Archdeacon Rogers, who died in 1595, and saw the Whitsuntide plays

performed at Chester in the preceding year, gives the following account

of the mode of exhibition:--

"The time of the yeare they were played was on Monday, Tuesday, and

Wenseday in Whitson weake. The maner of these playes weare every company

had his pagiant, or parte, which pagiants weare a high scafolde with 2

rowmes, a higher and a lower, upon 4 wheeles. In the lower they

apparelled themselves, and in the higher rowme they played, being all

open on the tope, that all behoulders might heare and see them. The

places where they played them was in every streete. They begane first at

the abay gates, and when the first pagiante was played, it was wheeled

to the high crosse before the mayor, and soe to every streete; and soe

every streete had a pagiant playinge before them at one time, till all

the pagiantes for the daye appoynted weare played, and when one pagiant

was neere ended, word was broughte from streete to streete that soe they

mighte come in place thereof exceedinge orderlye, and all the streetes

have their pagiantes afore them all at one time playeinge togeather; to

se which playes was greate resorte, and also scafoldes and stages made

in the streetes in those places where they determined to playe their

pagiantes."

Strutt has the following description of the Mystery plays:--"In the

early dawn of literature, and when the sacred Mysteries were the only

theatrical performances, what is now called the stage did then consist

of three several platforms or stages, raised one above another; on the

uppermost sat the _Pater Caelestis_, surrounded with his angels; on the

second appeared the holy saints and glorified men; and the last and

lowest were occupied by mere men who had not passed through this life to

the regions of eternity. On one side of this lowest platform was the

resemblance of a dark pitchy cavern, from whence issued appearance of

fire and flames; and when it was necessary the audience were treated

with hideous yellings and noises, as imitations of the howlings and

cries of the wretched souls tormented by the relentless demons. From

this yawning cave the devils themselves constantly ascended, to delight

and instruct the spectators; to delight because they were usually the

greatest jesters and buffoons that then appeared; and to instruct for

that they treated the wretched mortals who were delivered to them with

the utmost cruelty, warning thereby all men carefully to avoid the

falling into the clutches of such hardened and relentless spirits."

It is interesting to note that Hell was imitated by a whale's open jaws,

behind which a fire was lighted, in such a way, however, so as not to

injure the "damned," who had to pass into its gaping mouth. The

performer who impersonated God had not only his face but also the hair

of his wig gilded. Christ was dressed in a long sheep's skin. The Devil,

or Vice (the _Exodiarii_ and _Emboliariae_ of the ancient _Mimis_), was

easily recognisable by his horns and his tail, whilst his beard was of a

bright red colour, to indicate the flames of the region in which he

dwelt. Judas also wore a wig of a fiery hue, and, after being hung, had

sometimes to do the "cock crowing," as some old accounts of the York

Mysteries show.

It appears to have been customary for the Devil to appear before the

audience with a cry of "Ho! ho! ho!" somewhat similar to the

ejaculations of the Pantomime Clown in after years. (See _Gammer

Gurton's Needle_, Act II., Sc. 3, and "The Devil is an Ass," by Ben

Jonson, Act I., Sc. 1.) The following passage occurs in "Wily Beguiled,"

1606. "Tush! feare not the dodge; I'll rather put on my flashing red

nose, and my flaming face, and come wrapped in a calfe's skin, and cry

'Ho! ho! ho!'" Again, "I'll put me on my great carnation nose, and wrap

me in a rousing calf's-skin suit, and come like some hob-goblin, or some

Devil ascended from the grisly pit of hell, and like a scarebabe make

him take to his legs; I'll play the Devil, I warrant ye."

CHAPTER IX.

The Clown or Fool of the early English Drama--Moralities--The

Interlude--The rise of English Tragedy and Comedy--"Dumb Shews" in the

Old Plays--Plays suppressed by Elizabeth--A retrospect.

In the sixth chapter of this work, in quoting Malone, I have mentioned

that the _Exodiarii_ and _Emboliariae_ of the _Mimis_ were the remote

progenitors of the Clown of the Mystery Plays of this country. Now let

us see what were the duties the Clown fulfilled in the old plays of this

country, and also briefly of the others who were known under the generic

name of Clown or fool.

In the early drama the Clown was a personage of no mean importance and

whose duty was to preserve the stage from vacancy by amusing the

audience with extemporary buffoonery, and also at the end of the

performance. And, as Heywood, in his "History of Women" (1624), says "By

his mimic gestures to breed in the less capable mirth and laughter." On

these occasions, it was usual to descant, in a humourous style, on

various subjects proposed to him by the spectators; but they were more

commonly entertained with what was termed a jig: this was a ludicrous

composition in rhyme, sung by the Clown, accompanied by his pipe and

tabor. In these jigs there were sometimes more actors than one, and the

most unbounded license of tongue was allowed; the pith of the matter

being usually some scurrilous exposure of persons among, or well known

to the audience. Here again history repeats itself in this once more,

and in imitation of the satirical interludes of the Grecian stage and

the _Atellans_ and _Mimis_ of the Roman theatres.

The practice of putting the fools and Clowns in requisition between the

acts and scenes (observes Francis Douce), and after the play was

finished, to amuse the spectators with their tricks, may be traced to

the Greek and Roman theatres; and their usages being preserved in the

middle ages, wherever the Roman influence had spread, it would not, of

course, be peculiar to England. The records of the French theatre

demonstrate this fact; in the "Mystery of Saint Barbara," we find this

stage direction:--_Pausa. Vadunt, et stultus loquitur._ (A pause. They

quit the stage, and the fool speaks). And in this way he is frequently

brought on between the scenes.

It is quite obvious that the terms Clown and fool were used, though

improperly, perhaps, as synonymous by our old dramatists. Their confused

introduction might render this doubtful to one who had not well

considered the matter. The fool of our early plays denoted a mere idiot

or natural, or else a witty hireling retained to make sport for his

masters. The Clown was a character of more variety; sometimes he was a

mere rustic; and, often, no more than a shrewd domestic. There are

instances in which any low character in a play served to amuse with his

coarse sallies, and thus became the Clown of the piece. In fact, the

fool of the drama was a kind of heterogeneous being, copied in part from

real life, but highly coloured in order to produce effect. This opinion

derives force from what is put into the mouth of Hamlet, when he

admonishes those who perform the Clowns, to speak no more than is set

down for them. Indeed, Shakespeare himself cannot be absolved from the

imputation of making mere caricatures of his merry Andrews, unless we

suppose, what is very probable, that his compositions have been much

interpolated with the extemporaneous jokes of the players. To this

folly, allusions are made in a clever satire, entitled, "Pasquils

Mad-cappe, throwne at the Corruptions of these Times," 1626, quarto.

"Tell country players, that old paltry jests

Pronounced in a painted motley coate,

Filles all the world so full of cuckoo nests,

That nightingales can scarcely sing a note.

Oh! bid them turn their minds to better meanings;

Fields are ill sowne that give no better gleanings."

Sir Philip Sidney reprobates the custom of introducing fools on the

stage; and declares that the plays of his time were neither right

tragedies nor right comedies, for the authors mingled kings and Clowns,

"not," says he, "because the matter so carrieth it, but thrust in the

Clowne by head and shoulders to play a part in majestical matters, with

neither decencie nor discretion; so as neither the admiration and

commisseration, nor the right sportfulnesse, is by their mongrell

tragie-comedie obtained." Rankin, a puritan, contemporary with

Shakespeare, wrote a most bitter attack on plays and players, whom he

calls monsters; "And whie monsters?" says he, "because under colour of

humanitie they present nothing but prodigious vanitie; these are wels

without water, dead branches fit for fuell, cockle amongst corne,

unwholesome weedes amongst sweete hearbes; and, finallie, feends that

are crept into the worlde by stealth, and hold possession by subtill

invasion." In another place, he says, "some transformed themselves to

rogues, others to ruffians, some others to Clownes, a fourth to fools;

the rogues were ready, the ruffians were rude, theyr Clownes cladde as

well with country condition, as in ruffe russet; theyr fooles as fond as

might be."

To give a clear view of our subject, something of the different sorts of

fools may be thus classed:

1.--The _general domestic fool_, termed often, but _improperly_, a

_Clown_; described by Puttenham as "a buffoune, or counterfett foole."

2.--The _Clown_, who was a mere country booby, or a witty rustic.

3.--The _female fool_, who was generally an idiot.

4.--The _city or corporation fool_, an assistant in public

entertainments.

5.--The _tavern fool_, retained to amuse the customers.

6.--The _fool of the ancient Mysteries and Moralities_, otherwise the

_Vice_.

7.--The _fool in the old dumb shows_, often alluded to by Shakespeare.

8.--The _fool in the Whitsun ales and morris dance_.

9.--The _mountebank's fool, or merry Andrew_.

There may be others in our ancient dramas, of an irregular kind, not

reducible to any of these classes; but to exemplify them is not within

the scope of this essay: what has been stated may assist the readers of

old plays to judge for themselves when they meet with such characters.

The practice of retaining fools can be distinctly traced from the

remotest times. They were to be found alike in the palace and the

brothel; the Pope had his fool, and the bawd hers; they excited the

mirth of kings and beggars; the hovel of the villain and the castle of

the baron were alike exhilarated by their jokes. With respect to the

antiquity of this custom in England, it appears to have existed even

during the period of our Saxon history, but we are certain of the fact

in the reign of William the Conqueror. Maitre Wace, an historian of that

time, has an account of the preservation of William's life, when Duke of

Normandy, by his fool, _Goles_; and, in Domesday book, mention is made

of _Berdin joculator regis_; and though this term sometimes denoted a

minstrel, evidence might be adduced to prove, that in this instance it

signified a buffoon.

The entertainment, fools were expected to afford, may be collected in

great variety from our old plays, especially from those of Shakespeare;

but, perhaps, a good idea may be formed of their general conduct from a

passage in a curious tract by Lodge, entitled, "Wit's Miserie," 1599,

quarto: "Immoderate and disordinate joy became incorporate in the bodie

of a jeaster; this fellow in person is comely, in apparell courtly, but

in behaviour a very ape, and no man; his studie is to coin bitter

jeasts, or to shew antique motions, or to sing baudie sonnets and

ballads; give him a little wine in his head, he is continually flearing

and making of mouthes; he laughs intemperately at every little occasion,

and dances about the house, leaps over tables, outskips men's heads,

trips up his companions' heeles, burns sack with a candle, and hath all

the feats of a lord of misrule in the countrie: feed him in his humour,

you shall have his heart; in mere kindness he will hug you in his armes,

kisse you on the cheeke, and rapping out an horrible oath, crie 'God's

soule, Tum, I love you, you knowe my poore heart, come to my chamber for

a pipe of tobacco, there lives not a man in this world that I more

honor.' In these ceremonies you shall know his courting, and it is a

speciall mark of him at table, he sits and makes faces: keep not this

fellow company, for in jingling with him, your wardropes shall be

wasted, your credits crackt, your crownes consumed, and time (the most

precious riches of the world) utterly lost."

