The most famous of all the Ali Baba travesties was that "joint-stock" burlesque, "The Forty Thieves," written by members of the Savage Club, and performed by the authors themselves at the Lyceum, in 1860, for the benefit of the families of two literary men just then deceased. Planché wrote the prologue for this piece, and it was at once so brilliant and so admirably delivered by Leicester Buckingham that it nearly obtained the extraordinary honour of an encore. It was followed, three years later, by H. J. Byron's "Ali Baba, or the Thirty-Nine Thieves (in accordance with the author's habit of taking one off!)."[27] Abdallah, the captain of the thieves (played by Miss Ada Swanborough), was here depicted as a rascal of the quiet, elegant order, in sharp contrast to the Surrey-side villainy of his lieutenant, Hassarac. A colloquy between these gave Byron an opportunity of satirising the melodramatic criminal of the "good old times":—
Abdal. From all you say, my friend, you see it's plain
That vulgar violence is on the wane;
Therefore become more polished in your style,
And, like King Richard, murder when you smile.
I go into society, and none
Know I'm a thief, or could conceive me one;
I start new companies—obtain their pelf,
And, having started them, I start myself;
Swindle the widow—the poor orphan do—
And then myself become an off 'un too.
Hassarac. Bother! that's not of villainy my notion;
Give me the tangled wood or stormy ocean—
A knife—dark lantern—lots of horrid things,
With lightning, every minute, at the wings;
A pistol, big enough for any crime,
Which never goes off at the proper time;
Deep rumbling, grumbling music on the drums—
A chord whenever one observes "She comes";
An opening chorus, about "Glorious wine";
A broadsword combat every sixteenth line;
Guttural vows of direst vengeance wreaking,
And thunder always when one isn't speaking.
That was the style—exciting, if not true,
At the old Cobourg;
Abdal.Oh, coburglar, do—(crosses to R.)
You're horrifying me!
Hassarac (draws). Spoon! sappy! duffer!
Ha, ha! lay on, you milk-and-water muff-a,
And hem'd be he who first cries hold enough-a!
In 1872 Mr. Reece wrote for the Gaiety a piece called "Ali Baba à la Mode"; in 1880 he prepared for the same theatre another version called "The Forty Thieves."[28] This latter, if I remember rightly, was the first of the burlesques in three acts. It presented in Mr. Terry (Ali Baba), Miss Farren (Ganem), Mr. Royce (Hassarac), and Miss Vaughan (Morgiana), a quartett which is specially well remembered for the verve and vivacity of its performance.
The fortunes of Prince Camaralzaman have been pictured on the burlesque stage by the Brothers Brough, by Messrs. Bellingham and Best, by H. J. Byron, and by Mr. Burnand.[29] "Camaralzaman and Badoura, or the Peri who loved the Prince," was the Broughs' title, and they had the assistance of Mrs. Keeley, of Keeley (as a Djinn), of Bland (as the Emperor Bung), of Miss Reynolds (as Badoura), and of Miss Horton (as the hero). Dimpl Tshin was the name given to one of the characters, and Skilopht that of another. The original story was followed in the main. Camaralzaman declines to marry at his father's request, and is incarcerated. In that position he soliloquises:—
'Tis now the very witching time of night,
Which, were I free, would bring with it delight;
Now could I drink hot grog, hear comic songs,
Or join the gay Casino's gladsome throngs,
Or drain, 'midst buzzing sounds of mirth and chaff,
The foaming stout, or genial half-and-half;
But here a prisoner condemned to stop,
I can indulge in neither malt nor "hop."
O, cruel Pa! to place me in this state,
Because I would avoid your own sad fate.
Dear mother, though a model of a wife,
Gave me a slight distaste for married life.
Better be thus than free, and have to stand
"An eye like Ma's, to threaten and command."
Camaralzaman then breaks out into the following little bit of vocal parody:—
The Pope he leads a happy life,
Because he hasn't got a wife;
And one to take he's not so flat,
He knows a trick worth two of that.
No shrill abuse his ear affrights
For stopping out too late at nights;
No curtain lectures damp his hopes:
A happy lot must be the Pope's.