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A History of Pantomime

by R. J. Broadbent · English · Gutenberg #13469 · 326,314 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: A History of Pantomime

Author: R. J. Broadbent


        
Release date: September 15, 2004 [eBook #13469]
                Most recently updated: October 28, 2024

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A HISTORY OF PANTOMIME ***

A HISTORY OF PANTOMIME

by

R. J. BROADBENT

Author of "STAGE WHISPERS," etc.

LONDON:







TO

WILLIAM WADE, ESQUIRE.

This book is dedicated as a small token of the
Author's esteem and regard.

R.J.B.




PREFACE.


One of the most important factors in the making of Theatrical History
has been that of Pantomime, yet in many of the published works dealing
with the History of the Stage it has, with the exception of a passing
reference here and there, been much neglected.

It is with a view of conveying to the reading public some little, and,
perhaps, new information about this ancient form of entertainment that I
am tempted to issue this History of Pantomime in the hope and belief
that it may not only prove interesting, but also instructive, to all
lovers of the Stage.

R.J.B.

Liverpool, December, 1901.




CONTENTS.


CHAPTER I.

Origin of Pantomime


CHAPTER II.

Origin of Tragedy and Comedy--Mythology--The meaning of
the word Pantomime--The origin of Harlequin, Columbine,
Clown, and Pantaloon--Grecian Mythology--Transformation
Scenes--The rise of Grecian Tragedy and Comedy--The
Satirical Drama


CHAPTER III.

The origin of the Indian Drama--Aryan Mythology--Clown
and Columbine--Origin of the Chinese Drama--Inception
of the Japanese Drama--The Siamese Drama--Dramatic
performances of the South Sea Islanders, Peruvians,
Aztecs, Zulus, and Fijis--The Egyptian Drama


CHAPTER IV.

"Dancing," _i.e._ Pantomime--Grecian Dancing and Pantomimic
Scenes--Aristotle--Homer--Dances common to
both Greeks and Romans


CHAPTER V.

Thespis--The Progress of Tragedy and Comedy--Aeschylus--The
Epopée--Homer--Sophocles--Euripides--Grecian
Mimes--The First Athenian Theatre--Scenery
and Effects


CHAPTER VI.

Roman Theatres--Description--"Deadheads"--Pantomime
in Italy--Livius Andronicus--_Fabulae Atellanae_--Extemporal
Comedy--Origin of the Masque, Opera, and
Vaudeville--Origin of the term Histrionic--Etruscans--Popularity
of Pantomime in Italy--Pantomimists banished
by Trajan--Nero as a Mime--Pylades and Bathyllus--Subjects
chosen for the Roman Pantomimes--The Ballet--The
_Mimi_ and _Pantomimi_--_Archimimus_--Vespasian--Harlequin--"Mr.
Punch"--Zany, how the word originated--Ancient
Masks--Lucian, Cassiodorus, and Demetrius
in praise of Pantomime--A celebrated _Mima_--Pantomimes
denounced by early writers--The purity of the
English stage contrasted with that of the Grecian and
Roman--Female parts on the Grecian and Roman stages--The
principal Roman _Mimas_--The origin of the Clown
of the early English Drama


CHAPTER VII.

Introduction of the Roman Pantomimic Art into Britain--First
English reference to the word Pantomime--The
fall of the Roman Empire--The sacred play--Cornish
Amphitheatres--Pantomimical and Lyrical elements in
the sacrifice of the Mass--Christian banishment of the
_Mimis_--Penalties imposed by the Church--St. Anthony
on Harlequin and Punch--Vandenhoff--what we owe to
the _Mimis_


CHAPTER VIII.

Pantomime in the English Mystery or Miracle Plays and
Pageants--A retrospect of the Early Drama--Mysteries
on Biblical events--Chester, Coventry, York, and Towneley
Mystery Plays--Plays in Churches--Traces of the
Mystery Play in England in the Nineteenth Century--Mystery
Plays on the Continent--The Chester series of
Plays--The Devil or Clown and the _Exodiarii_ and
_Emboliariae_ of the Ancient Mimes


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


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


CHAPTER XI.

Italian Pantomime--Riccoboni--Broom's "Antipodes"--Gherardi--Extemporal
Comedies--Salvator Rosa--Impromptu Acting


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


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


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


CHAPTER XV.

John Rich and his Pantomimes--Rich's Miming--Garrick,
Walpole, Foote--Anecdotes of Rich--Pope--The dance
of internals 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


CHAPTER XVI.

Joseph Grimaldi


CHAPTER XVII.

Plots of the old form of Pantomimes--A description of
"Harlequin and the Ogress; or the Sleeping
Beauty of the Wood," produced at Covent Garden--Grimaldi,
_Père et Fils_--Tom Ellar, the Harlequin, and
Barnes, the Pantaloon--An account of the first production
of the "House that Jack built," at Covent Garden--Spectacular
display--Antiquity and Origin of some
Pantomimic devices--Devoto, Angelo, and French, the
Scenic Artists--Transparencies--Beverley--Transformation
Scenes


CHAPTER XVIII.

Pantomimic Families--Giuseppe Grimaldi--James Byrne,
the Harlequin and Inventor of the modern Harlequin's
dress--Joseph Grimaldi, Junior--The Bologna Family--Tom
Ellar--The Ridgways--The Bradburys--The
Montgomerys--The Paynes--The Marshalls--Charles
and Richard Stilt--Richard Flexmore--Tom Gray--The
Paulos--Dubois--Arthur and Charles Leclerq--"Jimmy"
Barnes--Famous Pantaloons--Miss Farren--Mrs.
Siddons--Columbines--Notable Actors in Pantomime


CHAPTER XIX.

Popular Pantomime subjects--Poor Pantomime Librettos--Pantomime
subjects of our progenitors--The various
versions of "Aladdin"--"The Babes in the Wood"--"Blue
Beard"--"Beauty and the Beast"--"Cinderella"--"Dick
Whittington"--"The House that Jack Built"--"Jack
the Giant Killer"--"Jack and the Beanstalk"--"Red
Riding-Hood"--"The Sleeping Beauty in the
Wood"--Unlucky subjects--"Ali Baba and the Forty
Thieves"--"The Fair One with Golden Locks"--The
source of "Sindbad the Sailor" and "Robinson Crusoe"


CHAPTER XX.

Pantomime in America


CHAPTER XXI.

Pantomimes made more attractive--The Restrictive Policy
of the Patent Houses--"Mother Goose" and "George
Barnwell" at Covent Garden--Lively Audiences--"Jane
Shore"--"Harlequin Pat and Harlequin Bat"--"The
first speaking opening"--Extravagence in Extravaganzas--The
doom of the old form of Pantomime--Its
revival in a new form--A piece of pure Pantomime--Present
day Mimetic Art--"_L'Enfant Prodigue_"--A
retrospect--The old with the new, and conclusion




CHAPTER I.

Origin of Pantomime.


From the beginning of all time there has been implanted in the human
breast the Dramatic instinct full of life and of vigour, and finding
undoubtedly its outlet, in the early days of civilization, if not in the
Dramatic Art then in the poetry of motion with that necessary and always
essential concomitant of both--Pantomime. Indeed, of the Terpsichorean
Art, it has been truly observed "That deprived of the imitative
principle (_i.e._, Pantomime), the strength, the mute expression, it
becomes nothing but a series of cadenced steps, interesting merely as a
graceful exercise." Equally so in every way does it apply to the
Dramatic Art, which minus its acting, its gestures--in a word, its
Pantomime--we have nothing but, to quote Hamlet, "Words, words, words."

In observing "That all the world's a stage, and the men and women merely
players," Shakespeare doubtless included in the generic term "players,"
Pantomimists as well: Inasmuch as this, that when, and wherever a
character is portrayed, or represented, be it in real life or on the
stage--"Nature's looking-glass," and the world in miniature--the words
that the individual or the character speaks, are accompanied with
gesture and motion, or, in other words, Pantomime, when "The action is
suited to the word, the word to the action."