With regard to the fool's business on the stage, it was nearly the same

as in reality, with this difference, that the wit was more highly

seasoned. In Middleton's "Mayor of Quinborough," a company of actors,

with a Clown, make their appearance, and the following dialogue

ensues:--

1st Cheater. This is our Clown, sir.

Simon. Fye, fye, your company

Must fall upon him and beat him; he's too fair i'faith,

To make the people laugh.

1st Cheater. Not as he may be dress'd, sir.

Simon. Faith, dress him how you will. I'll give him

That gift, he will never look half scurvily enough.

Oh! the Clowns that I have seen in my time,

The very peeping out of one of them would have

Made a young heir laugh, though his father lay a-dying;

A man undone in law the day before,

(The saddest case that can be) might for his second

Have burst himself with laughing, and ended all

His miseries. Here was a merry world, my masters!

Some talk of things of state, of puling stuff;

There's nothing in a play like to a Clown,

If he have the grace to hit on it, that's the thing indeed.

Away then, shift; Clown, to thy motley crupper.

In the _praeludium_ to Goffe's "Careless Shepherdess," 1656, quarto,

there is a panegyric on them, and some concern is shown for the fool's

absence in the play itself, while it is stated that "The motley coat was

banished with trunk-hose." Yet in Charles II.'s reign, some efforts were

made to restore the character. In the tragedy of "Thorney Abbey, or the

London Maid," 1662, 12mo., the prologue is delivered by a fool, who uses

these words:--"The poet's a fool who made the tragedy, to tell a story

of a king and a court, and leave a fool out on't, when in Pacey's, and

Sommer's, and Patche's, and Archer's times, my venerable predecessours,

a fool was alwaies the principal verb." Shadwell's play of "The Woman

Captain," 1680, is perhaps the last in which a regular fool is

introduced; and even there, his master is made to say that the character

was exploded on the stage. In real life, as was formerly stated, the

professed fool was to be met with at a much later period, but the custom

has long been obsolete.

What I have said of the Mysteries of Religion plays will, I hope, be

sufficient to show the reader how they were associated with Pantomime.

The Moralities, founded on the Mysteries, were the means used to

inculcate, by the aid of a slight plot, religious truths without

directly using scriptural or legendary subjects. Malone says of

them:--"I am unable to ascertain when the first Morality appeared, but

incline to think not sooner than the reign of Edward IV. (about 1460).

The public pageants of the reign of his predecessor were uncommonly

splendid, and being then _first_ enlivened by the introduction of

_speaking_ allegorical personages, properly and characteristically

habited, naturally led the way to these personifications, by which

Moralities were _distinguished from_ the simple religious dramas called

Mysteries."

The Interlude, that was the progenitor of English Comedy, next arrived.

The origin of the Interlude is credited to John Heywood.

It is interesting to note that a play, entitled, "Gammer Gurton's

Needle," is credited with being our first English Comedy, though its

humour and wit, it is stated, is of a low and sordid kind. Others make

claim for the comedy, "Ralph Roister Doister."

Tragedy and Comedy now began to raise their heads, yet they could not,

for some time, do more than bluster and quibble. There is an excellent

criticism on them by that distinguished statesman, poet, scholar, and

brave soldier, Sir Philip Sydney. "Some of their pieces were only '_dumb

shews_,' some with choruses, and some they explained by an

Interlocutor," says an old writer on the subject. The mention of

Pantomime in connection with tragedy, and as an example how Pantomime

was requisitioned in Shakespeare's time, is shown in the Second Scene of

Act III. of "Hamlet," wherein the "dumb shew" is given by the players.

The true drama, however, received birth and perfection from the creative

geniuses of Shakespeare, Beaumont and Fletcher, Jonson, and others.

Though the stage no sooner began to talk than it grew scurrilous, and

plays were thought "Dangerous to Religion, the State, Honesty, and

Manners, and also for Infection, in Time of Sickness." Wherefore they

were afterwards for some time suppressed. But upon application to the

Queen and Council they were again tolerated under the following

restrictions: "That no Plays be acted on Sundays at all, nor on any

other Holidays till after Evening Prayer. That no playing be in the

_Dark_, nor continue and such Time, but the Auditors may return to their

Dwellings in London before Sunset, or at least before it be _Dark_." The

foregoing is from Stow, and this Act was made in the reign of Elizabeth.

The Virgin Queen does not seem to have cared much about this enactment,

as we find that on Sunday, the 24th September, 1592, she and her Court

attended a play at Oxford.

As Tragedy and Comedy progressed on the English stage, Pantomime, as far

as it was associated with the dumb shows in the early English drama,

became, little by little, a thing of the past.

We have seen, and traced, from the Creation of this planet, and through

succeeding ages, how Pantomime has always flourished; we have seen also

how the Interlude gave way to the Comedy; we will now see how this love

of light entertainment formulated in this country by the Interlude, and,

about the same time, by the Italian Masque Comedy, the progenitor of

Pantomime (referring to the whole as a spectacle), and the forerunner in

France, also of that other form of light entertainment known as the

French Vaudeville, cultivated by Le Sage and other French writers of

note.

To go to the bed-rock for our facts, and for the innovation of all this,

it is necessary in thought, and perhaps as well in spirit, to journey to

Italy.

CHAPTER X.

The Italian Masque--The Masque in England--First appearance in this

country of Harlequin--Joe Haines as Harlequin--Marlowe's "Faustus"--A

Curious Play--The Italian Harlequin--Colley Cibber,

Penkethman--Shakespeare's Burlesques of the Masque--Decline of the

Masque.

In Italy the Masque entertainment long held sway, and was a light form

of amusement, consisting of Pantomime, music, singing, and dancing, and

an adaptation of the _Fabulae Atellanae_ of ancient Italy. The

performers wore masks, also high-heeled shoes, fitted with brass or iron

heels, which jingled as they danced. This ancient custom to present-day

stage dancers will doubtless be of interest. Masks, like on the stages

of the Greeks and the Romans, were used, hence the title Mask, or

Masque, as it is sometimes written both ways. In the days of Elizabeth

the custom was also practised in the Elizabethean Masque. The Masquerade

and the Masked ball, or _Bal-Masque_, are survivals of this ancient

custom.

Crossing the Alps, if the reader will accompany me, the Italian Masque

Comedy we find was already known in France in the fifteenth century. In

the days of Mary de Medici ballets were introduced, and by the time of

Louis XIV. "Opera" (_i.e._, the Masque) was in full swing in the early

part of this reign. On the Spanish stage ballets, with allegorical

characters, were known in the sixteenth century; and, in fact,

throughout Europe about this age, and some time previously this

improvised form of Italian Comedy, and the several characters in it,

belonging to the family of Harlequin, had long been familiar subjects.

Returning to England after our little holiday, the Masque in the

fifteenth and sixteenth centuries had become very popular. The

architect, Inigo Jones, being frequently employed to furnish the

decorations with all the magnificence of his invention. At the Courts of

Elizabeth, James I., Charles I., and up to the time when all plays were

totally suppressed, was it the rage. At the Restoration the Masque was

revived again, and here, borrowing the name from the continent, it is

called "Opera." In proof of this, in Dryden's work, "Albion and

Albanius," 1685, "Opera" is defined as a "poetical tale or picture

represented by vocal and instrumental music, and endowed with machines

and dances."

The dramatic poet and author, Ben Jonson, collaborated with Inigo Jones,

the architect, in devising these Masque plays, Jonson supplying the

words, and Jones the scenic effects, the latter being very gorgeous,

consisting of "landscapes, mountains, and clouds, which opened to

display heathen deities illuminated by variegated coloured lights." Over

these Masques or "Operatic" entertainments Jonson and Jones quarrelled,

as the former's grievance was that he received no more for his

librettos than Jones did for his scenic devices. Ben Jonson thereupon

wrote satires upon Inigo Jones, and in one of his squibs appears the

satirical line, "Painting and Carpentry are the Soul of Masque." Is not

this applicable to many of our present-day Pantomimes, which, as I have

just stated in the previous chapter, the Masque was one of the original

progenitors?

Inigo Jones and Jonson first collaborated in the "Masque of Blackness,"

performed at Whitehall on Twelfth Night, 1603. In our money this Masque

cost some £10,000. Jones and Jonson's quarrel originated because the

poet had, in the "Masque of Chloridia," performed in 1630, prefixed his

own name before that of Jones. In consequence of this "rare old Ben" was

deprived--through Jones' influence--of employment at Court.

Gifford, in his "Memoirs of Ben Jonson," says that "In poetry, painting,

architecture, they (the Masques) have not since been equalled."

"The Masque," continues Gifford, "as it attained its highest degree of

excellence, admitted of dialogue, singing and dancing; these were not

independent of one another, but combined by the introduction of some

ingenious fable into an harmonious whole. When the plan was formed, the

aid of the sister-arts was called in; for the essence of the Masque was

pomp and glory. Movable scenery of the most costly and splendid kind was

lavished on the Masque; the most celebrated masters were employed on

the songs and dances; and all that the kingdom afforded of vocal and

instrumental excellence was employed to embellish the exhibition. Thus,

magnificently constructed, was composed, as Lord Bacon says, for

princes, and by princes it was played. Of these Masques, the skill with

which their ornaments were designed, and the inexpressible grace with

which they were executed appear to have left a vivid impression on the

mind of Jonson. His genius awakens at once, and all his faculties attune

to sprightliness and pleasure. He makes his appearance like his own

Delight, accompanied with Grace, Love, Harmony, Revel, Sport, and

Laughter."

In the Masques the Pantomimic dances of the Masquers were known as

motions:--

"In curious knot and mazes so

The Spring at first was taught to go;

And Zephyr, when he came to woo

His Flora had his _motions_ too;

And thus did Venus learn to lead

The Idalian brawls, and so to tread,

As if the wind, not she did walk,

Nor press'd a flower, nor bow'd a stalk."

Before the arrival of the Italian Masque in England, the Harlequin

family were unknown, and, doubtless, Harlequin's first appearance in

this country was in consonance with the Masque itself.

Heywood, in a tract, published in 1609, entitled, "_Troia Britannica_,"

mentions "Zanyes, Pantaloons, Harlakeans, in which the French, but

especially the Italians, have been excellent as known in this country."

The earliest record I can find of a Harlequin performing in this country

is in the Masque given before Charles I. and his Court on the Sunday

evening following Twelfth Night, 1637. An account of this Masque, as

well as other information dealing with the Masque entertainments, will

be found in my volume, "Stage Whispers," and in the article on

theatrical scenery.

