Beginning, then, with the Italian school, we note that Donizetti has been particularly favoured by the parodists. His "Lucrezia Borgia," "Linda di Chamouni," "Elisir d' Amore," and "Fille du Régiment" have all had to submit to deliberate perversion. Of "Lucrezia" there have been three notable burlesques--one by Leicester Buckingham, at the St. James's, in 1860; another by Sydney French, at the Marylebone, in 1867; and the third by H. J. Byron, at the Holborn, in 1868. Buckingham's was entitled "Lucrezia Borgia! at Home, and all Abroad," and had Charles Young for the exponent of the title character. Miss Wyndham was Johnny Raw ("known as Gennaro, through the defective pronunciation of his Italian friends--a British shopkeeper, who has left for awhile the countertenor of his way, and is travelling on the Continent for his pleasure"). Miss Cecilia Ranoe was Alfonso, and a small part was played by Miss Nellie Moore. Lucrezia figures in this piece as a dabbler in monetary speculations, the failure of which gives opportunity for a speech parodying some Shakespearean lines with more freshness than such things usually possess:-- Oh! that dishonoured notes of hand would melt, Thaw, and dissolve themselves when overdue, And never leave the holder time to sue; Or that in pickle no such sharp rod lay As the unpleasant writ called a _ca sa_! How weary, flat, unprofitable, stale, To kick one's heels inside a debtor's gaol! Fie on't! 'Tis an unweeded garden clearly; Blackguards and seedy swells possess it merely. That it should come to this! At two months' date!-- No, not two months; six weeks is less than eight. So excellent a bill! The blow will floor me! Is this a bailiff that I see before me, A capias in his hand? Come, let me dodge thee; Or in a sponging-house I know thou'lt lodge me. I've turned my back, and yet I see thee still! Canst thou then be two gentlemen at will? Or art thou but a grim dissolving view-- A phantom officer--in short, a _do_? I see thee yet--so palpable in form, My prospects seem uncomfortably warm. Thou marshall'st me to Whitecross Street, I see, Clutching protested bills endorsed by me; Indictments, too, for fraud and false pretences! Mine eyes are made the fools o' the other senses, Or else I'm tight! I see thee still, my man; And by thy side appears the prison van, Which was not so before. There's no such thing! In the course of the piece, Johnny Raw is poisoned by Alfonso with publican's port, and afterwards Lucrezia seeks to destroy Orsini and his companion with London milk. Byron's burlesque on the subject was called "Lucrezia Borgia, M.D."