To trace the original origin of Pantomime, or Mimicry, we must go to
Nature herself where we can find this practised by her from the
beginning of all time as freely, and as fully, as ever it was, or ever
will be, upon the stages of our theatres. What better evidence, or
instances, of this can we have than in those studies of her handiwork?
as the larger species of caterpillars, when, by stretching themselves
out in imitation of, and to make their foes think that they are snakes;
tigers and lions choosing a background in keeping with, and in imitation
of, the colours of their bodies, in order to seize their unwary prey;
and for the same purpose crocodiles imitating a rotting log; the green
tint of the lizard's skin for the sake of concealment; the playful
imitativeness of the mocking bird; the hysterical laugh of the hyaena;
the gaudy colours of tropical snakes imitated by others, besides many
other examples of Mimicry, in such as butterflies of the species
_Danaidae_ and _Acraediae_, the _Heliconidiae_ of tropical America; and
hornets, wasps, ants, and bees. All this, it may be urged, is only
instinct. True; but is it not also Mimicry--the Pantomime of Nature,
and, though, of course, of a different kind, and for very different
objects, is, nevertheless, of a kind of instinctive Pantomime or Mimicry
which each and every one of us possesses in greater or lesser degrees,
and as much as we do the Dramatic instinct.

The very name Pantomime itself signifies Nature as Pan was amongst the
Ancients, the allegorical god of Nature, the shepherd of Arcadia, and
with _Mimos_, meaning an imitator, we have, in the combination of these
two words, "an imitator of Nature," and from whence we derive the origin
of our word Pantomime.

Dryden says:--

    "Pan taught to join with wax unequal reeds;
    Pan loves the shepherds and the flocks he feeds."

"Pan," says Servius, "is a rustic god, formed in similitude of Nature,
whence he is called Pan, _i.e._, All: for he has horns in similitude of
the rays of the sun and the horns of the moon; his face is as ruddy as
the imitation of the aether; he has a spotted fawn skin on his breast in
likeness of the stars; his lower parts are shaggy on account of the
trees, shrubs, and wild beasts; he has goat's feet to denote the
stability of the earth; he has a pipe of seven reeds on account of the
harmony of the heavens, in which there are seven sounds; he has a crook,
that is a curved staff, on account of the year, which runs back on
itself _because he is the god of all Nature_."

Bernardin de St. Pierre observes of Pantomime, "That it was the first
language of man; it is known to all nations; and is so natural and so
expressive that the children of white parents learn it rapidly when they
see it used by the negroes."

Of the Pantomimic language--a universal language and common to the whole
world from time immemorial--Charles Darwin says in his "Descent of Man,"
that "The intellectual and social faculties of man could hardly have
been inferior in any extreme degree to those now possessed by the
lowest savage; otherwise primeval man could not have been so eminently
successful in the struggle for life as proved by his early and wide
diffusion. From the fundamental differences between certain languages
some philologists have inferred that, when man first became widely
diffused, he was not a speaking animal; but it may be suspected that
languages, far less perfect than any now spoken, _aided by gestures_,
might have been used, and yet have left no traces on subsequent and more
highly-developed tongues."

With the progress of, and also as an aid to, civilization how could the
traveller or the trader, not only in the beginning of time, but also
now, when occasion demands, in their intercourse with foreign nations
(unless, of course, they know the language) make themselves understood,
or be able to trade, unless they were or are able to use that "dumb
silent language"--Pantomime? Civilization undoubtedly owes much of its
progress to it, and, also the world at large, to this only and always
universal language. To both the deaf, as well as the dumb, its
advantages have ever been apparent.

Therefore, from prehistoric times, and from the beginning of the world,
we may presume to have had in some form or another, the Pantomimic Art.
In the lower stages of humanity, even in our own times, there is, in all
probability, a close similarity to the savagedom of mankind in the early
Antediluvian period as "This is shown (says Darwin) by the pleasure
which they all take in dancing, rude music, painting, tattooing, and
otherwise decorating themselves--in their mutual comprehension of
_gesture language_, and by the same inarticulate cries, when they are
excited by various emotions." It naturally follows that even if there
was only dancing, there must necessarily, as a form of entertainment,
have also been Pantomime. Again, all savage tribes have a war-dance of
some description, in which in fighting costume they invariably go
through, in Pantomimic form, the respective movements of the Challenge,
the Conflict, the Pursuit, and the Defeat, whilst other members of the
tribe, both men and women, give additional stimulus to these
representations by a rude form of music.

The Ostyak tribe of Northern Asia give us a specimen of the rude
imitative dances of early civilization in a Pantomimic exhibition of the
Chase; the gambols and habits of the wolf and other wild beasts. The
Pantomimic dances of the Kamchadales are in imitation of birds, dogs,
and bears; and the Damaras represent, by four of the tribe stooping down
with their heads together, and uttering harsh cries, the movements of
oxen, and of sheep. The Australian Bushmen Mimic the leaping of calves,
the antics of the baboon, and the buzzing of swarms of bees. Primitive
Pantomimic dancing is practised amongst the South Sea Islanders, and
other races, and just as it was, presumably, at the beginning of the
world.

Having briefly traced the origin of Pantomime, and the source of
dancing, let us, in order to further amplify my subject, look at also
for a moment the origin of music, in the time of prehistoric man.

From Nature also do we derive this art, as "The sighing of the wind
passing over a bed of reeds is Nature's first suggestion of breath," and
of music. The clapping of hands and the stamping of feet is man's first
element in the making of music, which developed itself into the
formation of drums, bells, and cymbals, and the evolution of the same
primary principle.

It has been argued, and also ridiculously pretended, that in the
Antediluvian period mankind only lived in caves with the hairy mammoth,
the cave bear, the rhinoceros, and the hyaena, in a state of barbarous
savagery; and that only since the Deluge have the Arts been known and
cities built on this terrestrial sphere of ours. Could anything be more
fallacious?

We know, from the Bible, that the first man was created about six
thousand years ago, and some sixteen hundred and fifty-six years
afterwards the inhabitants of the world, with the exception of Noah and
his family, consisting of eight souls all told, were destroyed by the
flood. Noah and his family, we can take it, were of the same race of
mankind then on the earth, of the same descent and of the same flesh and
blood (as we all are) of our common father and mother, Adam and Eve; yet
we are not told that Noah (he was six hundred years old when he went
into the Ark) and his family were savages. In the 4th chapter, 21st
verse of Genesis, of Jubal-Cain, we learn that "He was the father of all
such as handle the harp and organ"; and in the following verse,
Tubal-Cain is described as "An instructor of every artificer in brass
and iron."

We learn, also, that magnificent statues were made in Egypt some six
thousand years ago; and that mention is made of a statue of King
Cephren, said to have been chiselled about this period, and many learned
men also affirm that letters were known to the inhabitants of the
Antediluvian world. All this, however, hardly looks like the work of a
barbarous race, and points to an acquaintance with the Arts, at any rate
of Music and Sculpture, and that of the artificers and workers in brass
and iron.

To follow, for my subject, this reasoning a little further, if there was
music (which, doubtless, there was) there must also have been dancing,
and, if dancing, there must, in the Antediluvian age, as a form of
entertainment, have also been Pantomime. On the other hand, even
supposing that man, at this period, was nothing else but a complete
savage, the words of Darwin, that I have quoted on a previous page,
conclusively proves, I think (on a common-sense like basis), of the
existence of dancing, a rude form of music, and, of course, Pantomime at
this epoch.

Ingersoll's doctrine was that "The distance from savagery to Shakespeare
must be measured not by hundreds, but by millions, of years."

Finally, why, and for what reason, should the Lord God, in His
all-seeing goodness and mercy, punish the inhabitants of the
Antediluvian world if they were only poor unenlightened savages? Was it
not because they were idolaters and worshippers of idols, "And that
every imagination of the thoughts of his (man's) heart was only evil
continually," as the sixth chapter and fifth verse of Genesis tells us?
This then being so, we know also that in every ancient form of religion
dancing was one of the acts of worship, and if dancing, there must as
previously stated, have also been Pantomime.