In a comedy, written by Ravenscroft, after the Italian manner, Joe

Haines, in 1667, donned the motley jacket of Harlequin, and which, in

all probability, was the first appearance of Harlequin on the English

boards, though not in England, as stated above. In a farce of the

audacious Mrs. Aphra Behn's, produced twenty years afterwards, Harlequin

and Scaramouch were two of the characters. Mrs. Behn died April 16,

1689, and was buried in the cloisters of Westminster Abbey. To Marlowe's

"Faustus," Mountfort added comic scenes to the tragedy, introducing

Harlequin and Scaramouch. A Harlequin, Pantaloon, Columbine, and Clown

appeared in a curious piece in 1697, entitled, "Novelty; or Every Act a

Play." The first act consisted of a pastoral Drama, the second of a

Comedy, the third a Masque, the fourth a Tragedy, and the fifth act a

Farce.

In Italy the fame of Harlequin was at its zenith at the close of the

seventeenth century. In this country in 1687 a Harlequin (Penkethman)

appeared in a farce called "The Emperor of the Moon" without a mask.

Colley Cibber says of this performance "That when he (Penkethman) first

played Harlequin in 'The Emperor of the Moon' several gentlemen (who

inadvertently judged by the rules of nature) fancied that a great deal

of the drollery, and spirit of his grimace was lost by his wearing that

useless, unmeaning mask, therefore insisted that the next time of his

acting that part he should play without it. Their desire was accordingly

complied with, but alas! in vain--Penkethman was no more Harlequin. His

humour was quite disconcerted."

In "The Tempest," Shakespeare introduces a Masque, and also in his

"Midsummer Nights' Dream," the play of "Pyramus and Thisbe," performed

by the Clowns, is in burlesque of the Masque plays.

In both these two plays of the bard's, and in connection with the Masque

plays, we see, from the stage directions in them, how Pantomime formed

part of their effective representation.

In out heroding-herod in the way of splendour, showy dresses and

expensive machinery, the Masque soon fell into decay; and, as Ben Jonson

states, "The glory of all these solemnities had perished like a blaze,

and gone out in the beholder's eyes; so short-lived are the bodies of

all things in comparison with their souls."

CHAPTER XI.

Italian Pantomime--Riccoboni--Broom's "Antipodes"--Gherardi--Extemporal

Comedies--Salvator Rosa--Impromptu Acting.

Pantomime in Italy had two distinct features, one a species of

buffoonery, termed _Lazzi_, and the other Extemporal or Improvised

Comedies.

"_Lazzi_," mentions Riccoboni, in his "_Histoire du Theâtre Italien_,"

is a term corrupted from the old Tuscan _Lacci_, which signifies a knot,

or something that connects. (Both the _Lazzi_ and the Extemporal

Comedies were all derived from the one original source, that of the

Satirical drama of the Greeks, and perpetuated in the _Fabulae

Atellanae_ or _Laudi Osci_ of Italy.)

Riccoboni continues: "These pleasantries, called _Lazzi_, are certain

actions by which the performer breaks into the scene, to paint to the

eye his emotions of panic or jocularity; but as such gestures are

foreign to the business going on, the nicety of the art consists in not

interrupting the scene, and connecting the _Lazzi_ with it; thus to tie

the whole together."

_Lazzi_ is what we might term "bye play," which, by gesture and action,

could not detract, but rather added to the effectiveness of the scene in

progress.

In Broom's "Antipodes," which was performed at the Salisbury Court

Theatre, London, in 1638, a _by-play_, as he calls it, is represented in

this comedy--"A word (explains Malone) for the application of which we

are indebted to this writer, there being no other term in our language

that I know of, which so properly expresses that species of Interlude

which we find in our poet's 'Hamlet,' and other pieces."

Riccoboni, in describing some _Lazzi_, says that Harlequin and Scapin

being in a famished condition, Scapin, in order to bring their young

mistress out, asks Harlequin to groan. Scapin explains to her the

reason, and while they are talking, Harlequin is performing his _Lazzi_.

This consists of eating an imaginary hatful of cherries, and throwing

the stones at Scapin; or catching imaginary flies, and chopping off

their wings.

"_Lazzi_," we are told, "although they seem to interrupt the progress of

the action, yet in cutting it they slide back into it, and connect or

tie the whole."

When Riccoboni and his company first appeared in France, though being

unable to speak nothing but Italian, their audiences, though not being

able to understand the _words_, yet the performers were such

past-masters in the Mimetic Art that their representations were just as

intelligible and as expressive as if they had been with words.

Gherardi, in his treatise, "_Theâtre Italien_," speaks of a Scaramouch,

who, waiting for his master, Harlequin, seats and plays on the guitar.

Suddenly, by Pasquariel, he is thrown into a fright. "It was then," says

Gherardi, "that incomparable model of our most eminent actors displayed

the miracles of his art; that art which paints the passions in the face,

throws them into every gesture, and through a whole scene of frights

upon frights, conveys the most powerful expression of ludicrous terror.

This man moved all hearts by the simplicity of nature, more than skilful

orators can with all the charms of persuasive rhetoric."

The Extemporal Comedies were all improvised, the actors underwent no

rehearsal, and, as the name denotes, everything was impromptu. The

Scenario, or plot, had just simply the scenes and the characters set

forth, and it was then hung in a conspicuous place on the stage; and

just in a similar way as the gas or lime light "plots" are affixed in

present day theatres, though the Scenarios were not as elaborate as what

some of our gas or limelight "plots" are.

Before going on the stage, the Mimes just inspected the Scenario of the

_Comedia Del' Arte_, and for the dialogue and action everything depended

solely upon their Pantomimic genius.

Disraeli mentions that men of great genius had a passion for performing

in these Extemporal Comedies, and, amongst others, the great painter,

Salvator Rosa. A favourite character of Rosa's was that of Formica, a

Clown of Calabria. Passeri, in his life of Rosa, tells the following

anecdote:--

One summer, Salvator Rosa joined a company of young persons, who were

curiously addicted to the making of _Comedie all' Improviso_. In the

midst of a vineyard they raised a rustic stage, under the direction of

one Mussi, who enjoyed some literary reputation, particularly for his

sermons preached in Lent.

Their second Comedy was numerously attended, and I went among the rest.

I sat on the same bench by good fortune with Cavalier Bernini,

Romanelli, and Guido, all well-known persons. Salvator Rosa, who had

already made himself a favourite with the Roman people, under the

character of Formica, opened with a prologue in company with other

actors. He proposed for relieving themselves of the extreme heats and

_ennui_ that they should make a Comedy, and all agreed. Formica (Rosa)

then spoke (in the satirical Venetian dialect) these exact words, which

Mr. Disraeli translates as follows:--"I will not, however, that we

should make a Comedy like certain persons who cut clothes, and put them

on this man's back, and on that man's back; for at last the time comes

which shows how much faster went the cut of the shears than the pen of

the poet; nor will we have entering on the scene, couriers, brandy

sellers, and goatherds, and there stare shy and blockish, which I think

worthy the senseless invention of an ass."

Passeri continues: "At this time Bernini had made a Comedy in the

Carnival very pungent and biting; and that summer he had one of

Castelli's performed in the suburbs, where, to represent the dawn of

day, appeared on the stage water-carriers, couriers, and goat-herds,

going about--all which is contrary to rule, which allows of no character

who is not concerned in the dialogue to mix with the groups. At these

words of the Formica, I, who well knew his meaning, instantly glanced my

eye at Bernini, to observe his movements; but he, with an artificial

carelessness, showed that this 'cut of the shears' did not touch him;

and he made no apparent show of being hurt. But Castelli, who was also

near, tossing his head and smiling in bitterness, showed clearly that he

was hit."

In concluding, Mr. Disraeli observes that: "This Italian story, told

with all the poignant relish of these vivacious natives, to whom such a

stinging incident was an important event, also shows the personal

freedoms taken on these occasions by a man of genius, entirely in the

spirit of the ancient Roman _Atellanae_ or the Grecian _Satyra_."

Of Extemporal Comedies, Riccoboni mentions that: "This kind of spectacle

is peculiar to Italy; one cannot deny that it has graces perfectly its

own, and which _written Comedy can never exhibit_. This impromptu mode

of acting furnishes opportunities for a perpetual change in the

performance, so that the same Scenario repeated still appears a new one:

thus one Comedy may become twenty Comedies. _An actor of this

description, always supposing an actor of genius, is more vividly

affected than one who has coldly got his part by rote. But figure,

memory, voice, and even sensibility, are not sufficient for the actor

all' improvista; he must be in the habit of cultivating the imagination,

pouring forth the flow of expression, and prompt in those flashes which

instantly vibrate in the plaudits of an audience._"

Again, Gherardi: "Anyone may learn a part by rote, and do something bad,

or indifferent, on another theatre. With us the affair is quite

otherwise; and when an Italian actor dies, it is with infinite

difficulty that we can supply his place. An Italian actor learns nothing

by head; he looks on the subject for a moment before he comes forward on

the stage, and entirely depends upon his imagination for the rest. The

actor who is accustomed merely to recite what he has been taught is so

completely occupied by his memory, that he appears to stand, as it were,

unconnected either with the audience or his companions; he is so

impatient to deliver himself of the burthen he is carrying that he

trembles like a schoolboy, or is as senseless as an echo, _and could

never speak if others had not spoken before_. Such a tutored actor among

us would be like a paralytic arm to a body: an unserviceable member,

only fatiguing the healthy action of the sound parts."

CHAPTER XII.

Pantomimical Characters--Neapolitan Pantomime--The Harlequin Family--The

Original Characters in the Italian Pantomimes--Celebrated

Harlequins--Italian and French Harlequins--A French view of the English

Clown--Pierrots' origin--Pantaloon, how the name has been

derived--Columbine--Marionette and Puppet Shows.

After having shown what the _Lazzi_ and Extemporal Comedies were like,

let us now turn to the Pantomimical characters associated with their

representations.

Every one, observes Mr. Isaac Disraeli, of this grotesque family were

the creatures of national genius, chosen by the people for themselves.

Italy, both ancient and modern, exhibits a gesticulating people of

comedians, and the same comic genius characterised the nation through

all its revolutions, as well as the individual through all his fortunes.

