This burlesque, for aught we know, may have been an interpolation, a contribution of Burton himself to the fund of merriment—one of the instances, in fact, where he dropped the rein and let Momus have his way. But however it came, the travesty created unbounded amusement, and put the audience in the best possible humor; yet we feel how pointless is our sketch to even suggest the facial power, the comic attitudes, the air, the touches of drollery, born of the whole scene; and our readers must summon their imagination to help our failure.
The next scene is the antiquarian's museum, and the mummy is brought in. After the necessary raptures consequent upon such a unique possession, the professor withdraws and the stage is left alone. There lies the mummy in his case, and a pause succeeds. The intent audience observe a slight movement in the box. Slowly the head of Burton is raised, and he glances warily around the room. Raising himself to a sitting posture in the case, he turns toward the audience his marvellous face, on which rests an expression of doleful humiliation. We shall never forget how, finally, he rose to his feet, stepped out of the case, walked abjectly to the foot-lights, looked his disguise all over with intense concern, and then turned to the house—by this time scarcely able to contain itself—and said, with the accent of self-reproach and mortification—"I'm—— if I'm not ashamed of myself!"
Situations follow, affording full opportunity for the display of Burton's humorous characteristics; but we need not pursue them in detail. He frightens everybody as a mummy; makes love as a mummy; devours the antiquarian's dinner; has his tragic bursts;—- in short, leaves nothing to be desired on the part of those who paid their money to laugh and be jolly with him.
Mad. Vanderpants was another uproarious creation, more laughable even, in some ways, than "The Mummy." Joe Baggs (Burton) is a lawyer's clerk, and during the absence of his employer on a journey, arranges a programme of deviltry for himself and comrade (T. B. Johnston). Baggs becomes Mad. Vanderpants, and his companion Miss Smithers, her assistant, and they advertise for "A Thousand Milliners." Burton's "make-up" was one of the most astonishing things we ever saw, and Johnston's was by no means lacking in artistic finish. The milliners arrive (that is a representation), and then ensues an hour of unparalleled fun and frolic. The manner of Burton in sustaining the character and in replying with complacent air to the numerous questions asked by the deluded damsels, was so supremely ludicrous that we pause in writing to laugh at the remembrance. Some work is wanted, and the window shades are unceremoniously torn down and given to the milliners. "What shall we do with it?" ask they. "Do?" replied Burton, with imperturbable gravity, "Why, you can hemstitch it up one side, and back-stitch it down the other—and then gusset it all around!" The fun waxes fast and furious, when suddenly the employer returns. The dénouement can be imagined; we cannot describe it;—but those who remember Burton's mimetic power, and his faculty to express abject terror and kindred emotions, can well understand what a scene of indescribable riotous humor it was. And we cannot omit, in referring to this farce, to mention the admirable support given by the lamented Mrs. Hughes, who, as one of the milliners, contributed largely to the general success by her conscientious acting.
How can we, in this allotted space, deal justly with our crowding memories? What shall we say of Jem Baggs, in "The Wandering Minstrel"?—that minstrel whose entrance on the stage was heralded by a sounding strain certainly never before heard on sea or land, and whose appearance, as he emerged from the wing, continuing still the dirge-like air, was a signal for a gleeful burst all over the house. How paint his introduction, under a mistaken identity, into musical society; the situation that follows; his song of "All Around My Hat"; the comic incidents that strew the too-fleeting hour of his career?
How view him as Pillicoddy, awaiting with supreme anguish the "turning up" of his wife's "first," through all the phases of ludicrous bravado and comic despair?
How depict him in "Turning the Tables"? or in "The Siamese Twins"? or in "That Blessed Baby"? How see him as Mr. Dabchick, in "The Happiest Day of My Life"? or as Megrim, in "Blue Devils," and ever so many more?
And yet we ought to linger on each one; for we have never seen them since, and it may be we may never see them again—certain is it that we shall never see them so performed. And only for the sake of refreshing a memory of something greater would we wish to behold them now.
In concluding this imperfect tracing of recollection, we are conscious of many deficiencies; one of these a few final words may supply.