CHAPTER II.

Origin of Tragedy and Comedy--Mythology--The meaning of the word
Pantomime--The origin of Harlequin, Columbine, Clown, and
Pantaloon--Grecian Mythology--Transformation Scenes--The rise of Grecian
Tragedy and Comedy--The Satirical Drama.


In the year 2347 B.C., in Chapter 9, verse 20, in Genesis, there occurs:
"And Noah began to be a husbandman, and he planted a vineyard." This is
one of the first acts that Noah did after the Deluge, and it is, as
history tells us, from the rites and ceremonies in celebration of the
cultivation of the vine, that we owe the origin of Tragedy and Comedy.

After the Deluge God placed His bow in the heavens as His covenant with
man that the world should no more be accursed; and in the first ages of
this world's history, Noah and his descendants celebrated their
deliverance from the Ark, the return of the seasons, and the promise of
plenty in their several religious rites and ceremonies. The children of
Shem had in general Asia as their portion; Japhet had Europe; and Ham,
Africa.

Soon, however, religion began to lose its purity, and it then began to
degenerate very fast. Men began to repair to the tops of mountains,
lonely caves and grottoes, where they thought resided their gods. To
honour them they erected altars and performed their vows. Amongst the
Ancients their Mythology went no further than the epoch of the Deluge,
and in honour of which, and also of the Ark, they erected many temples
called Aren, Theba, Argus (from whence was probably derived the Argo of
the Argonauts, and the sacred ship of Osiris), Cibotus, Toleus, and
Baris.

The symbol by which the Mythologists represented the Ark was an immense
egg. This was supposed to have been produced by Ether and Chaos, at the
bidding of Time, the one ethereal being who created the universe. By Nox
(Night) the egg was hatched, which, being opened into two parts, from
the upper part was formed heaven, and the lower earth.

In the sacred rites of Osiris, Isis, and the Dionysia of Bacchus, the
Ark or Ship was introduced. The Dove, by many nations, in their
celebrations, was looked upon as a special emblem of peace and
good-will. Theba, in Egypt, was originally one of the temples dedicated
to the Ark. Both priests and sooth-sayers were styled Ionah or Doves. To
Dodona, in Epirus, was brought this and the first Grecian oracle all the
rites and history of the Thebans. The priestesses of this temple were
known in the Latin as _Columbae_. It is from this word that we derive
the name Columbine, which means, in the Italian, "little dove." Homer
alludes to the priestesses as doves, and that they administered to Zeuth
(Noah). Nonnus speaks of Cadmus, and others of Orpheus, as introducing
into Greece the rites of Dionysus or Bacchus.

The Ancients, mentions Kennedy in his work on "Mythology," have highly
reverenced Noah, and designated him as Noa, Noos, Nous, Nus, Nusas,
Nusus (in India), Thoth, Hermes, Mercury, Osiris, Prometheus,
Deucalion, Atlas, Deus, Zeus, and Dios. Dios was one of the most ancient
terms for Noah, and whence was derived Deus--Nusus compounded of Dios
and Nusos, which gives us Dionysus, the Bacchus of the Greeks, and the
chief god of the heathen world. Bacchus was, properly speaking, Cush
(the son of Ham, and grandson of Noah), though both Dionysus and Bacchus
are, by ancient writers, frequently confounded with one another.

The resting of the Ark upon Mount Baris, Minyas, the Ararat of Moses in
Armenia, the dispersal of the flood, the multiplication of the families
of the earth, and the migration from the plains of Shinar of the
descendants of the sons of Chus or Cush (as it is sometimes written),
and called Chushites or Cushites, to different parts of the world, being
joined by other nations, particularly those of the descendants of Ham,
one of the sons of Noah. They were the first apostates from the truth,
but being great in worldly wisdom and knowledge they were thought to be,
and looked upon as a superior class of beings. Ham they looked upon as a
divinity, and under the name of Ammon they worshipped him as the Sun,
and Chus likewise as Apollo, a name which was also bestowed by the
Ancients upon Noah. The worship of the sun in all probability originated
the eastern position in our churches.

Another of the ancient deities worshipped by the Ammonians was Meed, or
Meet, the Cybele of the Phrygians, the nurse of Dionysus, and the Soul
of the World.

Nimrod, the "mighty hunter" (who possessed the regions of Babylonia and
Chaldee), and one of the sons of Cush, was the builder of that seminary
of idolatory the City and Tower of Bel, and erected in honour of the god
Bel, and another name for the sun. Upon the confusion of tongues when
hitherto "The whole earth was of one language, and of one speech," it
came to be known as Babylon, "The City of Confusion." Homer introduces
Orion (Nimrod) as a giant and a hunter in the shades below, and the
author of the "Pascal Chronicles" mentions that Nimrod taught the
Assyrians or Babylonians to worship fire. The priests of Ammon, named
Petor or Pator, used to dance round a large fire, which they affected in
their dancing to describe. Probably from this the Dervish dances all
over the East may be traced to this source.

Kennedy observes, of the confusion of tongues at Babel, that it was only
a labial failure, so that the people could not articulate. It was not an
aberration in words or language, but a failure and incapacity in labial
utterance. Epiphanius says that Babel, or Babylon, was the first city
built after the flood.

The Cushites were a large and numerous body, and after their dispersion
from Babylon they were scattered "Abroad upon the face of the earth."
They were the same people who imparted their rites and religious
services into Egypt, as far as the Indus and the Ganges, and still
further into Japan and China. From this event is to be discovered the
fable of the flight of the Grecian god Bacchus, the fabulous wanderings
of Osiris, and the same god under another name, of the Egyptians.
Wherever Dionysus, Osiris, or Bacchus went, the Ancients say that he
taught the cultivation of the soil, and the planting of the vine.
Dionysus, Bacchus, or Osiris, as I have shown in a preceding page, were
only other designations for Noah.

Of the Hindu heathen deity, Vishnu, Father Boushet mentions an Indian
tradition, concerning a flood which covered the whole earth, when Vishnu
made a raft, and, being turned into a fish, steered it with his tail.
Vishnu, like Dagon, was represented under the figure of a man and fish.

Strangely enough, the regions said to have been traversed by Dionysus,
Osiris, or Bacchus were, at different times, passed through by the
posterity of Ham, and in many of them they took up their residence. In
his journeyings the chief attendants of Osiris, or Bacchus, were Pan,
Anabis, Macedo, the Muses, the Satyrs, and Bacchic women were all in his
retinue. The people of India claim him as their own, and maintain that
he was born at Nusa in their country. Arrian speaks of the Nuseans as
being the attendants of Dionysus. In all traditions Dionysus appears as
the representative of some power of Nature.

The first who reduced Mythology to a kind of system were, in all
probability, the Egyptians. Egypt was ever the land of graven images,
and under the veil of Allegory and Mythology the priests concealed
religion from the eyes of the vulgar. In the beginning, brute animals
and certain vegetables were represented as the visible symbols of the
deities to which they were consecrated. Hence Jupiter Ammon was
represented under the figure of a Ram; Apis under a Cow; Osiris of a
Bull; Mercury or Thol of an Ibis; Diana or Babastis of a Cat; and Pan of
a Goat. From these sources are derived the fabulous transformation of
the gods celebrated in Egyptian Mythology, and afterwards imported into
Greece and Italy to serve as the subjects of the Grecian and Roman
Pantomimes.

Pantomime as we now know the term, means, not only the Art of acting in
dumb show, but also that of a spectacle or Christmas entertainment. (I
may add in parenthesis, that in the early part of the last century--the
nineteenth--the dictionaries only refer to Pantomime as meaning the
former of the above two definitions, and not the latter.)

Pan, regarded as the symbol of the universe, was also the god of flocks,
pastures, and shepherds in classic Mythology, and the guardian of bees,
hunting and fishing in his Kingdom of Arcadia. His form, like the
Satyrs, both supposed to have been the offsprings of Mercury, was that
of a man combined with a goat, having horns and feet like the latter
animal.

