The third act opens with a passage in which the turns and rhythm of Shakespearean prose are happily imitated:—
Enter King and Queen, meeting Rosencrantz.
Queen. A fair good morrow to you, Rosencrantz. How march the Royal revels?
Ros. Lamely, madam, lamely, like a one-legged duck. The Prince has discovered a strange play. He hath called it "A Right Reckoning Long Delayed."
Claud. And of what fashion is the Prince's play?
Ros. 'Tis an excellent poor tragedy, my Lord—a thing of shreds and patches welded into a form that hath mass without consistency, like an ill-built villa.
Queen. But, sir, you should have used your best endeavours to wean his phantasy from such a play.
Ros. Madam, I did, and with some success; for he now seeth the absurdity of its tragical catastrophes, and laughs at it as freely as we do. So, albeit the poor author had hoped to have drawn tears of sympathy, the Prince hath resolved to present it as a piece of pompous folly intended to excite no loftier emotion than laughter and surprise.
After Poole published his "Hamlet,"[37] Shakespearean burlesque slumbered until 1834, when Maurice G. Dowling produced at Liverpool his "Othello Travestie." In this dull production, the Moor of Venice figures as "an independent nigger from the Republic of Hayti," and talks in "darkey" dialect (as does the same writer's Clifford in "Fair Rosamond"). Here, for example, is this Othello's address to the Senate (written and sung to the air of "Yankee Doodle"):—
Potent, grave, and rev'rend sir,
Very noble massa—
When de maid a man prefer
Den him no can pass her.
Yes, it is most werry true,
Him take dis old man's daughter;
But no by spell, him promise you,
But by fair means him caught her.
'Tis true she lub him berry much,
'Tis true dat off him carry her,
And dat him lub for her is such,
'Tis werry true him marry her.
All dis be true—and till him dead,
Him lub her widout ending—
And dis, my massa, is the head
And tail of him offending.
Dis old man once him lub me too,
Do' now in rage before ye,
And often say, "Come Othello,
And tell us pretty story,
About der time when yon young child,
(You naughty lilly child ye),
And when you 'bout de wood run wild,
And when you sold for slavey."
Den ebery day him tell all dis,
And sometimes lilly lie, too,
And him look in de eye of miss.
And den him hear her sigh, too,
Den missee meet him all alone,
And den him ax her wedder,
Him make de both two hearts in one,
Den off dey run togedder.
W. J. Hammond played Othello in this piece, both at Liverpool, and afterwards at the Strand Theatre, where popular Miss E. Daly was the Desdemona and H. Hall the Iago. What can these presumably capable actors have thought of their rôles? The text of the burlesque is almost wholly without humour, of which, however, there is a gleam in the complaint made by Cassio that he has been ruined by a pint of beer:—
My reputation's lost—my reputation!
I'm bother'd, sir—I'm bother'd quite with thinking;
I've lost my reputation, sir, for drinking.
I, who to good brown stout ne'er yet turn'd tail,
Drunk and bedevil'd with a mug of ale!
Was ever man in such a situation?
My reputation, sir—my reputation!