his phrenzy that you mention, daughter,
His friends see often nought but gin and water.
Oli. In our sweet bower of bliss what could we fear?
Cas. Why, Quarter Day, which comes four times a year!
And although landlords show each quarter day,
They show no quarter when you do not pay,
Your poet-spouse grows thin, and daily racks his
Poor brains to pay the butcher or the taxes.