The subject of American burlesque can hardly be dismissed here without some brief allusion to a number of very clever parodies seen of late years upon the amateur stage. The poets of the various college associations have turned their muse in the direction of travesty, and with considerable success; one of the best and most popular of the entertainments of the Hasty Pudding Club, the _Dido and Aeneas_ of Owen Wister, the grandson of Fanny Kemble, being a production worthy of professional talent. John K. Bangs has written for amateur companies _Katherine_, _The Story of the Shrew_, and _Mephistopheles, a Profanation_. In the first the tamer of Shakspere finds the tables turned, and is himself tamed; while in the latter Faust's mother-in-law, the good fairy of the piece, outwits the evil genius and frustrates his designs; a power of invention on the part of Mr. Bangs which proves him to be, perhaps, the only true son of the Father of Burlesque, Hipponax himself. [Illustration: MR. JEFFERSON AND MRS. WOOD IN "IVANHOE."] But to return to the "palmy days of burlesque," before the period of opera-bouffe, and the coming of the English blondes. When stock companies were the rule, and Mitchell and Burton controlled the stock, singing and dancing were as much a part of every actor's education as elocution and gesture; and it was not considered beneath the dignity of the Rip Van Winkle or the Hamlet of one night to travesty parts equally serious the next. Mr. Booth, early in his career, appeared in such entertainments as _Blue Beard_; and Mr. Jefferson was enormously popular as Beppo, Hiawatha, Pan (in _Midas_), the Tycoon, and Mazeppa--old play-bills recording his appearance as Granby Gag to the Jenny Lind of Mrs. John Wood, "with his original grape-vine twist and burlesque break-down." His performance of Mazeppa at the Winter Garden in 1861 is still a pleasant memory in many minds. In it he sang "his celebrated aria, 'The Victim of Despair'"; and his daring act upon the bare back of the wild rocking-horse of the toy-shops was, perhaps, the most remarkable performance of its kind ever witnessed by a danger-loving public. During his several engagements at the Winter Garden Mr. Jefferson was supported by Mrs. John Wood (particularly as Ivanhoe to his Sir Brian), one of the best burlesque actresses our stage has known. Her Pocahontas was never excelled. She played it at Niblo's to the Powhatan of Mark Smith in March, 1872; and almost her last appearance upon the New York stage was made at the Grand Opera-house in November of the same year, in John Brougham's burlesque _King Carrot_, when that humorist remarked, although not of Mrs. Wood, that he was supported by vegetable "supes." [Illustration: JAMES T. POWERS AS BRIOLET, IN "THE MARQUIS."]