To catch a lover on the hip, There's none like fair Babet-te! You'd love to kiss her rosy lip, But, ah! she'll never let 'ee! Yet shall she wash my Sunday suit, Tho' she my suit refuses, For, oh! she washes far the best Of all the blanchissooses! For washing-day all round the year, She ever sticks to one day; She takes my linen Friday night, And brings it back o' Monday! When I bestow the lordly franc, 'Tis sweet to hear her "Thankee"-- She mends my hooks and darns my eyes, And marks my pocky-hanky! She calls the wandering button home, However hard I cuss it; She's good at collar and at cuff, And truly great at gusset! To catch a lover on the hip, There's none like fair Babet-te! You'd love to kiss her rosy lip, But, ah! she'll never let 'ee! In the course of the piece there is a good deal of direct parody of Lytton's style, both in prose and verse. For example, Claude says at one point to Babette:-- Come with me to my mother's lonely cot! I have preserved it ever in memory of mine early youth; and, believe me, that the prize of virtue never, beneath my father's honest roof, even villains dared to mar! Now, maiden, now, I think thou wilt believe me! Wilt come? _Babette._ I wilt! Again:-- In the sweet suburb of Richemont or Tedainton, on the banks of the broad Garonne, one of those expensive spots where, during the summer months, the river is at the bottom of the lawn--during the winter, the lawn at the bottom of the river--but where it is damp-pleasant all the year round; there will we babble to the murmuring stream, and the babbling stream shall murmur back to us, and softly whisper---- _Dowager Morier_ (_coming down_). Hold on![44] [44] Mr. Merivale was fortunate in the cast of his production (played at the Gaiety in 1878). Mr. Edward Terry was the Claude, Miss Farren the Pauline, Mr. Royce the "Beauseong," Mrs. Leigh the Dowager Morier, and Miss Amalia the Babette, other parts being taken by Messrs. Elton, Maclean, Squire, and Fawcett. After Mr. Merivale's piece came one on the same subject by Mr. W. Younge (1879); another by Mr. Clifton (Lyne), played in the country in 1882; and yet another, by Mr. Reece (also played in the country) in 1884. This last was entitled "The Lady of Lyons Married and Claude Unsettled." Ten years after the first burlesque of "The Lady of Lyons" appeared the first burlesque of Lord Lytton's "Rightful Heir." This was "The Frightful Hair" of Mr. Burnand, seen at the Haymarket in 1868-9. In 1868 also, publicity was given to "The Right-Fall Heir" of Mr. H. T. Arden.