English serious opera has not often fallen a prey to the untender mercies of the parodist. Balfe and Vincent Wallace alone have been victimised in that way--Balfe through his "Bohemian Girl" and "Rose of Castile"; Wallace through his "Maritana." The "Bohemian Girl" has taken four different shapes on the burlesque boards. In 1851, as transmogrified by the Brothers Brough, she figured at the Haymarket as "Arline." In 1864, under the auspices of Messrs. Best and Bellingham, she appeared at Sadler's Wells under the same designation. At the command of Mr. W. S. Gilbert she posed at the Royalty in 1868 as "The Merry Zingara." In 1877, as portrayed by H. J. Byron at the Opéra Comique and Gaiety, she appeared as "The Bohemian Gy-url." For his Arline Mr. Gilbert had Miss "Patty" Oliver; for his Gipsy Queen, Miss Charlotte Saunders; for his Count Arnheim, Fred Dewar; and for his Devilshoof, Danvers. Byron's piece was interpreted by the Gaiety Company. "The Rose of Castile," as treated by Mr. Conway Edwardes, was seen in 1872 at the Brighton Theatre as "The Rows of Castile." "Maritana," of course, was the origin and basis of Mr. Burnand's "Mary Turner" (Holborn Theatre, 1867), as well as of Byron's "Little Don Cæsar de Bazan" (Gaiety, 1876), in which Mr. Terry was such an entertaining King Charles. IX. BURLESQUE OF FICTION AND SONG. The writers of stage travestie have gone less to fiction for subject-matter than might have been expected. Half a dozen romances previous to Scott, half a dozen of Scott's own stories, about the same number of modern novels, and still fewer foreign masterpieces--these represent the sources of all the most important of the burlesques which have been based upon invented prose narrative. The earliest of the tales which have been thus dealt with is "Robinson Crusoe." Of this time-honoured story, the first whimsical treatment was that which took the shape of a piece called "Crusoe the Second, or the Shipwrecked Milliners," presented at the Lyceum in 1847. This was written by Stocqueler, and had for interpreters Mr. and Mrs. Keeley, with Alfred Wigan (as Crusoe). It was followed, in 1860, at the Princess's, by the "Robinson Crusoe" of H. J. Byron. Seven years later, no fewer than six writers joined in the production of a perversion of Defoe's tale, brought out at the Haymarket in 1867, and bearing the names of H. J. Byron, W. S. Gilbert, T. Hood, jun., H. S. Leigh, W. J. Prowse, and Arthur Sketchley. In this (which was given at a _matinée_ for the benefit of the family of Paul Gray, the artist) the parts were all sustained by well-known men of art and letters. After this there came, in 1876, at the Folly, the "Robinson Crusoe" of Mr. H. B. Farnie,[48] which, in its turn, was followed, just ten years later, by yet another arrangement of the story, in which Mr. Farnie had the co-operation of Mr. Reece. [48] With Miss Lydia Thompson as Robinson, Mr. Lionel Brough as Jim Cocks, and Mr. Willie Edouin as Man Friday.