At the Fifth Avenue Theatre, and afterwards at Wallack's, in this same summer of 1869, Stuart Robson made a great hit as Captain Crosstree, in F. C. Burnand's travesty of _Black-eyed Susan_, a part originally played in this country during the previous season by Mark Smith. Mr. Robson had the support of Harry Pearson as Doggrass, of Miss Kitty Blanchard as William, and of Miss Mary Cary as Susan. The entertainment, as a whole, was unusually good, full of exquisite drollery and grotesque fancy, although Captain Crosstree eclipsed every other feature. His "make up" was a marvel of absurdity, his naturally slight figure was literally blown to an enormous size, the contrast between his immense physical rotundity and his thin, inimitably squeaky little voice being exceedingly ludicrous. During this season the Lydia Thompson troupe was in the full tide of its success; William Horace Lingard and Miss Alice Dunning were playing _Pluto_ and _Orpheus in New York_; every negro minstrel and variety performer was burlesquing some person or some thing every night in the week, and opera-bouffe had taken possession of half of the theatres in the land. [Illustration: WILLIAM H. CRANE AS LE BLANC, IN EVANGELINE.] The most successful burlesque of those times, and the entertainment which is most fresh in the memory, was "The New Version of Shakspere's Masterpiece of _Hamlet_, as arranged by T. C. De Leon, of Mobile, for George L. Fox," and first presented in New York at the Olympic (formerly Laura Keene's) Theatre, on Broadway, February 14, 1870. Although not an improvement upon the original acting version of the tragedy, it was an improvement upon the general run of burlesques of its generation; it did not depend upon lime-lights or upon anatomical display, and it did not harrow up the young blood of its auditors by its horrible plays upon unoffending words. It followed the text of Shakspere closely enough to preserve the plot of the story; it contained, as well, a great deal that was ludicrous and bright, and it never sank into imbecility or indelicacy, which is saying much for a burlesque. Mr. Fox, one of the few really funny men of his day upon the American stage, was at his best in this travesty of _Hamlet_. Quite out of the line of the pantomimic clown by which he is now remembered, it was as supremely absurd, as expressed upon his face and in his action, as was his _Humpty Dumpty_. It was perhaps more a burlesque of Edwin Booth--after whom in the character he played and dressed--than of Hamlet, and probably no one enjoyed this more thoroughly, or laughed at it more heartily, than did Mr. Booth himself. While Fox at times was wonderfully like Booth in attitude, look, and voice, he would suddenly assume the accent and expression of Fechter, whom he counterfeited admirably, and again give a most intense passage in the wonderfully deep tones of Studley, at the Bowery. To see Mr. Fox pacing