Once more, Shylock says:—
My only heiress, folks will say in mock,
Fled like a timid hair from a Shy-lock!...
Unfeeling child, who's left her sire to sigh,
Without a tie or prop or prop-er-ty.
We come now to the production, at the Lyceum in 1856, of William Brough's perversion of "The Winter's Tale,"—"Perdita, or the Royal Milkmaid."[41] This was fitted with a prologue in which Time sang an effective song, descriptive of the author's aims and intentions, and winding up with this ingenuous verse:—
This period to match, in each single snatch
Of music to be sung, I've tried of
The oldest tunes to get, including that as yet
Unknown melody the old cow died of.
And that all might be
In antiquity
Alike, I for my puns cry quarter,
For I've chosen, good folks,
The most ancient jokes
For this worthy old dramatist's slaughter.
When Autolycus appears upon the scene, with his pedlar's box, he is made to excuse his "conveying" propensities in a ditty suggested by the then popular song called "Bobbing Around":—
The shopkeeper who gives short weight
Is robbing all round, all round, all round;
The grocers who adulterate,
Like me go robbing all round.
The milkman in his lowly walk
Goes robbing all round, all round, all round;
When, 'stead of milk, he walks his chalk,
And so goes robbing around.
The publican dilutes our beer,
A robbing all round, all round, all round;
With water, and still worse, I fear,
So he goes robbing all round.
In all we eat, or drink, or buy,
There's robbing all round, all round, all round,
And tradesmen with each other vie,
Who'll best do robbing all round.
Who'll first at me, then, throw a stone
For robbing around, around, around?
My trade's as honest as their own,
Since all go robbing around.