_Mimos_ (Gr.), as I have stated in the beginning, means an "imitator,"
or a "mimic," and from which word we have the derivation of the words
"mimicry," "mimetic," and the like.

Pan was the traditional inventor of the Pandean pipes, and also from
his name we derive many words that are in our language, such as "panic"
(Pan used to delight in suddenly surprising the shepherds whilst tending
their flocks), and the other attributes of this noun, including that
recently coined term of the Americans, "panicy."

Pan is said to have been the son of Mercury, or even Mercury himself,
and others say that he was the son of Zeus. Mercury and Zeus, it will be
remembered in Mythology, were only names for Noah. Pan is unnoticed by
Homer.

A heathen deity of Italy, Lupercus, the guardian of their flocks and
pastures, has also been identified with Pan, and in whose honour annual
rural festivals, known as Lupercalia, were observed.

The Lupercalian festivals were held on the 15th of the Kalends of March.
The priests, Luperci, used to dance naked through the streets as part of
the ceremonies attached to the festival.

Mention has been made by Dr. Clarke, in his "Travels," Vol. IV., that
Harlequin is the god Mercury, with his short sword _herpe_, or his rod,
the _caduceus_ (which has been likened to the sceptre of Judah), to
render himself invisible, and to transport himself from one end of the
earth to the other, and that the covering on his head, the winged cap,
was the _petasus_. Apropos of this, the following lines in the tenth
Ode, of the first book of Horace, will probably occur to the reader:

    "Mercury! Atlas' smooth-tongued boy, whose will
      First trained to speed our wildest earliest race,
    And gave their rough hewn forms with supple skill
      The gymnast's grace.

    "'Tis thine the unbodied spirits of the blessed,
      To guide to bliss, and with thy _golden rod_
    To rule the shades; above, below, caressed
      By every god."

Mercury, as we have seen, was among the Ancients, only another name for
Noah. "Indeed," says Dr. Clarke, "some of the representations of Mercury
upon ancient vases are actually taken from the scenic exhibitions of the
Grecian theatre; and that these exhibitions were also the prototypes
whereon D'Hancarville shows Mercury, Momus, and Psyche delineated as we
see Harlequin, Columbine, and Clown on our stages. The old man
(Pantaloon), is Charon (the ferryman of hell). The Clown is Momus, the
buffoon of heaven, the god of raillery and wit, and whose large gaping
mouth is in imitation of the ancient masks."

Amongst the Aryans, Medians, Egyptians, Chaldeans, Babylonians, and
other nations (including our own, as did not Lilly predict the execution
of Charles I., the plague, the great fire of London, and other events)
was astrology practised. The Egyptians peopled the constellation of the
Zodiac (the first open book for mankind to read), with Genii, and one of
the twelve Zodiacal signs was Aries (the Ram). The ram is of the same
species as the goat, and the god Pan was the Goat god, as we know. The
astrologers, in their divinations and rulings of the planets placed the
various parts of the body under a planetary influence. The head and face
were assigned to the house of Aries, and therefore the face notably for
the Pantomimic Art was placed by the ancient astrologers under the
influence of this particular planet.

The heathen worship of Pan was not only known in Arcadia, but also
throughout Greece, although it did not reach Athens until after
Marathon.

Of Pan's death Plutarch tells the story that in the reign of Tiberius,
one Thamus, a pilot, visiting the islands of Paxae, was told of this
god's death. When he reached Palodes he told the news, whereupon loud
and great lamentations were heard, as of Nature herself expressing her
grief. The epoch of the story coincides with the enactment of that grim,
and the world's greatest tragedy on the hill of Golgotha, and the end,
and the beginning of a new world. Rabelais, Milton, Schiller, and also
Mrs. Browning, have allusions to this story of Plutarch's.

The ambitious family of the Titans (the bones of the "giants on the
earth" before the Deluge, gave rise to the stories of the Titans found
in caves), and their scions and coadjutors Jupiter, Juno, Mars, Mercury,
Apollo, Diana, Bacchus, Minerva, or Pallas, Ceres, Proserpine, Pluto,
and Neptune furnish by far the greatest part of the Mythology of Greece.
Tradition says that they left Phoenicia about the time of Moses to
settle in Crete, and from thence they made their way into Greece, which
was supposed at that time to be inhabited by a race of savages. The arts
and inventions were communicated to the natives, and the blessings of
civilization in process of time inspired the inhabitants with
admiration. They, therefore, relinquished worshipping the luminary and
heavenly bodies, and transferred their devotion to their benefactors.
Then into existence sprang the most inconsistent and irreconcilable
fictions. The deified mortals, with their foibles and frailities, were
transmitted to posterity in the most glorious manner possible, and hence
accordingly, in both the Odyssey and the Iliad of Homer, we have a
strange and heterogeneous mixture of what is not only mighty in heroes,
but also that which is equally mean.

In the Grecian Mythology the labours of Hercules, the expedition of
Osiris, the wanderings and transformation of Io, the fable of the
conflagration of Phaeton, the rage of Proserpine, the wanderings of
Ceres, the Eleusinian Mysteries, the Orgia, or sacred rites of Bacchus,
in fine, the ground work of Grecian Mythology is to be traced to the
East, from where also all our nursery tales, and also our popular
Pantomime subjects; (which is the subject of another chapter) perhaps,
with the exception of our own "Robinson Crusoe," originated.

The nine Muses called Pierides in Grecian Mythology were the daughters
of Jupiter and Mnemosyne (Memory), supposed to preside over the liberal
Arts and the sciences. They were Calliope (Heroic Poetry), Clio Euterpe
(Music), Erato (Love Poetry), Melpomene (Tragedy), Polyhymnia (Muse of
Singing and Rhetoric), Terpsichore (Dancing), Thalia (Comedy), and
Urania (Astronomy). Mount Parnassus, Mount Helicon, and the fountains of
Castalia and Aganippe were the sacred places of the Muses.

The Eleusinian Mysteries are of a period that may be likened to the 7th
century B.C., and at these Mysteries as many as 30,000 persons, in the
time of Herodotus, assembled to witness them. The attributes of these
Grecian Mysteries, like those of the Egyptians, consisted of
processions, sacrificial offerings, purifications, dances, and all that
the Mimetic and the other Arts could convey; add to this the various
coloured lights, and the fairy-like grandeur of the whole, we have
something that may be likened to the Transformation, and other
fairy-like scenes of English Pantomimes and Extravaganzas.

At the Orgia, or sacred rites of Bacchus, the customary sacrifice to be
offered, because it fed on vines, was the goat. The vine, ivy, laurel,
asphodel, the dolphin, lynx, tiger, and ass were all sacred to Bacchus.
The acceptable sacrifice to Venus was a dove; Jupiter, a bull; an ox of
five years old, ram or boar pig to Neptune; and Diana, a stag. At the
inception of the Bacchanalian festivals in Greece, the tragic song of
the Goat, a sacred hymn was sung, and from which rude beginning sprang
the Tragedy and Comedy of Greece. The Greeks place every event as
happening in their country, and it is not surprising that they claim for
themselves the inception of Tragedy and Comedy, which they undoubtedly
were the originators of in Greece, but the religious festivals of
Dionysus, Osiris, and Bacchus, to which we are supposed to owe the
inception of Tragedy and Comedy, were known long before the Greeks knew
them. (Dionysus was the patron and protector of theatres.) "The purport
of the song was that Bacchus imparted his secret of the cultivation of
vines to a petty prince in Attica, named Icarius, who happened one day
to espy a goat brouzing upon his plantations, immediately seized, and
offered it up as a sacrifice to his divine benefactor; the peasants
assembled round their master, assisted in the ceremony, and expressed
their joy and gratitude in music, songs, dances, and Pantomime on the
occasion; the sacrifice grew into a festival, and the festival into an
annual solemnity, attended most probably every year with additional
circumstances, when the countrymen flocked together in crowds, and sang
in rustic strains the praises of their favourite deity."

