Well, if you ask me what I'll take, I think
Tea I prefer 'bove every other drink.
For when I'm teazed, vex'd, worried beyond measure,
A cup of tea's to me a source o' pleasure.
Whene'er I play, the game is tea-to-tum;
My fav'rite instrument's a "kettledrum."
I've faith, when suff'ring ills heir to humanity,
In senna tea that you may say's insanitee.
And also p'rhaps a little odd 'twill seem here,
That I prefer the scenery of Bohea-mia.
And if I were engaged in deadly strife,
I'd stab my en'my with a Bohea knife.
Two of Donizetti's operas—"L'Elisir d'Amore" and "La Fille du Régiment"—were travestied by Mr. W. S. Gilbert; the former under the title of "Doctor Dulcamara, or the Little Duck and the Great Quack," the latter under that of "La Vivandière, or True to the Corps." "Doctor Dulcamara" was played at the St. James's, with Frank Matthews in the title-part. "La Vivandière" (1868) was written for the Queen's Theatre, where it employed the talents of Miss Henrietta Hodson, Mr. Toole, Mr. Lionel Brough, Miss Everard (the original Little Buttercup), and Miss Fanny Addison.
Of Verdi's operas two have been singled out for special attention—"Il Trovatore" and "Ernani." The first of these suggested H. J. Byron's "Ill-Treated Trovatore," seen at the Adelphi in 1863, and another version by the same hand, played at the Olympic seventeen years after. Byron also wrote a travestie of "Ernani," which he called "Handsome Hernani" (Gaiety, 1879); but in this he had been anticipated by William Brough, whose work was seen at the Alexandra Theatre in 1865.
Three travesties have been founded on the "La Sonnambula" of Bellini. The first, which was played at the Victoria Theatre in 1835, was from the pen of Gilbert Abbott a'Beckett, and entitled "The Roof Scrambler"—a title explained in lines spoken by Rudolpho and Swelvino:—
Rud. I tell you, there are beings in their dreams
Who scramble 'pon the house-tops.
Swel.So it seems.
Rud. Roof-scramblers they are called; for on the roofs
They walk at night—Molly is one.
Molly is the name here given to Amina; Swelvino, of course, is Elvino. He is a sexton, and has plighted his troth to Lizzy; but before the piece opens, he has transferred his affections to Molly Brown, a charity girl—"a Greasy Roamer over the tops of houses." Swelvino and Molly are about to be married, when there arrives at the village Rodolpho, the new Inspector of Police, who introduces himself as follows:—
Ah, here I am again!—I know this scene,
In which, when I was young, so oft I've been.
I recognise each spot I see around,
The stocks know me, and well I know the pound!
The sight of these my eyes with tears is filling:
I knew that pound when I had not a shilling!