Then I turned my face to a savage place, that is called Boulogne-sur-Mer, Where the natives go on _petits chevaux_ and the gay _chemin de fer_; And the girls of the tribe I won't describe, for I'm rather a modest man. They are poor, I suppose, for they're short of clothes, when they take what they call _les bains_! And they said to me, "_Oh, sapristi!_" and the men remarked, "_Sacré!_" And _vive la guerre aux pommes de terre_, and _vingt minutes d'arrêt_! _Voulez-vous du boeuf? j'ai huit! j'ai neuf!_ till they deafened me with their din, So I _parlez_'d _bon soir_ and said _au revoir_, for I had to find Emin! * * * * * And at last I found Emin, poor chap, in the midst of the nigger bands Who daily prowl, with horrible howl, along the Margate sands; I heard the tones of the rattling bones, and I hurried down to the beach-- Full well I know that they will not go till you give them sixpence each! Said they, "Uncle Ned, oh! he berry dead, and de banjo out ob tune! Oh! doodah, day! hear Massa play de song of de Whistling Coon! If you ain't a snob, you'll give us a bob for blacking our blooming skin"-- But I took that band to the edge of the sand, and there I dropped 'Emin! I have not thought it necessary, in the preceding pages, to offer any apology for stage burlesque. One must regret that it sometimes lacks refinement in word and action, and that in the matter of costume it is not invariably decorous; but that we shall always have it with us, in some form or other, may be accepted as incontrovertible. So long as there is anything extravagant in literature or manners--in the way either of simplicity or of any other quality--so long will travestie find both food and scope. That is the _raison d'être_ of theatrical burlesque--that it shall satirise the exaggerated and the extreme. It does not wage war against the judicious and the moderate. As H. J. Byron once wrote of his own craft:-- Though some may scout it, ... Burlesque is like the winnowing machine: It simply blows away the husks, you know-- The goodly corn is not moved by the blow. What arrant rubbish of the clap-trap school Has vanished--thanks to pungent ridicule! What stock stage-customs, nigh to bursting goaded, With so much "blowing up" have been exploded! Had our light writers done no more than this, Their doggrel efforts scarce had been amiss. In this defence of his calling, Byron had been anticipated by Planché, who, in one of his occasional pieces, introduced the following passage, in which Mr. and Mrs. Wigan and the representatives of Tragedy and Burlesque all figured. When Burlesque entered, Tragedy cried out-- Avaunt, and quit my sight! let the earth hide thee. Unreal mockery, hence! I can't abide thee!