Amongst the reported followers of these Bacchanalian festivals were
those fabulous race of grotesque sylvan beings, previously referred to,
known as the Satyrs. They were of a sturdy frame, in features they had
broad snub noses, and appeared in rough skins of animals with large
pointed ears, heavy knots on their foreheads, and a small tail. The
elder Satyrs were known as Sileni. The younger were more pleasing and
not so grotesque or repulsive in appearance as the elder Satyrs. To the
Satyrs can be traced the variegated dress of the modern Harlequin, as in
ancient Greek history mention is made of the performers enacting Satyrs
being sometimes habited in a tiger's skin of various colours, which
encircled the performer's body tightly, and who carried a wooden sword,
wore a white hat, and a brown mask. According to Servius (as we have
seen) Pan had also a bright spotted dress "in likeness of the stars."

From these rustic festivals originated the Satyr, or Satirical Drama, as
did its Italian prototype, the _Fabulae Atellanae_ or, _Laudi Osci_.
These rural sacrifices became, in process of time, a solemn fast, and
assumed all the pomp and splendour of a religious ceremony; poets were
employed by the magistrate to compose hymns, or songs, for the occasion;
such was the rudeness and simplicity of the age that their bards
contended for a prize, which, as Horace intimates, was scarce worth
contending for, being no more than a goat or skin of wine, which was
given to the happy poet who acquitted himself best in the task assigned
him.

From such small beginnings Tragedy and Comedy took their rise; and like
(as the best writers on these subjects tell us) every other production
of human art, extremely contemptible; that wide and deep stream, which
flows with such strength and rapidity through cultivated Greece, took
its rise from a small and inconsiderable fountain, which hides itself in
the recesses of antiquity, and is almost buried in oblivion; the name
alone remains to give us some light into its original nature, and to
inform us, that Tragedy and Comedy, like every other species of poetry,
owe their birth to Religion.

Appropriately does Horace observe:--

    "Nor was the flute at first with silver bound,
    Nor rivalled emulous the trumpet's sound;
    Few were its notes, its forms were simply plain,
    Yet not unuseful was its feeble strain,
    To aid the chorus, and their songs to raise,
    Filling the little theatre with ease,
    To which a thin and pious audience came
    Of frugal manners, and unsullied fame."




CHAPTER III.

The origin of the Indian Drama--Aryan Mythology--Clown and
Columbine--Origin of the Chinese Drama--Inception of the Japanese
Drama--The Siamese Drama--Dramatic performances of the South Sea
Islanders, Peruvians, Aztecs, Zulus, and Fijis--The Egyptian Drama.


Of the Indian Drama we learn that the union of music, song, dance, and
Pantomime took place centuries ago B.C., at the festivals of the native
gods, to which was afterwards added dialogue, and long before the
advent, out of which it grew, of the native drama itself.

The progenitors of the Indo-European race, the Aryans--in Sanscrit
meaning Agriculturists--who crossed the Indus from Amoo, where they
dwelt near the Oxus, some two thousand years before Christ, were the
original ancestors and people of India.

The Aryan race (Hindus and Persians only speak of themselves as Aryans)
laid the foundation of the Grecian and Roman Mythology, the dark and
more sombre legends of the Scandinavian and the Teuton; and all derived
from the various names grouped round the Sun god, which in the lighter
themes the Aryans associated with the rising and the setting of the sun,
in all its heavenly glory, and with the sombre legends the coming of the
winter, and marking the difference between lightness and darkness.

In India the origin of dramatic entertainments has been attributed to
the sage Bharata (meaning an actor), who received, it is said, a
communication from the god Brahma to introduce them, as the latter had
received his knowledge of them from the Vedas. Bharata was also said to
be the "Father of dramatic criticism." Pantomimic scenes derived from
the heathen Mythology of Vishnu--a collection of poems and hymns on the
Aryan religion--are even now in India occasionally enacted by the Jatras
of the Bengalis and the Rasas of the provinces in the west, and, just as
their forefathers did ages and ages ago. An episode from the history of
the god Vishnu, in relation to his marriage with Laxmi, was a favourite
subject for the early Indian Drama. Of Vedic Mythology Professor Max
Müller observes that in it "There are no genealogies, no settled
marriages between gods and goddesses. The father is sometimes the son,
the brother, the husband, and she who in one hymn is the mother, is in
another the wife. As the conceptions of the poet vary so varies the
nature of these gods."

The Hindoo dramatic writer, Babhavñti--the Indian
Shakespeare--introduced with success in one of his dramas, like in our
"Hamlet," "a play within a play," and much in a similar way as our early
dramatists used in their plays, the "dumb shows."

Between the native Tragedy and Comedy, as in China, there was no
definite distinction, and, although both contained some of the best and
noblest sentiments, yet the racial philosophy of caste enters greatly
into the construction of each.

In the Hindoo Mythology we have prototypes of the gods of the Egyptian,
Grecian, and Roman Mythologies. The god Vishnu, who, in Aryan Mythology,
is the wind and "Traverses the heavens in three strides," is the
greatest of all heathen deities. His dwelling-place was "The aerial
mountains, where the many horned and swiftly moving cattle abide." In
Grecian Mythology Hermes or Mercury took on some of the characteristics
of Vishnu.

In the Eleusinian Mysteries of the Greeks, the signs and symbols that
marked the worship of Vishnu by the Aryans, are apparent; and in the
British Museum the scenes of the vases of the Hamilton collection agree
closely with the Sacti rites of Hindustan.

After having briefly noticed and introduced Vishnu or Hermes to the
notice of the reader, we will now take another of the Aryan
deities--See-Va, the Wine god. This myth was the Dionysus, or Bacchus,
of the Greeks, and the expedition of this "immortal" through the world
to instruct mankind in agriculture, is likened as well as the god
himself by the Egyptians to their deity Osiris--the god of the Nile. The
worship of See-Va, Bacchus, or Osiris extended over Asia Minor, Greece,
and Italy.

The visit and advent of the Wine or Pleasure god Bacchus to India, with
his accompanying train of sylvan and rural deities, and nymphs, is
supposed to have conquered the Hindoos, and taught them civilization,
besides the cultivation of the vine. Strange to relate that when
Alexander and his army reached the present Cabul they found ivy and
wild vines (both sacred to Bacchus) growing in abundance, and they were
met by processions dressed in parti-coloured dresses, playing on drums
like the Bacchic festivals of Greece and Lower Asia of that time.

Female parts were acted by women, but it was not a general custom; and
the Clown of the piece was always a Brahma, or if not, at any rate a
pupil of Brahma.

Also among the minor characters was the _Vita_, "the accomplished
companion," a part sometimes played by men and sometimes by women.
Probably in this in the latter instance we have the origin of the
Columbine and Soubrette part in after years of the European stage as the
term "accomplished companion," would equally apply to both. It is only a
surmise, yet history as we know is continually repeating itself--even in
Soubrette parts, and in more senses than one.

Of scenic displays that it possessed there was little or none, though
the exits and entrances to the stage had probably some device to denote
them. What they possessed in the way of properties it is more than
useless to speculate, as, whatever could be said, could only be
conjectural. In dressing their parts propriety in costume, and in
adhering to the habits of the Indian Drama, seems to have been observed
with some show of consistency.

The Chinese Drama also arose from the Hindoo developing itself as time
rolled on from Pantomimes and ballets. A very ancient Pantomime is said
to have been symbolical of the conquest of China by Wou Wang. Others
were on subjects of the Harvest, War, and Peace; whilst many were only
of an obscure nature. With the rise and progress of the native drama
about five hundred years before Christ Pantomimes fell into disrepute.

It is interesting to note that one of the penal codes of the Celestial
Empire was, that those who wrote plays with vicious, or immoral
tendencies, should stay in "purgatory" as long as their plays were
performed. This precept was all right in theory, but in practice it was
more honoured in the breach than in the observance, as amongst the whole
of the Celestial dramatic writers only one in about ten thousand seems
to have conformed to this rule.