The lower classes still betray their aptitude in that vivid humour,

where the action is suited to the word--silent gestures sometimes

expressing whole sentences. They can tell a story, and even raise the

passions, without opening their lips. No nation in modern Europe

possesses so keen a relish for the burlesque, insomuch as to show a

class of unrivalled poems, which are distinguished by the very title;

and perhaps there never was an Italian in a foreign country, however

deep in trouble, but would drop all remembrance of his sorrows, should

one of his countrymen present himself with the paraphernalia of Punch at

the corner of a street. I was acquainted with an Italian, a philosopher

and a man of fortune, residing in this country, who found so lively a

pleasure in performing Punchinello's little comedy, that, for this

purpose, with considerable expense and curiosity, he had his wooden

company, in all their costume, sent over from his native place. The

shrill squeak of the tin whistle had the same comic effect on him as the

notes of the _Ranz des Vaches_ have in awakening the tenderness of

domestic emotions in the wandering Swiss--the national genius is

dramatic. Lady Wortley Montagu when she resided at a villa near Brescia,

was applied to by the villagers for leave to erect a theatre in her

saloon: they had been accustomed to turn the stables into a playhouse

every Carnival. She complied, and, as she tells us, was "Surprised at

the beauty of their scenes, though painted by a country painter. The

performance was yet more surprising, the actors being all peasants; but

the Italians have so natural a genius for comedy, they acted as well as

if they had been brought up to nothing else, particularly the Arlechino,

who far surpassed any of our English, though only the tailor of our

village, and I am assured never saw a play in any other place." Italy is

the mother, and the nurse, of the whole Harlequin race.

Hence it is that no scholars in Europe but the most learned Italians,

smit by the national genius, could have devoted their vigils to narrate

the evolutions of Pantomime, to compile the annals of Harlequin, to

unroll the genealogy of Punch, and to discover even the most secret

anecdotes of the obscurer branches of that grotesque family, amidst

their changeful fortunes, during a period of two thousand years. Nor is

this all; princes have ranked them among the Rosciuses; and Harlequins

and Scaramouches have been ennobled. Even Harlequins themselves have

written elaborate treatises on the almost insurmountable difficulties of

their art. I despair to convey the sympathy they have inspired me with

to my reader; but every _Tramontane_ genius must be informed, that of

what he has never seen, he must rest content to be told.

Of the ancient Italian troop we have retained three or four of the

characters, while their origin has nearly escaped our recollection; but

of the burlesque comedy, the extempore dialogue, the humorous fable, and

its peculiar species of comic acting, all has vanished.

Many of the popular pastimes of the Romans unquestionably survived their

dominion, for the people will amuse themselves, though their masters may

be conquered; and tradition has never proved more faithful than in

preserving popular sports. Many of the games of our children were played

by Roman boys; the mountebanks, with the dancers and tumblers on their

moveable stages, still in our fairs, are Roman; the disorders of the

_Bacchanalia_, Italy appears to imitate in her Carnivals. Among these

Roman diversions certain comic characters have been transmitted to us,

along with some of their characteristics, and their dresses. The

speaking Pantomimes and Extemporal Comedies which have delighted the

Italians for many centuries, are from this ancient source.

Rich, in his "Companion to the Latin Dictionary," has an excellent

illustration of this passage:--"This Art was of very great antiquity,

and much practiced by the Greeks and Romans, both on the stage and in

the tribune, induced by their habit of addressing large assemblies in

the open air, where it would have been impossible for the majority to

comprehend what was said without the assistance of some conventional

signs, which enabled the speaker to address himself to the eye, as well

as the ear of the audience. These were chiefly made by certain positions

of the hands and fingers, the meaning of which was universally

recognised and familiar to all classes, and the practice itself reduced

to a regular system, as it remains at the present time amongst the

populace of Naples, who will carry on a long conversation between

themselves by mere gesticulation, and without pronouncing a word." That

many of these signs are similar to those used by the Ancients, is proved

by the same author, who copies from an antique vase a scene which he

explains by the action of the hands of the figures, adding, "A common

lazzaroni, when shown one of these compositions, will at once explain

the purport of the action, which a scholar with all his learning cannot

divine." The gesture to signify love, employed by the Ancients and

modern Neapolitans, was joining the tips of the thumb and forefinger of

the left hand; an imputation or asseveration by holding forth the right

hand; a denial by raising the same hand, extending the fingers. In

mediaeval works of art, a particular attitude of the fingers is adopted

to exhibit malicious hate: it is done by crossing the forefinger of each

hand, and is generally seen in figures of Herod or Judas Iscariot.

Down to the fifteenth century there is not much known of the family of

Harlequin, with the exception, perhaps, that the name Zany became more

widely distributed into such as Drolls, Clowns, Pantaloons, Punches,

Scaramouches, and the like. In the Italian Comedy, of purely native

growth, the original characters were Pantaloon, a Venetian Merchant;

Dottore, a Bolognese physician; Spavento, a Neapolitan braggart;

Pulcinello, a wag of Apalia; Giangurgoto and Corviello, two Clowns of

Cala-simpleton; and Arlechino, a blundering servant of Bergamo.

The latter The Harlequin of the Italian theatre, has passed through,

mentions Mr. Disraeli, all the vicissitudes of fortune. At first (as we

have seen) he was a true representative of the ancient Mime; but, during

the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, he degenerated into a booby and

a gourmand, the perpetual butt for a sharp-witted fellow, his companion,

Brighella, the knife and the whetstone. Harlequin, however, under the

reforming hand of Goldoni, became, in after years, a child of nature,

and the delight of his country; and he has commemorated the historical

character of the great Harlequin Sacchi. It may serve the reader to

correct his notions of one, from the absurd pretender with us who has

usurped the title. "Sacchi possessed a lively and brilliant imagination.

While other Harlequins merely repeated themselves, Sacchi, who always

adhered to the essence of the play, contrived to give an air of

freshness to the piece by his new sallies and unexpected repartees. His

comic traits and his jests were neither taken from the language of the

lower orders, nor that of the comedians. He levied contributions on

comic authors, on poets, orators, and philosophers; and in his

impromptus they often discovered the thoughts of Seneca, Cicero, or

Montaigne. He possessed the art of appropriating the remains of these

great men to himself, and allying them to the simplicity of the

blockhead; so that the same proposition which was admired in a serious

author, became highly ridiculous in the mouth of this excellent actor."

In France Harlequin was improved into a wit, and even converted into a

moralist; he is the graceful hero of Florian's charming compositions,

which please even in the closet. "This imaginary being, invented by the

Italians, and adopted by the French," says the ingenious Goldoni, "has

the exclusive right of uniting _naiveté_ with _finesse_, and no one ever

surpassed Florian in the delineation of this amphibious character. He

has even contrived to impart sentiment, passion, and morality to his

pieces." Harlequin must be modelled as a national character, the

creature of manners; and thus the history of such a Harlequin might be

that of the age and of the people, whose genius he ought to represent.

The history of a people is often detected in their popular amusements;

one of these Italian Pantomimic characters shows this. They had a

_Capitan_, who probably originated in the _Miles gloriosus_ of Plautus;

a brother, at least, of our Ancient Pistol and Bobadil. The ludicrous

names of this military poltroon were Spavento (Horrid fright),

Spezza-fer (Shiver-spear), and a tremendous recreant was Captain

Spavento de Val inferno. When Charles V. entered Italy, a Spanish

Captain was introduced; a dreadful man he was too, if we are to be

frightened by names: Sangre e Fuego! and Matamoro! His business was to

deal in Spanish rhodomontades, to kick out the native Italian Capitan,

in compliment to the Spaniards, and then to take a quiet caning from

Harlequin, in compliment to themselves. When the Spaniards lost their

influence in Italy, the Spanish Captain was turned into Scaramouch, who

still wore the Spanish dress, and was perpetually in a panic. The

Italians could only avenge themselves on the Spaniards in Pantomime! On

the same principle the gown of Pantaloon over his red waistcoat and

breeches, commemorates a circumstance in Venetian history expressive of

the popular feeling.

The characters of the Italian Pantomime became so numerous, that every

dramatic subject was easily furnished with the necessary personages of

comedy. That loquacious pedant, the Dottore, was taken from the lawyers

and the physicians, babbling false Latin in the dialect of learned

Bologna. Scapin was a livery servant, who spoke the dialect of Bergamo,

a province proverbially abounding with rank intriguing knaves, who,

like the slaves in Plautus and Terence, were always on the watch to

further any wickedness; while Calabria furnished the booby Giangurgello

with his grotesque nose. Molière, it has been ascertained, discovered in

the Italian theatre at Paris his "_Medecin malgre Lui_," his

"_Etourdi_," his "_L'Avare_," and his "_Scapin_." Milan offered a pimp

in Brighella; Florence, an ape of fashion in Gelsomino. These and other

Pantomimic characters, and some ludicrous ones, as the Tartaglia, a

spectacled dotard, a stammerer, and usually in a passion, had been

gradually introduced by the inventive powers of an actor of genius, to

call forth his own peculiar talents.

The Pantomimes, or, as they have been described, the continual

Masquerades, of Ruzzante, with all these diversified personages, talking

and acting, formed, in truth, a burlesque comedy. Some of the finest

geniuses of Italy became the votaries of Harlequin; and the Italian

Pantomime may be said to form a school of its own. The invention of

Ruzzante was one capable of perpetual novelty. Many of these actors have

been chronicled either for the invention of some comic character, or for

their true imitation of nature in performing some favourite one. One,

already immortalised by having lost his real name in that of Captain

Matamoros, by whose inimitable humours he became the most popular man in

Italy, invented the Neapolitan Pullicinello; while another, by deeper

study, added new graces to another burlesque rival. One Constantini

invented the character of Mezetin, as the Narcissus of Pantomime. He

acted without a mask, to charm by the beautiful play of his countenance,

and display the graces of his figure; the floating drapery of his

fanciful dress could be arranged by the changeable humour of the wearer.

Crowds followed him in the streets, and a King of Poland ennobled him.

The Wit and Harlequin Dominic sometimes dined at the table of Louis

XIV.--Tiberio Florillo, who invented the character of Scaramouch, had

been the amusing companion of the boyhood of Louis XIV.; and from him

Molière learnt much, as appears by the verses under his portrait:--

Cet illustre comédien

De son art traça la carrière:

II fut le maître de Molière,

Et la Nature fut le sien.

The last lines of an epitaph on one of these Pantomimic actors may be

applied to many of them during their flourishing period:--

Toute sa vie il a fait rire;

Il a fait pleurer a sa mort.

Several of these admirable actors were literary men, who have written on

their art, and shown that it was one. The Harlequin Cecchini composed

the most ancient treatise on this subject, and was ennobled by the

Emperor Matthias; and Nicholas Barbieri, for his excellent acting called

the Beltrame, a Milanese simpleton, in his treatise on comedy, tells us

that he was honoured by the conversation of Louis XIII., and rewarded

with fortune.

A sketch of Harlequin's original part is worth recording. "He is a

mixture of wit, simplicity, ignorance, and grace, he is a half made up

man, a great child with gleams of reason and intelligence, and all his

mistakes and blunders have something arch about them. The true mode of

representing him is to give him suppleness, agility, the playfulness of

a kitten with a certain coarseness of exterior, which renders his

actions more absurd. His part is that of a faithful valet; greedy;

always in love; always in trouble, either on his own or his master's

account; afflicted and consoled as easily as a child, and whose grief is

as amusing as his joy."

