Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 03.djvu/778

BURLESQUE. beginning of a long line of travesties in which Scarron burlesqued Paris, Amsterdam, society, etc., and by which he established firmly his reputation as the greatest French writer of burlesque. In England burlesque developed early, along a somewhat irregular line. Chaucer, for instance, in his Rime of Sir Thopas, ridicules the long, dreary tales of the Middle Ages; Beaumont and Fletcher's Knight of the Burning Pestle is a travesty on ultra-chivalric romances; Butler's Hudibras contains burlesque motives; and still later The Rejected Addresses of the brothers Smith brought the English form of burlesque to a high level. In Spain Cervantes, with his immortal Don Quixote, created a new type of burlesque, which was imitated in the next century by Le Sage in France with his diverting history of Gil Blas. During the later history of literature there have been innumerable travesties, parodies, and burlesques of contemporary poems and authors, but, with the possible exception of those by Thomas Hood, none of them are of importance.

The dramatic burlesque has varied greatly in its form. Aristophanes uses it in his comedies; Euripides and Plautus contain germs of it; the Italian dramatist Gozzi employs it most successfully in his tragi-comedies; and under Molière burlesque per se reaches its highest dramatic excellence. The most noted of English burlesques on the stage are those of Planché, brought out in London in the years following 1818; and a rich vein of travesty runs through many of the plays of (q.v.). But in modern times burlesque has degenerated from comedy to farce, and from farce to a musical medley of travesty and vaudeville. Indeed, in France the ‘vaudeville’ corresponds to the English burlesque. Consult: Flögel, Geschichte des Burlesken (Leipzig, 1793); Morillot, Scarron et le genre burlesque (1888); Burlesque Plays and Poems, in Morley's Universal Library.  BUR′LINGAME, (1820-70). An American politician and diplomatist. He was born at New Berlin, N. Y., but removed with his father to Ohio in 1823 and to Michigan ten years later. He graduated at the University of Michigan in 1841, and at the Harvard Law School in 1846, and subsequently practiced law in Boston. In 1852 he became a member of the State Senate, and in the following year was sent to the State Constitutional Convention. He was an enthusiastic worker in the Free-Soil Party, especially in the Presidential campaign of 1848; and in 1854 joined the American Party, and became one of its representatives in the Thirty-fourth Congress. His denunciation of Brooks's assault upon Senator Sumner provoked a challenge from Brooks, which he at once accepted, naming rifles as the weapons. Brooks did not fight. Burlingame was a Congressman until 1861, and in that year was sent as Minister to Austria, where the feeling against him, because he had favored Hungarian independence, led to a positive refusal to receive him as a diplomatic representative. He was then sent to China, where he remained as Minister until 1867, when, having completely gained the confidence of the Chinese Government, he was appointed special Chinese envoy to the United States and various European Powers. In 1868 he negotiated with the United States Government the “Burlingame Treaty,” notable as marking the first acceptance by China of the principles of international law, and as granting important reciprocal privileges to the two Powers. Subsequently he negotiated important treaties with Denmark, Sweden, Holland, and Prussia, and in 1870 he died in Saint Petersburg while arranging the terms of a treaty with Russia.  BURLINGAME, (1848—). An American magazine editor, born in Boston, Mass. He was educated at Harvard and Heidelberg, and became editorially connected with the New York Tribune in 1871. From 1872 to 1876 he was a member of the staff for the revision of Dana and Ripley's American Cyclopædia, and in 1879 joined the editorial force of Charles Scribner's Sons. In 1886 he became editor-in-chief of Scribner's Magazine.  BUR′LINGTON. See.  BURLINGTON. A city, railroad centre, and county-seat of Des Moines County, Iowa, 206 miles west-southwest of Chicago, Ill., on the right bank of the Mississippi River, and on the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy and several other railroads (Map:, F 4). Burlington, sometimes called the ‘Orchard City,’ occupies a natural amphitheatre, formed by the limestone bluffs that slope back from the river, and on which many of the residences are built, and is regularly laid out. The river here is broad and deep, and is spanned by the railroad bridge of the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad. Burlington is connected by steamboat lines with important points on the Mississippi, and its river commerce is important. The industries are the manufacture of machinery, wagons, wheels, desks, furniture, lumber, agricultural implements, screens, mattresses, brooms, soap, flour, linseed oil, etc.; pork-packing and the quarrying of limestone found in the vicinity. The extensive machine and repair shops of the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad are located here. Among the prominent buildings are the opera house, Young Men's Christian Association building, court-house, city hall, and hospitals. The city has a public library of over 17,000 volumes, Burlington Institute College, besides high schools and grammar schools. Crapo Park, of 100 acres, situated in the southern part of the city, has a fine location and scenery not excelled along the Mississippi. The city is governed by a mayor, elected for two years, and a city council, which has the power of appointment to most of the city's offices. Burlington was named from the city of Burlington, Vt., by its first settlers. A fur-trading post was established here as early as 1829; the first dwelling-houses were erected in 1833, a town was laid out in 1834 and incorporated in 1837, and the city chartered in 1838. It was the capital of Iowa from 1837 to 1840. Population, in 1890, 23,201.  BURLINGTON. A city and county-seat of Coffey County, Kan., 60 miles south of Topeka, on the Neosho River, and on the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fé, and the Missouri, Kansas and Texas railroads (Map:, G 3). It is the centre of an agricultural and stock-raising district, in the principal products of which it has considerable trade, is supplied with good water-power, and contains flour-mills. The city has a public library. Population, in 1890, 2239; in 1900, 2418.  BURLINGTON. A city and port of entry in Burlington County, N. J., on the Delaware