_Chorus._ Sir, I'm the Chorus. _Æetes._ Sir, you're indecorous. In the course of the piece Mathews sang, among other things, an excellent ditty, to the tune of "The Tight Little Island":-- 'Twas very ungrateful, you'll say, sir, But, alas! of the world it's the way, sir, When all a friend can, you have done for a man, He'll cut you quite dead the next day, sir. But perhaps the most successful parody in "The Golden Fleece" was that on "The Fine Old English Gentleman," assigned to Mme. Vestris as Medea. This is worth quoting in full:-- I'll tell you a sad tale of the life I've been led of late, By the false Boeotian Boatswain, of whom I am the mate: Who quite forgets the time when I pitied his hard fate And he swore eternal constancy by all his gods so great; Like a fine young Grecian gentleman, One of the classic time! Now he lives in a fine lodging, in the palace over there, Whilst I and his poor children are poked in a back two-pair; And though he knows I've scarcely got a second gown to wear, He squanders on another woman every farthing he's got to spare, Like a false young Grecian gentleman, One of the classic time. He leaves me to darn his stockings, and mope in the house all day, Whilst he treats her to see "Antigone," with a box at the Grecian play, Then goes off to sup with Corinthian Tom, or whoever he meets by the way, And staggers home in a state of beer, like (I'm quite ashamed to say) A fine young Grecian gentleman, One of the classic time. Then his head aches all the next day, and he calls the children a plague and a curse, And makes a jest of my misery, and says, "I took him for better or worse"; And if I venture to grumble, he talks, as a matter of course, Of going to Modern Athens, and getting a Scotch divorce! Like a base young Grecian gentleman, One of the classic time. "Medea," it will be remembered, was the title and subject of a burlesque by Robert Brough, brought out at the Olympic in 1856, with Robson in the title-part, Emery as Creon (King of Corinth), and Julia St. George as Jason. Medea ("the best of mothers, with a brute of a husband," as the sub-title has it) was one of Robson's most impressive _rôles_, being charged at more than one point (notably in the closing scene, which was played by all the characters in serious fashion) with real tragic intensity. In the lighter vein were such episodes as the duet with Jason (to the air of "Robinson Crusoe"), which I quote as illustrative of the neatness and humour with which Brough constructed such trifles:--