His costume consisted of a jacket fastened in front with loose ribbons,

and pantaloons of wide dimensions, patched with various coloured pieces

of cloth sewn on in any fashion. His beard was worn straight, and of a

black colour; on his face he had a half black mask and in his belt of

untanned leather he carried a wooden sword.

In Italy there were many varieties of Harlequin, the most notable being

Trivelin, and Truffaldin. The dress of the former, instead of the

patches symmetrically arranged, had triangular patches along the seams,

and suns and moons only for patches. He wore the soft hat and hare's

foot, but did not carry the wooden sword. The hare's foot denoting

speed, has in all probability its origin in the winged cap of the god

Mercury.

Truffaldin is a species of Harlequin, who first appeared about 1530. He

represented (_truffa_, the villain) a sneaking kind of knave, and in the

middle of the seventeenth century this character was very popular.

In France, about 1660, Cardinal Mazarin invited one Joseph Dominique

Biancolelli, to come to Paris to give entertainments. Shortly after his

arrival Biancolelli gave quite a new reading to the character of

Arlechino, as he made him not only a wit and punster, but also a bit of

a philosopher. Biancolelli's improvements did not end here, as he turned

his attention to the dress of Arlechino, which was now made of finer and

better quality, whilst the parti-coloured patches were made more

artistic and attractive. On the death of Lolatelli, who, in his

lifetime, had played a kind of Arlechino part, Biancolelli succeeded

him, and soon sprang into prominence, and acquired a great artistic

reputation. Whilst dancing before Louis XV. Biancolelli contracted a

cold, which set up inflammation of the lungs, causing his death. His

companions, at the theatre in which he performed, to mark the sense of

their great grief, closed the theatre for a month. Biancolelli died in

1688.

As Arlechino, Biancolelli was succeeded by his son, Pierre, who played

under the name of Dominique.

A Tuscan, named Gherardi, who had obtained celebrity as a singer, was

the next successful French Harlequin. In consequence of a fall Gherardi

met his death, in the year 1700.

Nearly a couple of decades afterwards, in 1716, Thomassin made his

appearance as Harlequin, in pieces written for him by Marivaux, such as

"_Le Prince Travesti_," "_La Surprise de l'Amour_," and in which he

appeared with great success. So daring were Thomassin's tricks, and in

such popularity was he held, that, fearful of losing their favourite

like Gherardi, he was obliged to discontinue them.

Another competitor now arose to take the crown from Thomassin, and in

the person of one Carlo Bertinazzi, commonly called Carlin. Our actor,

Garrick, was an admirer of this famous Mime. Of Carlin, M. Sand

speaks:--"Like most clever buffoons, he had a very melancholy

disposition, and, as with Dominique, his gaiety was what the English

term humour. It belonged to his mind, and not to his temperament."

Carlin also wrote a book entitled, "_Les Metamorphosis d'Arlequin_." In

1783 Carlin died, and his place in the favour of the public was filled

by Galinetti.

The French view of the English Clown is interesting: "The English clown

(whose nearest representative on the French stage is Pierrot) is an odd

and fantastical being. The Florentine Stentorella alone resembles him in

his jests and tricks. His strange dress seems to have been taken from

the American Indians. It consists of a white, red, yellow, and green net

work, ornamented with diamond-shaped pieces of stuff of various colours.

His face is floured, and streaked with paint a deep carmine; the

forehead is prolonged to the top of the head, which is covered with a

red wig, from the centre of which a little stiff tail points to the sky.

His manners are no less singular than his costume. He is not dumb, like

our Pierrot, but, on the contrary, he sustains an animated and witty

conversation; he is also an acrobat, and very expert in feats of

strength."

M. Blandelaire gives a more poetical description: "The English Pierrot

is not a person as pale as the moon, mysterious as silent, straight and

long, like the gallows to whom we have been accustomed in Deburean. The

English Pierrot enters like the tempest, and tumbles like a parcel; his

laugh resembles joyous thunder. He is short and fat; his face is floured

and streaked with paint; he has a great patch of red on each cheek; his

mouth is enlarged by prolongation of the lips by means of two red bands,

so that when he laughs his mouth appears to open from ear to ear."

The Pierrots--not only in France, but on the Continent generally--took

all the characteristics of the Zanys, Bertoldo, Paggliaccio, Gros,

Giullaume, Pedrolino, Gilles, Corviello, and Peppe Nappa, of the Italian

Comedy, and all owing at least their original conception to the theatres

of the Greeks, and the Romans. On the Italian stage there was not a

principal Clown like in England, the foremost place being occupied by

Arlechino. The four principal masked characters of the Italian _Comedia

del' Arte_ in Venice consisted of Tartaglia (a stammerer), Truffildino,

Brighella (a representative of orators and public personages), and

Pantaloon (a native of Venice). The name of Pantaloon is derived from

_planta-leone_ (_plante-lion_--he planted the lion). The probable

meaning of it in this particular is that the Venetian merchants, it is

said, in boasting of their conquests set up their standard--the Venetian

standard being the lion of St. Mark--on various islands in the

Mediterranean, and from which they were nicknamed, it is said, "plant

lion." A more probable derivation of the word is that the ancient patron

saint of Venice is San Pantaleone. St. Pantaleone's day is July 27. He

was martyred A.D. 303. In "Childe Harold," Lord Byron, in Canto IV.,

stanza 14, has that "The Venetian name of Pantaleone is her very

by-word."

Pantaloon has been, at various times, husband, father, and widower.

Sometimes he is rich, then poor, and occasionally a spendthrift. The

dress that he wore consisted of tight red breeches, rather short, a long

black robe, red stockings and waistcoat, a little woollen skull-cap and

slippers.

When the Venetian republic lost Negropont mourning generally was

adopted, and Pantaloon adopted it with the rest, and on the Continent

mourning has, I believe, formed a component part of Pantaloon's dress

ever since.

In 1750 Darbes, in Italy, was one of the best Pantaloons. Darbes, on

one occasion, ventured to play this character in one of Goldoni

characters, without a mask, and which, we are told, was a failure. A

similar attempt was made on the English stage, which I have previously

referred to.

Mention has been previously made of females appearing on the stage

during the Grecian and Roman periods. From this, however, there arose on

the Italian stage, in after years, the _Servetta_ or _Fantesca_, a kind

of waiting maid, or "accomplished companion" part, and called later, in

France, _Soubrette_, and the origin of which, in all probability, can be

traced to the _Mimas_ of _Pantomimus_.

In the sixteenth century mention is made of a troupe of performers known

as _Amorosos_ or _Innamortos_, appearing in Italy. Those who only

appeared in the female parts were known as Colombina, Oliva, Fianetta,

Pasquella, and Nespella. Columbina's part, the "accomplished companion,"

like the _Vita_ of the Indian Drama, was sometimes that of mistress, and

sometimes that of maid. Up to 1560 women were unknown on the Italian

stage. In England just one hundred years later.

Three generations of the family of Biancolelli, the Harlequin,

grandmother, grand-daughter, and great grand-daughter appeared as

Columbines in France. The most talented was Catherine, the daughter of

Dominique, and she made her _debut_ in 1683, in "_Arlequin Protée_,"

with great success.

About 1695, Columbine appeared in a parti-coloured gown like a female

Harlequin, and in the piece "_Le Retour de la foie de Besons_," acted at

the Comedie Italiene. As the innovation was much liked, the part of

Columbine came to be dressed like the Harlequin. The Columbine dressed

in short muslin skirts is a creation of modern times. In the French

Comedies Columbine was often Harlequin's wife, but she never had the

powers of a magical wand.

In the old form of Pantomime there were many other personages in these

dumb shows which we never had in the English Pantomimes. To note a few

of them:--The Captain, a bragging swash-buckler; the Apothecary, a

half-starved individual with a red nose; and a female _soubrette_, who

acted for her mistress, Columbine, similar duties as what Clown

performed as valet for his master. The Doctor brought at first on the

stage in 1560, was supposed to be a lawyer or a physician. From 1560 his

dress was that of a professor's, a short, black tunic, stockings, and a

black mask covering the forehead and nose. Another, Façanappa, had a

long parrot nose, surmounted by a pair of green spectacles, a flat hat,

with a broad brim, a waistcoat covered with tinsel, and a long white

coat with large pockets. Like the Clown of our early English plays, and

like his ancestors, the _Atellans_ and _Mimes_, he had the privilege of

making allusions from the stage, in what, I suppose, were something like

the Interludes. Il Barone is another variety. He was a Sicilian lord,

deceived by his daughter, and also duped by his valets. "_Il Barone_"

was a favourite subject for another form of "Miming," that of the

wooden figures called Marionettes.

Marionette entertainments were known both to the Greeks and the Romans.

The adventures of "_Don Juan_" and "_Don Giovanni_," of the Italian

Opera, in all probability sprang originally from the adventures of Punch

in the puppet shows.

Puppet shows introduced into France (_temp._ Charles IX.) from Italy,

where they were and are still known as _Fantoccini_, by Marion--hence

their name--and then into this country, are mentioned by Shakespeare,

Pepys, Jonson, Swift, and the Essayists.

Puppet shows, in this country, were formerly known as "Motions."

Shakespeare's Antolycus frequented fairs and the like, and he also

composed a "Motion" of "The Prodigal Son." Mystery plays were also

represented by puppets.

In England, especially at Bartholomew Fair, they were always very

popular, and the chief survivor of this form of "dumb show" is "Mr.

Punch" of our streets, whose ancient history I have briefly mentioned in

another chapter, but not that of "Mrs. Punch," on whose history I am

unable--however so brief--to throw any light.

Let us now, dear reader, return to England, and trace in this country

something more of the History of Pantomime, and for which we will now

open another chapter.

CHAPTER XIII.

Italian Scenarios and English "Platts"--Pantaloon--Tarleton, the

Clown--Extemporal Comedy--The Poet Milton--Ben Jonson--The

Commonwealth--"A Reign of Dramatic Terror"--Robert Cox and his "Humours"

and "Drolleries"--The Restoration.

It has been thought that our dramatic poet, Massinger, drew upon the

Italian Comedy for the humour of some of his plays. That there was some

form of intercourse between the English and Italian stage is shown by

the discovery of one of the Italian Scenarios, or "Platts," as we know

them, at Dulwich College, which discovery Steevens describes as "a

mysterious fragment of ancient stage direction, and of a species of

dramatic entertainment which no memorial is preserved in any annals of

the English stage." The "Platt," written in a large hand, "And

containing directions, was thought to have been affixed near the

prompter's stand, and it has even an oblong hole in its centre to admit

of being suspended on a wooden peg (Disraeli). On it, and in a familiar

way, appear the names of the players, such as: Pigg, White and Black,

Dick and Sam, Little Will Barne, Jack Gregory, and the Red-faced

fellow."