The dramatic writers of China duly observed the question of rank and
priority, and just as much as the native Hindoo writers observed that of
the various phases of caste.

Plays were divided into acts and scenes, and occasionally were prefixed
by a prologue. Performances took sometimes a single day, and favourite
plays oftentimes longer.

The Japanese type of drama seems to have originally evolved itself from
that of the Chinese, though its singing, dancing, historical, and
Pantomimical displays are, of course, purely native.

A native of Japan, though of Chinese descent, Hadu Kawatsa, at the
close of the 6th century (A.D.) gave dramatic entertainments in Japan.
The Japanese claim for the Pantomimical dance Sambâso as a preventative
of earthquakes and volcanic eruptions; and this dance, it is said, that
within recent years, is used as a prelude to dramatic entertainments.

Isono Zenji is thought to have been the originator of the Japanese
Drama, but her performances were more those of the _Mima_--dancing and
posturing.

In the seventeenth century Saruwaka Kanzaburô introduced the drama
proper into Japan by the erection, in 1624, of a theatre, and nearly
fifty years later than the first permanent theatre that was erected
(1576) in England.

Popular historical subjects were chosen for the plays, though the names
of the characters were transformed. Fancy plays, operas, ballets, which
in the latter women appeared, became also very popular.

Within sight of the closing years of the last century (the nineteenth),
Japanese actors were more or less under a ban when the same was happily
removed.

Siam was content with the Indian style of dramatic and Pantomimic
entertainments. Theatrical performances were also slightly known--though
no regular type of drama is known--amongst the South Sea Islanders, the
Peruvians, the Aztecs, the Zulus, and the Fijis, the two last named
having a similar version of our popular Pantomime subject, "Jack and the
Beanstalk."

The Egyptians possessed no regular type of drama, yet in both the Books
of Job and Ruth the dramatic element is strongly marked. At the rustic
festivals of the native gods, as in Greece and Italy, there was,
however, the dramatic elements of the union of song, dance, and
Pantomime, and we are told that the priests not only studied music, but
also taught the art to others. Again in the rites of the dead the
Mysteries of the sepulture over the transmigration of souls, the
dramatic element entered largely into these mystic rites and
celebrations. Amongst the Pagan Greeks, as I have previously stated, and
the Romans, we learn of similar celebrations, carried out with great
pomp and ceremony, such as the apotheosis of the soul departing from its
earthly to its heavenly abode.




CHAPTER IV.

"Dancing," _i.e._ Pantomime--Grecian Dancing and Pantomimic
Scenes--Aristotle--Homer--Dances common to both Greeks and Romans.


In tracing the History of Pantomime it becomes a matter of considerable
difficulty, and, as Baron, in his _Lettres sur la Danse_, observes that
when the word Dancing occurs in an old author, that it should always be
translated by "gesticulation," "declamation," or "Pantomime." When we
read that an actress "danced" her part well in the tragedy of Medea,
that a carver cut up food dancing, that Heligobalus and Caligula
"danced" a discourse for an audience of state, we are to understand that
they--actress, carver, and emperor--declaimed, gesticulated, made
themselves understood in a language without words. Acting is also
oftentimes confounded with dancing, and it is, therefore, manifestly
impossible to distinguish now one from the other.

"The Greeks," mentions Butteux, applied the term "Dancing" to all
measured movements, even to military marching. They danced anywhere and
everywhere; and we are told that both their limbs and bodies spoke.

Cybele was supposed by the Greeks to have taught dancing on Mount Ida to
the Corybantes, and they also say that it was in their country that
Apollo revealed the Terpsichorean Art, and that of Music and Poetry.

After all this, it is not very surprising that they make claim for the
innovation of Pantomime. This, of course, we know is different, as we
have seen that, from time immemorial Pantomimic scenes and dances have
been represented. Cassiodorus attributes its institution to Philistion;
Athenaens assigns it to Rhodamanthus, or to Palamedes.

With the Greeks, Pantomimes became very popular, and they were
distinguished by various names. Before they began their Tragedies the
Greeks used to give a Pantomimic display. The principal Pantomimists
were known as _Ethologues_, meaning painters of manners. One of the most
celebrated of these Mimes was Sophron of Syracuse. In depicting the
conduct of man so faithfully, the Pantomimes of the Greek Mimes served
to teach and inculcate useful moral lessons. The moral philosophy of the
Mime, Sophron, was so pure that Plato kept a book of his poems under his
pillow when on his death-bed. Besides these Moralities, as they were
termed, there were, in addition, light pieces of a farcical kind, in the
portrayal of which the Mimes were equally as successful as in the other
species.

The dancing of the Greeks was an actual language, in which all
sentiments and passages were interpreted. By the aid of the
Terpsichorean Art, Professor Desrat says, "That the Greeks, a nation of
heroes, trained themselves in the art of hand-to-hand combat."

"Dancing," says another writer, "and imitative acting in the lower
stages of civilization are identical, and in the sacred dances of
ancient Greece we may trace the whole Dramatic Art of the modern world.
The Spartans practised dancing as a gymnastic exercise, and made it
compulsory upon all children from the age of five."

And we are also told that religious processions went with song and dance
(and, of course, Pantomime), to the Egyptian temples; the Cretan chorus
sang hymns to the Greek gods; David danced in procession before the Ark
of the Covenant; and that we are to "Praise the Lord with the sound of
the trumpet, praise Him with the psaltery and the harp; praise Him with
the timbrel and the _dance_."

Aristotle speaks of Mimetic dances three hundred years before the
Augustan era. He also says that dancers want neither poetry or music, as
by the assistance of measure and cadence only they can imitate human
manners, actions, and passions.

Again, "Homer, describing the employment of the Delian priestesses, or
Nuns, of the order of St. Apollo of Delos, that they were great adepts
in the Art of Mimicry, and that part of the entertainment which they
afforded to the numerous people of different nations; who formed their
congregations was, as the poet expresses it, from their _being skilled
to imitate the voices and the pulsation or measure of all nations, and
so exactly was their song adapted that every man would think he himself
was singing_."

Homer also mentions a dance invented for Ariadne. In the midst of the
dancers, there were two dancers who sang the adventures of Daedalus,
supplementing their singing by gestures, and explaining in Pantomime the
subject of the whole performance.

The Pyrrhic dance of the Greeks was a sort of military Pantomime. The
Greeks had several kinds of Pyrrhic dances, the names of which varied
with the character of the performance.

    The Hyplomachia imitated a fight with shields.
    The Skiamachia was a battle with shadows,
    The Monomachia was an imitation of single combat.

Some of the Mimetic dances common to both Greeks and Romans were The
Loves of Adonis and Venus, the Exploits of Ajax, the Adventures of
Apollo, the Rape of Ganymede, the Loves of Jupiter and Danae, the Birth
of Jupiter, Hector, the Rape of Europa, the Labours of Hercules,
Hercules Mad, the Graces, Saturn devouring his Children, the Cybele in
honour of Cybele, the Cyclops, the Sorrows of Niobe, the Tragic End of
Semele, the Wars of the Titans, the Judgment of Paris, Daphne pursued by
Apollo, the Bucolic Dance, and the Dance of Flowers.




CHAPTER V.

Thespis--The Progress of Tragedy and Comedy--Aeschylus--The
Epopée--Homer--Sophocles--Euripides--Grecian Mimes--The First Athenian
Theatre--Scenery and Effects.


When Thespis first pointed out the tragic path, and when (as Horace
tells us in his Odes) that "The inventor of the Art carried his vagrant
players on a cart," by his introduction of a new personage, who relieved
the chorus, or troop of singers, by reciting some part of a well-known
history, or fable, which gave time for the chorus to rest. All that the
actors repeated between the songs of the chorus was called an episode,
or additional part, consisting often of different adventures, which had
no connexion with each other. Thus Pantomime, the song, and the dance,
which were at first the only performances, became gradually and
insensibly a necessary and ornamental part of the drama.