A "Platt" of the "Seven Deadly Sinnes," supposed to have been written by

Dick Tarleton, the famous Clown, is preserved, I believe, in Dulwich

College. It consists of a pasteboard fifteen inches high, and nine in

breadth, and on it is written, in two columns, the following:--

"A tent being placed on the stage for Henry the Sixth; he in it asleep.

To him the lieutenant, and a pursuivant (R. Cowley, Jo. Duke), and one

warder (R. Pallant). To them Pride, Gluttony, Wrath, and Covetousness at

one door; at another door Envy, Sloth, and Lechery. The three put back

the four, and so _exeunt_.

"Henry awaking, enter a keeper (J. Sinclair), to him a servant (T. Belt),

to him Lidgate and the keeper. _Exit_, then enter again--then Envy

passeth over the stage. Lidgate speaks."

These "Platts" were, in all probability, one of the first written forms

of Pantomimic entertainments known in England, and borrowed, as

mentioned, from the Scenarios of the Italians. That form of home

amusement well-known in family circles, "Acting Charades," may be

likened to them.

To get all the information that we can obtain of the "Platts," I am sure

I cannot do better than quote the words of Mr. Isaac Disraeli, well

assured that they will be more acceptable than any I can make.

Some of these "Platts" are on solemn subjects, like the tragic

Pantomimes; and in some appear "Pantaloon, and his man Peascod, with

_spectacles_." Steevens observes, that he met with no earlier example of

the appearance of Pantaloon, as a specific character on our stage; and

that this direction concerning "the spectacles" cannot fail to remind

the reader of a celebrated passage in "As you like it." (Scene 6, Act

II.).

... "The sixth age shifts

Into the lean and slippered pantaloon;

With spectacles on nose, and pouch on side;

His youthful hose well saved, a world too wide

For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice,

Turning again toward childish treble, pipes

And whistles in his sound."

Perhaps, he adds, Shakespeare alludes to this personage, as habited in

his own time. The old age of Pantaloon is marked by his leanness, and

his spectacles and his slippers. He always runs after Harlequin, but

cannot catch him; as he runs in slippers and without spectacles, is

liable to pass him by without seeing him. Can we doubt that this

Pantaloon had come from the Italian theatre, after what we have already

said? Does not this confirm the conjecture, that there existed an

intercourse between the Italian theatre and our own? Further, Tarleton,

the comedian, celebrated for his "Extemporal wit," was the writer or

inventor of one of these "Platts." Stow records of one of our actors

that "he had a quick, delicate, refined _Extemporal wit_." And Howes,

the continuator of Stow's Chronicles of another, that "he had a

wondrous, plentiful, pleasant, _Extemporal_ wit."

Praiseworthy reference is also made of Tarleton in "Kinde-Hart's

Dream," 4to., published in 1592. In 1611 a book was published entitled

"Tarleton's Jeasts." Tarleton was so celebrated in his time that his

portrait was hung out as a sign for alehouses. "To sit with Tarleton on

an ale-post's signe," observes Bishop Hall in his satires. Oldys, in his

M.S. notes, mentions that "There is an alehouse sign of a tabor and pipe

man, with the name of Tarleton under it, in the borough of Southwark,

and it was taken from the print before the old 4to. book of 'Tarleton's

Jeasts;' and Lord Oxford had a portrait of him with his tabor and pipe,

which was probably taken from the pamphlet called 'Tarleton's Jeasts,'

on the title page of which there is a wooden plate of Tarleton, at full

length in his Clown's dress, playing on his pipe with one hand, and

beating his drum with the other."

These actors then (continues Mr. Disraeli), who were in the habit of

exercising their impromptus, resembled those who performed in the

unwritten comedies of the Italians. Gabriel Harvey, the Aristarchus of

the day, compliments Tarleton for having brought forward a _new species

of dramatic exhibition_. If this compliment paid to Tarleton merely

alludes to his dexterity at _extemporaneous wit_ in the character of the

_Clown_, as my friend Mr. Douce thinks, this would be sufficient to show

that he was attempting to introduce on our stage the Extemporal Comedy

of the Italians, which Gabriel Harvey distinguishes as "a new species."

As for these "Platts," which I shall not venture to call "Scenarios,"

they surprise by their bareness, conveying no notion of the piece

itself, though quite sufficient for the actors. They consist of mere

exits and entrances of the actors, and often the real names of the

actors are familiarly mixed with those of the _dramatis personae_.

Steevens has justly observed, however, on these skeletons, that although

"The drift of these dramatic pieces cannot be collected from the mere

outlines before us, yet we must not charge them with absurdity. Even the

scenes of Shakespeare would have worn as unpromising an aspect, had

their skeletons only been discovered." The printed _Scenarios_ of the

Italian theatre were not more intelligible; exhibiting only the _hints_

for scenes.

Thus, I think, we have sufficient evidence of an intercourse subsisting

between the English and Italian theatres, not hitherto suspected; and I

find an allusion to these Italian Pantomimes, by the great town-wit Tom

Nash, in his "Pierce Pennilesse," which shows that he was well

acquainted with their nature. He, indeed, exults over them, observing

that our plays are "honourable and full of gallant resolution, not

consisting, like theirs, of Pantaloon, a Zany, and a w---e (alluding to

the women actors of the Italian stage); but of emperors, kings, and

princes." My conviction is still confirmed, when I find that Stephen

Gosson wrote the comedy of "Captain Mario;" it has not been printed, but

"Captain Mario" is one of the Italian characters.

Even at a later period, the influence of these performances reached the

greatest name in the English Parnassus. One of the great actors and

authors of these pieces, who published eighteen of these irregular

productions, was Andreini, whose name must have the honour of being

associated with Milton's, for it was his comedy or opera which threw the

first spark of the "Paradise Lost" into the soul of the epic poet--a

circumstance which will hardly be questioned by those who have examined

the different schemes and allegorical personages of the first projected

drama of "Paradise Lost": nor was Andreini, as well as many others of

this race of Italian dramatists, inferior poets. The Adamo of Andreini

was a personage sufficiently original and poetical to serve as the model

of the Adam of Milton. The youthful English poet, at its representation,

carried it away in his mind. Wit, indeed, is a great traveller; and thus

also the "Empiric" of Massinger might have reached us from the Bolognese

Dottore.

The late Mr. Hole, the ingenious writer on the "Arabian Nights,"

observed to me that Molière, it must be presumed, never read Fletcher's

plays, yet his "_Bourgeois Gentilhomme_," and the other's "Noble

Gentleman," bear in some instances a great resemblance. Both may have

been drawn from the same Italian source of comedy which I have here

indicated.

Many years after this article was written, appeared "The History of

English Dramatic Poetry," by Mr. Collier. That very laborious

investigator has an article on "Extemporal Plays and Plots," iii., 393.

The nature of these "Platts" or "Plots," he observes, "Our theatrical

antiquaries have not explained." The truth is that they never suspected

their origin in the Italian "Scenarios." My conjectures are amply

confirmed by Mr. Collier's notices of the intercourse of our players

with the Italian actors. Whetstone's Heptameron, in 1582, mentions "The

comedians of Ravenna, who are not _tied to any written device_." In

Kyd's Spanish Tragedy the Extemporal Art is described:--

The Italian tragedians were so sharp of wit,

That in one hour of meditation

They would perform anything in action.

These Extemporal plays were witnessed much nearer than in Italy--at the

_Theâtre des Italiens_ at Paris--for one of the characters replies:--

I have seen the like,

In Paris, among the French tragedians.

Ben Jonson has mentioned the Italian "Extemporal Plays," in his "Case is

Altered"; and an Italian _commediante_ and his company were in London in

1578, who probably let our players into many a secret.

Evil times, with the advent of the Commonwealth, soon fell upon our

theatres, and when they, as well as plays, were suppressed by order of

the Puritan Parliament, some of the actors followed the Royalist cause

(we do not hear of any taking the side of the Parliament), and lost

their lives fighting for the king. Others attempted to enact plays in

secret, but these performances more often than not, caused the actors

incarceration in some prison. At Holland House, in Kensington, many of

these secret performances, by the aid of bribery, took place. To give

timely warning of the performances Mr. Wright, in his "_Historia

Histronica_," mentions that "Alexander Goff, the woman-actor, was the

jackal to give notice of time and place to the lovers of the drama."

All this however, could not, and would not, keep the spirit of the drama

alive. The theatres were, we know, totally suppressed, "so there might

be no more plaies acted." Play-goers there were, as I have shown, but

they never knew when, in witnessing a performance, they might be seized

by the military, to be fined or imprisoned, or perhaps both. A more

lengthy reign of "Dramatic Terror" than what we had at this period,

would, in all probability, have left us little or no trace of the Drama

of this country. But a saviour was at hand, and that was Pantomime.

Pantomime, as previously stated, kept alive for ages, after the downfall

of the Roman Empire, the Dramatic Art, and during the Commonwealth of

this country, it practically did the same for us.

Owing to the exigences of the times, one Robert Cox, an actor of

considerable genius, after the fashion of the Extemporal Comedies of

Italy, invented a series of dramatic exhibitions at the Red Bull Theatre

(where the first English actress made her appearance December 8, 1660)

and elsewhere, under the guise of rope-dancing, a number of comic scenes

from Shakespeare, Shirley, Marston, Beaumont, and Fletcher, and others.

Cox's exhibitions, known as "Humours" or "Drolleries," were collected by

Marsh, and reprinted (1672) by Francis Kirkman, the author and

book-seller. This collection is entitled "The Wits, or Sport upon Sport,

in select pieces of Drollery, digested into scenes by way of dialogue.

Together with variety of Humours of several nations fitted for the

pleasure and content of all persons, either in Court, City, Country, or

Camp."

Of these "Humours" Kirkman observes, "As meanly as you may now think of

these Drolls, they were then acted by the best comedians; and, I may

say, by some that then exceeded all now living; the incomparable Robert

Cox, who was not only the principal actor, but also the contriver and

author of most of these farces. How I have heard him cried up for his

John Swabber, and Simpleton the Smith; in which he being to appear with

a large piece of bread and butter, I have frequently known several of

the female spectators and auditors to long for it; and once that

well-known natural, Jack Adams of Clerkenwell, seeing him with bread and

butter on the stage, and knowing him, cried out, 'Cuz! Cuz! give me

some!' to the great pleasure of the audience. And so naturally did he

act the smith's part, that being at a fair in a country town, and that

farce being presented the only master-smith of the town came to him,

saying, 'Well, although your father speaks so ill of you, yet when the

fair is done, if you will come and work with me, I will give you twelve

pence a week more than I give any other journeyman.' Thus was he taken

for a smith bred, that was, indeed, as much of any trade."