From this time, the actor, or reciter, was more attended to than the
chorus; however, his part was executed, and it had the powerful charms
of novelty to recommend it, and quickly obscured the lustre of the
chorus, whose songs were now of a different nature, insomuch that the
original subject of them, the praise of Bacchus, was by degrees either
slightly mentioned, or totally passed over and forgotten; the priests,
who we may suppose for a long time presided over the whole, were alarmed
at so open a contempt of the deity, and unanimously exclaimed, that this
was nothing to Bacchus; the contempt grew into a kind of proverbial
saying, and as such is handed down to us.

From the origin of Tragedy and Comedy, and to the days of Thespis, and
from this time to that of Aeschylus, all is doubt, conjecture, and
obscurity; neither Aristotle, nor any other ancient writer, gives us the
least insight into the state and progress of the Greek Drama; the names
of a few, and but a few, tragedians, during this dark period, are handed
down to us; such were Epigenes, the Sicyonion, and Pratinas, who wrote
fifty-two plays, thirty-two of which are said to be satirical. After
Thespis, came his scholar Phrynicus, who wrote nine tragedies; for one
of which, we are told, he was fined fifty drachmas, because he had made
it (an odd reason) too deep, and too affecting; there was another, also
named Phrynicus, author of two tragedies: to these must be added
Alcaeus, Phormus, and Choeritas, together with Cephisodorus, an
Athenian, who wrote the "Amazon," and Apollophanes, supposed to have
been the author of a tragedy named "Daulis," though Suidas is of another
opinion. Tragedy had, during the lives of these writers, probably made
but a slow progress, and received but very little culture and
improvement; when at length the great Aeschylus arose, who, from this
rude and undigested chaos, created as it were a new world in the system
of letters.

Poets, and perhaps epic poets, there might have been before Homer (the
latter, who, in all probability, lived within fifty years of the Fall of
Troy--1250 B.C.). Dramatic writers there certainly were before Aeschylus
the former notwithstanding, we may, with the utmost propriety, style the
inventor and father of heroic poetry, and the latter of the ancient
drama, which, before his time, does not appear to have had any
particular form but that of Pantomime, song, and the union of song and
dance. _Aeschylus first introduced dialogue_, that most essential part
of tragedy, and by the addition of the second personage, threw the whole
fable into action, and restored the chorus to its ancient dignity.

Aeschylus having, like a tender parent, endowed his darling child with
every mental accomplishment, seemed resolved that no external ornaments
should be wanting to render her universally amiable; he clothed her,
therefore, in the most splendid habit, and bestowed upon her everything
that Art could produce, to heighten and improve her charms. Aeschylus,
who being himself author, actor, and manager, took upon him the whole
conduct of the drama, and did not neglect any part of it; he improved
the scenery and decorations, brought his actors into a well constructed
theatre, raised his heroes on the _cothurnus_, or buskin, invented the
masks, and introduced splendid habits with long trains, that gave an air
of majesty and dignity to the performers.

From the time when Tragedy began to assume a regular form, we find her
closely following the steps of epic poetry; all the parts of _epopée_,
or heroic poem, may be traced in tragedy, though, as Aristotle observes,
all the parts of tragedy are not to be found in the _epopée_; whence the
partisans of the stage with some reason conclude, that perfection in the
former is more difficult to be attained than in the latter. Without
entering into a dispute, we may venture, however, to say that from Homer
the tragedians drew the plan, construction, and conduct of their fables,
and not unfrequently, the fable itself; to him they applied for
propriety of manners, character, sentiment, and diction.

From this era then, we are to consider Tragedy as an elegant and noble
structure, built according to the rules of art, symmetry, and
proportion; whose every part was in itself fair, firm, and compact--and
at the same time contributed to the beauty, utility, and duration of the
whole edifice.

Sophocles and Euripides carefully studied the plan laid down by
Aeschylus, and by their superior genius and judgment, improved it in a
short time to its highest state of perfection, from which it gradually
declined to the rise of the Roman Drama.

Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides were the three great tragic poets;
and from the works of these three illustrious writers, and from them
alone, we must draw all our knowledge of the ancient Greek Tragedy.

Comedy, like Tragedy, owes its origin to the union of music, song,
dance, and Pantomime; Tragedy to the dithyrambick, and Comedy to the
phallica; and each of them (emulating Pantomime), began to form
themselves into dramatic imitations; each studied to adopt a measure
suited to their purpose:--Tragedy, the more lofty, chose the tetrameter;
and comedy, which aimed at familiarity, the iambic. But, as the style of
tragedy improved, Nature herself, says Aristotle, directed the writers
to abandon the capering tetrameter, and to embrace that measure which
was most accommodated to the purposes of dialogue; whence the iambic
became the common measure of both Tragedy and Comedy.

Sophocles brought on a third actor, which number was not exceeded in the
Greek tragedies during the same scene. Horace alludes to this, "_nec
quarta loqui persona laboret_," (Let not a fourth person strive to
speak): but it was not observed in comedy. Players of second parts were
obliged to speak so low as not to drown the voice of the chief actor.
Tyrants were always played by subalterns. The women were only dancers
(and Pantomimists). Female parts were performed by eunuchs.

On the Grecian stage, those performers who devoted themselves entirely
to the Art of Miming originally came from Sicily and southern Italy,
though the exact period is difficult to determine with any degree of
certainty.

The figures of tragic or comic actors were known by the long and strait
sleeves which they wore. The servants in comedy, below the dress with
strait sleeves, had a short cassock with half-sleeves. That the
characters might be distinguished (a difficulty in this respect arising
from the size of the theatres) parasites carried a short truncheon; the
rural deities, shepherds, and peasants, the crook; heralds and
ambassadors, the _caduceus_; kings, a long, straight sceptre; heroes, a
club, etc. The tunic of tragic actors descended to the heels, and was
called _palla_. They generally carried a long staff or an erect sceptre.
They who represented old men, leaned upon a long and crooked staff.

The first Greek theatre at Athens (says Fosbroke, in his "Antiquities,")
was a temporary structure of boards, removed after the performances were
closed. This fashion continued till the erection of the theatre of
Bacchus, at Athens, which served as a model for the others. The Greek
theatre was no more than a concave sweep, scooped out of the hollow side
of a hill, generally facing the sea. The sweep was filled with seats,
rising above each other, and ascended by staircases, placed like the
_radii_ of a circle. This semi-circular form was adopted not merely for
convenience of vision, but for an aid to the sound. This range for
spectators was called the _coilon_ or hollow. The area below was the
_conistra_, or pit. There was no superstructure for a gallery, but
around the rim of the building were porticos, by which the spectators
entered, and whither they could retire, if it rained. The portico just
about the highest corridor, or lobby, was denominated the _cercys_, and
used by the women. Where is now the orchestra, was a platform, called
by that name; and here, among the Greeks, were stationed the musicians;
chorus and Mimes; among the Romans, the Emperor, Senate, and other
persons of quality. Seven feet above the orchestra, and eleven above the
_conistra_, or pit, was the front stage, or proscenium, upon which stood
an altar to Apollo. Here the principal actors performed, and the site of
the altar was devoted to the dances (of the Mimes) and songs of the
chorus. The part called the _scena_ was in line with the ornamental
columns, upon the sides of the stage.

The ancient scenery at first consisted of mere boughs, but afterwards of
tapestry, not painted canvas. The Greek stage consisted of three parts,
the _scena_, across the theatre, upon the line of the curtain in our
theatres; the proscenium, where the actors performed; and the
post-scenium, the part behind the house, before-mentioned. To form parts
of the scenes there were prisms of framework, turning upon pivots, upon
each face of which was strained a distinct picture, one for tragedy,
consisting of large buildings, with columns, statues, and other
corresponding ornaments; a second face, with houses, windows, and
balconies, for comedy; a third applied to farce, with cottages,
grottoes, and rural scenes. There were the _scenae versatiles_ of
Servius. Besides these, there were _scenae ductiles_, which drew
backwards and forwards, and opened a view of the house, which was built
upon the stage, and contained apartments for machinery, or retirement
for the actors. As to the patterns of the scenes, in comedy, the most
considerable building was in the centre; that on the right side was a
little less elevated, and that on the left generally represented an inn.
In the satirical pieces they had always a cave in the middle, a wretched
cabin on the right, and on the left an old ruined temple, or some
landscape. In these representations perspective was observed for
Vitruvius remarks (C. 8) that the rules of it were invented and
practised from the time of Aeschylus, by a painter named Agararchus, who
has even left a treatise upon it. After the downfall of the Roman
Empire, these decorations of the stage were neglected, till Peruzzi, a
Siennese, who died in 1536, revived them.