With the death of the Lord Protector, Cromwell, "The merry rattle of

Monk's drums coming up the Gray's Inn Road, welcomed by thousands of

dusty spectators," the return of Charles II., 1660, and though Charles

was more a lover of the stage than of the drama, the theatre again

recovered its credit, and to vigorously flourish once more.

CHAPTER XIV.

Introduction of Pantomimes to the English Stage--Weaver's "History of

the Mimes and Pantomimes"--Weaver's Pantomimes--The prejudice against

Pantomimes--Booth's counsel.

The year 1702 marks the appearance of the first Pantomime introduced to

the English stage, written by John Weaver, a friend of Addison and

Steele's, and entitled "Tavern Bilkers." It was produced at Drury Lane.

The author was by profession a dancing-master; his name is not to be

found in any biographical dictionary, yet, it is evident that the

"little dapper, cheerful man" had brains in his head as well as talent

in his heels.

John Weaver was the son of a Mr. Weaver, whom the Duke of Ormond, the

Chancellor of Oxford, licensed in 1676 to exercise the profession of a

dancing-master within the university. The date of his birth is unknown,

but we first hear of him as stage-managing the production of his own

Pantomime at Drury Lane, 1702, an entertainment which he described as

one of "dancing, action, and motion." The latter would appear to have

been a failure, as in his "History of the Mimes and Pantomimes,"

published in 1728, Weaver states that his next attempt on similar lines

did not take place until many years afterwards--not until the year 1716,

in fact. In 1716 Weaver was back in London producing two burlesque

Pantomimes, "The Loves of Mars and Venus," and "Perseus and Andromeda."

At Drury Lane, in the following year, "Orpheus and Eurydice," and

"Harlequin Turn'd Judge," was produced, and "Cupid and Bacchus" in 1719.

Weaver also wrote many treatises on dancing, some of which were highly

commended by Steele.

Another Pantomime of Weaver's was "The Judgment of Paris"--date

uncertain--performed by the author's pupils "in the great room over the

Market-house," Shrewsbury--in which town he had taken up his

residence--in the year 1750. John Weaver died September 28th, 1760, and

was buried at St. Chads, Shrewsbury.

The mention above of "Perseus and Andromeda" calls to mind that there

were several pieces of this name. One of them was severely commented on

in "The Grub-Street Journal" of April 8, 1731. Its title was:--"Perseus

and Andromeda; or the Flying Lovers, in five Interludes, three serious

and two comic. The serious composed by Monsieur Roger, the comic by John

Weaver, dancing-masters."

It is only just to assign to Weaver the entire credit of being the first

to introduce Pantomimes on the English stage, though the author's

original bent was "scenical dancing," or ballet dancing, by

representations of historical incidents with graceful motion. In his

"History of Pantomimes" the author is careful to distinguish between

those entertainments where "Grin and grimace usurp the passions and

affections of the mind," and those where "A nice address and management

of the passions take up the thoughts of the performer." "Spectators,"

says Weaver, in 1730, or thereabouts, "are now so pandering away their

applause on interpolations of pseudo-players, merry Andrews, tumblers,

and rope dancers; and are but rarely touched with, or encourage a

natural player or just Pantomime."

It was, however, left to John Rich to place Pantomime on a firm footing.

Before dealing with Rich and his Pantomimes, which I shall treat of in

the next chapter, it is appropriate here to note how Pantomimes

generally came to be introduced on the English stage.

Colley Cibber mentions:--About this time the patentee (Rich) having very

near finished his house in Lincoln's Inn Fields, began to think of

forming a new company; and, in the meantime, found it necessary to apply

for leave to employ them. By the weak defence he had always made against

the several attacks upon his interests, and former Government of the

theatre (Drury Lane), it might be a question, if his house had been

ready, in the Queen's (Anne) time, whether he would then have had the

spirit to ask, or interest enough to obtain leave to use it; but in the

following reign, as it did not appear he had done anything to forfeit

the right of his patent, he prevailed with Mr. Craggs, the younger, to

lay his case before the king, which he did in so effectual a manner that

(as Mr. Craggs himself told me) his Majesty was pleased to say upon it,

"That he remembered when he had been in England before, in King

Charles's time, there had been two theatres in London; and as the patent

seemed to be a lawful grant, he saw no reason why two play-houses might

not be continued."

The suspension of the patent being thus taken off, the younger multitude

seemed to call aloud for two play-houses! Many desired another, from the

common notion, that two would always create emulation, in the actors.

Others too were as eager for them, from the natural ill-will that

follows the fortunate or prosperous in any undertaking. Of this low

malevolence we had, now and then, remarkable instances; we had been

forced to dismiss an audience of a hundred and fifty pounds, from a

disturbance spirited up, by obscure people, who never gave any better

reason for it than that it was their fancy to support the idle complaint

of one rival actress against another, in their several pretensions to

the chief part in a new tragedy. But as this tumult seemed only to be

the wantonness of English liberty, I shall not presume to lay any

further censure upon it.

Now, notwithstanding this public desire of re-establishing two houses;

and though I have allowed the former actors greatly our superiors; and

the managers I am speaking of not to have been without their private

errors, yet under all these disadvantages, it is certain, the stage, for

twenty years before this time, had never been in so flourishing a

condition.

But, in what I have said, I would not be understood to be an advocate

for two play-houses; for we shall soon find that two sets of actors,

tolerated in the same place, have constantly ended in the corruption of

the theatre; of which the auxiliary entertainments, that have so

barbarously supplied the defects of weak action, have, for some years

past, been a flagrant instance; it may not, therefore, be here improper

to shew how our childish Pantomimes first came to take so gross a

possession of the stage.

I have upon several occasions, already observed, that when one company

is too hard for another, the lower in reputation has always been forced

to exhibit fine newfangled foppery, to draw the multitude after them; of

these expedients, singing and dancing had formerly been most effectual;

but, at the time I am speaking of, our English music had been so

discountenanced since the taste of Italian Operas prevailed, that it was

to no purpose to pretend to it. Dancing, therefore, was now the only

weight, in the opposite scale, and as the new theatre sometimes found

their account in it, it could not be safe for us wholly to neglect it.

Cibber's antagonistical views towards Pantomime were shared, as we

shall see, by a good many others.

Booth, however, a greater actor than Cibber, and a tragedian to boot,

took a more business-like view of the proceedings, thinking thin houses

the greatest indignity the stage could suffer. "Men of taste and

judgment (said he) must necessarily form but a small proportion of the

spectators at a theatre, and if a greater number of people were enticed

to sit out a play because a Pantomime was tacked to it, the Pantomime

did good service to all concerned. Besides, if people of position and

taste could, if so minded, leave before the nonsense commenced--an

opportunity they do not seem to have embraced since Booth reminded the

opponents of Pantomime how Italian opera had drawn the nobility and

gentry away from the play-houses, as appeared by the melancholy

testimony of their receipts, until Pantomime came to the rescue when pit

and gallery were better filled, and the boxes too put on a nobler

appearance."

CHAPTER XV.

John Rich and his Pantomimes--Rich's Miming---Garrick, Walpole,

Foote--Anecdotes of Rich--Pope--The dance of infernals in "Harlequin

Sorcerer"--Drury Lane--Colley Cibber--Henry Fielding, the

Novelist--Contemporary Writers' opinion of Pantomime--Woodward, the

Harlequin--The meaning of the word Actor--Harlequins--"Dr. Faustus," a

description--William Rufus Chetwood--Accidents--Vandermere, the

Harlequin--"Orpheus and Eurydice" at Covent Garden--A description--Sam.

Hoole, the machinist--Prejudice against Pantomime--Mrs. Oldfield--Robert

Wilks--Macklin--Riot at Lincoln's Inn Fields Theatre--Death of Rich.

It was in 1717 that Rich devised this new form of entertainment, though

it was not till 1724, when "The Necromancer, or History of Dr. Faustus"

was produced by Rich, which took the town by storm, that Pantomime

became such a rage. It has been stated that what induced Rich to turn

his attention to Pantomime was the bringing over of a German, named

Swartz, who had two performing dogs that could dance. They were engaged

at £10 a night; and brought full houses. However, be this as it may, in

the "Daily Courant," of December 20, 1717, we find him, advertising for

his "Italian Mimic Scenes"--as he, for long enough, so termed his

Pantomimes--as follows:--

"Harlequin Executed: a new Italian Mimic Scene between a

Scaramouch, a Harlequin, a Country Farmer, his Wife, and

others."

Of Rich and his early Pantomimes, Davies observes:--

John Rich was the son of Christopher Rich, formerly patentee of Drury

Lane Theatre, and he imbibed from his father a _dislike of people with

whom he was obliged to live and converse_. His father wished to acquire

wealth by French dancers and Italian singers, than by the united skill

of the most accomplished comedians. The son inherited the same taste,

and when he came into the patent, with his brother Christopher, of Drury

Lane, and after having ineffectually tried his talent for acting in the

part of the Earl of Essex, and other important characters, he applied

himself to the study of Pantomimical representations at Lincoln's Inn

Fields Theatre. To retrieve the credit of his theatre Rich created a

species of dramatic composition unknown to this, and, I believe, to any

other country, which he called Pantomime. It consisted of two parts, one

serious, the other comic; by the help of gay scenes, fine habits, grand

dances, appropriate music, and other decorations, he exhibited a story

from "Ovid's Metamorphosis," or some other fabulous history. Between the

pauses of the acts he interwove a comic fable, consisting chiefly of the

courtship of Harlequin and Columbine, with a variety of surprising

adventures and tricks, which were produced by the magic wand of

Harlequin; such as the sudden transformation of palaces and temples to

huts and cottages; of men and women into wheelbarrows and joint stools;

of trees turned to houses; colonnades to beds of tulips; and mechanics'

hops into serpents and ostriches.

It is a most remarkable fact that the Pantomimes that Rich brought out,

all of them could be written down as successes. In the exhibition of his

Pantomimes, Mr. Rich always displayed the greatest taste. He had also

acquired a considerable reputation as a performer of the motley hero

under the name of "Lun Junr," as he was so designated on the bills at

that time, and he was the first performer who rendered the character of

Harlequin at all intelligible in this country. To others he taught the

art of silent, but expressive, action, the interpreter of the mind.

Feeling was pre-eminent in his Miming; and he used to render the scene

of a separation with Columbine as graphic as it was affecting. Excellent

were his "statue scenes" and his "catching the butterfly;" so also were

his other dumb show performances.

Of Rich, Garrick wrote:--

"When Lun appeared with matchless art and whim,

He gave the power of speech to every limb;

Though masked and mute conveyed his quick intent,

And told in frolic's gestures all he meant."

Rich, however, erred in thinking himself a better actor than a

Pantomimist; and, in fact, he thought himself a finer actor than the

great Garrick himself. "You should see _me_ play Richard!" was a

favourite cry of his.

In 1782, after seeing the Pantomime of "Robinson Crusoe," Walpole said,

"How unlike the Pantomimes of Rich, which were full of wit, and

coherent, and carried on by a story."

As I have shown above, Rich had, like many other people, his own

particular little idiosyncrasies, and when in the season 1746-7 he

netted nearly £9,000 from his Pantomimes, to the chagrin of Garrick and

Quin, he was very angry and much annoyed because he, as Harlequin, had

contributed little or nothing. Another mannerism of his was to despise

the regular drama on these occasions, and he has been known to look at

the packed audience through a small hole in the curtain, and then

ejaculate, "Ah! you are there, you fools, are you? Much good may it do

you!"

Rich used to address everyone as "Mister." On one occasion Foote, being

incensed at being so addressed, asked Rich why he did not call him by

his name. "Don't be angry," says Rich, "I sometimes forget my own name."

"I know," replied Foote, "that you can't write your own name, but I

wonder you should forget it."

The first of Rich's successes was "Harlequin Sorcerer." On its

production Pope wrote:--

"Behold a sober sorcerer rise

Swift to whose wand a winged volume flies;

All sudden, gorgon's hiss and dragon's glare,

And ten horned fiends and giants rush to war.

Hell rises, heaven descends, and dance on earth,

Gods, imps and monsters, music, rage and mirth,

A fire, a jig, a battle, and a ball,

Till one wide conflagration swallows all;

Thence a new world to nature's laws unknown,

Breaks out refulgent with a heaven its own;

Another Cynthia her new journey runs,

And other planets circle after suns.

The forests dance, the rivers upwards rise,

Whales sport in woods, and dolphins in the skies;

At last, to give the whole creation grace,

Lo! one vast egg produces human race."

Of Harlequin, in "Harlequin Sorcerer," being hatched from an egg by the

rays of the sun. This has been called a master-piece of Rich's Miming

"From the first chipping of the egg (says Jackson) his receiving of

motion, his feeling of the ground, his standing upright, to his quick

Harlequin trip round the empty shell, through the whole progression,

every limb had its tongue, and every motion a voice."

As probably occurring in "Harlequin Sorcerer," there is an amusing

incident. The belief in the possibility of a supernatural appearance on

the stage existed (says an old writer) about the beginning of the

eighteenth century. A dance of infernals having to be exhibited, they

were represented in dresses of black and red, with fiery eyes and snaky

locks, and garnished with every pendage of horror. They were twelve in

number. In the middle of their performance, while intent upon the figure

in which they had been completely practised, an actor of some humour,

who had been accommodated with a spare dress, appeared among them. He

was, if possible, more terrific than the rest, and seemed to the

beholders as designed by the conductor for the principal fiend. His

fellow furies took the alarm; they knew he did not belong to them, and

they judged him an infernal in earnest. Their fears were excited, a

general panic ensued, and the whole group fled different ways; some to

their dressing-rooms, and others, through the streets, to their own

homes, in order to avoid the destruction which they believed to be

coming upon them, for the profane mockery they had been guilty of. The

odd devil was _non inventus_. He took himself invisibly away, through

fears of another kind. He was, however, seen by many, in imagination, to

fly through the roof of the house, and they fancied themselves almost

suffocated by the stench he had left behind. The confusion of the

audience is scarcely to be described. They retired to their families,

informing them of this supposed appearance of the devil, with many of

his additional frolics in the exploit. So thoroughly was its reality

believed that every official assurance which could be made the following

day did not entirely counteract the idea. The explanation was given by

Rich himself, in the presence of his friend Bencraft, the contriver, and

perhaps the actor of the scheme, which he designed only as an innocent

affair, to confuse the dancers, without adverting to the serious

consequences which succeeded.

I have met with another author, who, in giving an account of this

transaction, places it as a much earlier period, and says it was during

the performance of "Dr. Faustus," and that when the devil took flight he

carried away with him the roof of the theatre. This story may be

alluded to in a very curious work, entitled, "The Blacke Booke" (a

proper depository), "London, printed in black letter, by T.C. for

Jeffery Chorlton, 1604." "The light burning serjant Lucifer" says of

one, running away through fear of fire at a brothel, "Hee had a head of

hayre like one of my divells in 'Doctor Faustus,' when the olde theatre

crakt and frighted the audience."

Emulating Rich, Drury Lane then followed with "Mars and Venus," of which

Colley Cibber says: Was formed into something more than motion without

meaning into a connected presentation of dances in character, wherein

the passions were so happily expressed, and the whole story so

intelligibly told by a mute narration of gesture only, that even

thinking spectators allowed it to be both a pleasing and a rational

entertainment; though, at the same time, from our distrust of its

reception we durst not venture to decorate it with any extraordinary

expense of scenes or habits; but upon the success of this attempt it was

rightly concluded that if a visible expense in both were added to

something of the same nature, it could not fail of drawing the town

proportionately after it.

From this original hint there (but every way unequal to it) sprang forth

that succession of monstrous medlies, that have so long infested the

stage, and which arose upon one another alternately, at both houses,

outvying in expense, like contending bribes on both sides at an

election, to secure a majority of the multitude.

If I am asked (after condemning these fooleries myself) how I came to

assent or continue my share of expense to them? I have no better excuse

for my error, than confessing it. I did it against my conscience, and

had not virtue enough to starve by opposing a multitude that would have

been too hard for me.

("The Drama's laws the Drama's patrons give," has always been an axiom

of the stage; and worthy Colley Cibber, notwithstanding his antagonism,

and the rivalry of Rich, had too good a knowledge of this truism not to

do otherwise but follow the popular voice.)

Notwithstanding then (Cibber continues) this, our compliance with the

vulgar taste, we generally made use of these Pantomimes, but as crutches

to our weakest plays. Nor were we so lost to all sense of what was

valuable, as to dishonor our best authors in such bad company. We still

had a due respect to several select plays, that were able to be their

own support; and in which we found constant account, without painting

and patching them out.... It is a reproach to a sensible people to let

folly so quickly govern their pleasures.

Henry Fielding, the novelist, was one of Harlequin's assailants. "The

comic part of the English Pantomimes," he says, "being duller than

anything before shown on the stage could only be set off by the

superlative dulness of the serious portion, in which the gods and

goddesses were so insufferably tedious, that Harlequin was always a

relief from still worse company." Eager for theatrical reform, the

"Weekly Miscellany" of 1732, said that plays were not intended for

tradesmen, and denounced Pantomimes as infamous.

Another competitor, who entered the lists against Rich, was Thormond, a

dancing-master, and at Drury Lane Theatre he produced "Dr. Faustus," in

1733. Speaking of this Pantomime, Pasquin mentions that "An account is

very honestly published, to save people the trouble of going to see it."

In a Pantomime produced at Drury Lane in the following year, there were

Macklin, Theo. Cibber (who ultimately lost his life by shipwreck in the

Irish Sea, in company with a troupe of Pantomimists), Mrs. Clive, and

Mrs. Cibber. At the performance it was announced that the money paid

would be returned to anyone who went out before the overture; but no one

availed themselves of the concession. Commenting on the occurrence, a

contemporary writer observes:--"Happy is it that we live in an age of

taste, when the dumb eloquence and natural wit and humour of Harlequin

are justly preferred to the whining of Tragedy, or the vulgarity of

Comedy."

Garrick, at Drury Lane, finding his audience with no heart for tragedy,

and that they must have Pantomime, very wisely said, "If you won't come

to 'Lear' and 'Hamlet,' I must give you Harlequin." And Harlequin he

did give them, in the person of Woodward, one of the best of Harlequins

that ever trod the stage. A contemporary print of the time, represents

Woodward being weighed in one scale, with all the great actors of the

day in the other, and Woodward makes them all kick the beam.

To satirise the prevailing fashion, Garrick penned the following:--

They in the drama find no joys,

But doat on mimicry and toys;

Thus, when a dance is on my bill,

Nobility my boxes fill;

Or send three days before the time

To crowd a new-made Pantomime.

Garrick's success, however, was, I am of opinion, undoubtedly owing to

his being such a clever Pantomimist. "We saw him," says Grimm, "play the

dagger scene in 'Macbeth' in a room in his ordinary dress, without any

stage illusion; and, as he followed with his eyes the air-drawn dagger,

he became so grand that the assembly broke into a cry of general

admiration. Who would believe that this same man, a moment after,

counterfeited, with equal perfection, a pastry cook's boy, who, carrying

a tray of tartlets on his head, and gaping about him at the corner of

the street, lets his tray fall, and, at first stupified by the accident,

bursts at last into a fit of crying?"

All our great actors have been good Mimics, and herein, doubtless, lies

the secret of their success. The mere intonation of words unaccompanied

by a strict knowledge of "that dumb, silent language," Pantomime, is

only _parroting_. Herein, therefore, lies the true imitativeness of the

actor, and _the natural form of acting_. The word actor "Is a name only

given to the persons in a dramatic work, _because they ought to be in

continual action during the performance of it_." It does not mean that

the actor is to stand still, and to be in action only with his tongue

when speaking his "lines." No! he bears the honoured name of actor, and

he should bring the full power of gesture language--Pantomime--that he

has at his control into play in order to be convincing in the character

that, for the time being, he is.

Action (mentions Betterton, in his "History of the English Stage,"

1741), can never be in its perfection but on the stage. Action, indeed,

has a natural excellence in it superior to all other qualities; action

is motion, and motion is the support of nature, which without it would

sink into the sluggish mass of chaos. Life is motion, and when that

ceases, the human body so beautiful, nay so divine, when enlivened by

motion, becomes a dead and putrid corpse, from which all turn their

eyes. The eye is caught by anything in motion, but passes over the

sluggish and motionless things as not the pleasing object of its view.

The natural power of motion, or action, is the reason that the

attention of the audience is fixed by any irregular, or even fantastic

action, on the stage, of the most indifferent player; and supine and

drowsy when the best actor speaks without the addition of action. The

stage ought to be the seat of passion in its various kinds, and,

therefore, the actors ought to be thoroughly acquainted with the whole

nature of the affections, and habits of the mind, or else they will

never be able to express them justly in their looks and gestures, as

well as in the tone of their voice and manner of utterance. They must

know them in their various mixtures, as they are differently blended

together in the different characters they represent; and then that

excellent rule in the "Essay on Poetry" will be of equal use to the poet

and player:--

Who must look within to find

These _secret_ turns of Nature in the mind;

Without this part in vain would be the whole,

And but a _body_ all without a soul?