There were three entries in front, and two on the sides; the middle
entry (termed the Royal door) was always that of the principal actor;
thus, in tragedy, it was commonly the gate of a palace. Those on the
right and left were destined to the second-part players, and the two
others, on the sides, one to people from the country, the other to those
from the harbour, or any public place.

Pollux informs us, that there were trap-doors for ghosts, furies, and
the infernal deities. Some under the doors, on one side, introduced the
rural deities, and on the other the marine. The ascents or descents were
managed by cords, wheels, and counter-weights. Of these machines none
were more common than those which descended from heaven in the end of
the play, in which the gods came to extricate the poet in the
_denouement_. The kinds were chiefly three; some conveyed the performer
across the theatre in the air; by others, the gods descended on the
stage; and a third contrivance, elevated, or supported in the air,
persons who seemed to fly, from which accidents often happened. (It is
from this that the well-known phrase "_Deus ex machina_" has its
origin.) As the ancient theatres were larger than ours, and unroofed,
there was no wheel-work aloft, but the performer was elevated by a sort
of crane, of which the beam was above the stage; and turning upon
itself, whilst the counter-weight made the actor descend or ascend,
caused him to describe curves, jointly composed of the circular motion
of the crane, and the vertical ascent. The _anapesmata_ were cords for
the sudden appearance of furies, when fastened to the lowest steps; and
to the ascension of rivers, when attached to the stage. The
_ceraunoscopium_ was a kind of moveable tower, whence Jupiter darted
lightning, supposed to be the Greek fire, as in Ajax Oielus. The machine
for thunder (_bronton_) was a brazen vase, concealed under the stage, in
which they rolled stones. Festus calls it the Claudian thunder, from
Claudius Pulcher, the inventor. The most dreadful machines were,
however, the _pegmata_ (a general term also for all the machines), which
first consisted of scaffolds in stories, &c. These first exhibited
criminals fighting at the top, and then, dropping to pieces,
precipitated them to the lower story, to be torn to pieces by wild
beasts. Sometimes they were for vomiting flames, &c. The _theologium_
was a place more elevated than the stage, where the gods stood and
spoke, and the machines which held them rested.

The seats of the spectators were divided into stories, each containing
seven rows of seats, with two passages (_praecinctiones_) around them
above and below. Small staircases divided the seats into sections,
called _cunei_, and ended in a gate at the top, which communicated with
passages (the _vomitoriae_) for admission.




CHAPTER VI.

Roman Theatres--Description--"Deadheads"--Pantomime in Italy--Livius
Andronicus--_Fabulae Atellanae_--Extemporal Comedy--Origin of the
Masque, Opera, and Vaudeville--Origin of the term
Histrionic--Etruscans--Popularity of Pantomime in Italy--Pantomimists
banished by Trajan--Nero as a Mime--Pylades and Bathyllus--Subjects
chosen for the Roman Pantomimes--The Ballet--The _Mimi_ and
_Pantomimi_--_Archimimus_--Vespasian--Harlequin--"Mr. Punch"--Zany, how
the word originated--Ancient Masks--Lucian, Cassiodorus, and Demetrius
in praise of Pantomime--A celebrated _Mima_--Pantomimes denounced by
early writers--The purity of the English stage contrasted with that of
the Grecian and Roman--Female parts on the Grecian and Roman stages--The
principal Roman _Mimas_--The origin of the Clown of the early English
Drama.


The Roman theatres (continues Fosbroke) were of a similar D form. Two
lofty arched doorways entered into the pit. In front of the stage, which
was very shallow, was a pew-like orchestra. The proscenium was very
narrow, and instead of a drop scene was the _elisium_, a house, narrow,
with a kind of bow window front in the centre, and a door on each side:
for Pollux says that a house with two stories formed part of the stage,
whence old women and panders used to look down and peep about them.
Within the house were apartments. Around the back of the stage was a
_porticus_. At Herculaneum, on a balustrade which divided the orchestra
from the stage, was found a row of statues, and on each side of the
_pulpitum_, an equestrian figure. Below the theatre (great and small)
was a large square constructed, says Vitruvius, for the reception of the
audience in bad weather. It consisted of Doric columns, around an open
area, forming an ample portico for this purpose, whilst under it were
arranged _cellae_, or apartments, amongst which were a soap manufactory,
oil mill, corn mill, and prison. An inner _logia_ was connected with a
suite of apartments. There was also an _exedra_, or recess.

Among the Romans, theatrical approbation was signified by an artificial
musical kind of noise, made by the audience to express satisfaction.
There were three species of applause denominated from the different
noises made in them, viz.: _Bombus_, _Imbrius_, and _Testae_.

First, a confused din, made either by the hands or mouth. The second and
third, by beating on a sort of sounding vessel placed in the theatres
for that purpose. Persons were instructed to give applause with
skill--and there were even masters who professed to teach the art. The
proficients in this way let themselves out for hire to the poets,
actors, &c., and were so disposed as to support a loud applause. These
they called _Laudicena_. At the end of the play, a loud peal of applause
was expected, and even asked of the audience either by the chorus or by
the person who spoke last. The formula was "_Spectatore Claudite_," or
"_Valete et Plaudite_." The applauders were divided into _Chori_, and
disposed in theatres opposite to each other, like the choristers in
cathedrals, so that there was a kind of concert of applause. The free
admission tickets were small ivory death's heads, and specimens of these
are to be seen in the Museum of Naples. From this custom, it is stated,
that we derive our word "Deadhead," as denoting one who has a free
entrance to places of amusement.

With the dawn of the Roman Empire, Pantomime, in Italy, is first
authentically mentioned. The Emperor Augustus always displayed great
favour to the Art, and even by some writers he has been credited with
being the originator of Pantomime. This, of course, as we have seen, is
impossible, and to use a familiar and trite saying, the Pantomimic Art
is "as old as the hills" themselves. Again, Bathyllus and Pylades (both
freed slaves, the former born in Cilicia, and the latter came from
Alexandria), and Hylas, the principal exponents of Pantomime during the
reign of Augustus, have also been credited with the honour of
originating Pantomime.

The early Roman entertainments only consisted of the military and sacred
dances, and the scenes in the circus. With the advent of the arts of
Greece the austerity hitherto practised by the Romans, which had arisen,
says Duray, "Much more from poverty than conviction," for "Two or three
generations had sufficed to change a city which had only known meagre
festivities and rustic delights into the home of revelry and pleasure."

With the Romans, in their Pantomimic entertainments, the whole gamut of
the emotions were gone through.

When the Greek drama was brought into Rome by Livius Andronicus, the
_Fabulae Atellanae_, or _Laudi Osci_--derived from the town of Atella,
in Campania, between Capua and Naples--was still employed to furnish the
Interludes, and just in a similar way as the _Satyra_ Extemporal
Interludes supplied the Grecian stage. None of these Atellan Farces
have been committed to us, but Cicero, in a letter to his friend
Papyrius Paetus, speaks of them as the "More delicate burlesque of the
old Atellan Farces." From them also, we derive the Extemporal Comedy, or
_Comedia del' Arte_ of Italy (afterwards to be noted), with its
characters, Harlequin, Clown, Pierrot, and the like, associated with
English and Italian Pantomime, and the progenitor also of all those
light forms of entertainment known as the Masque, the Opera, and the
Vaudeville. On English dramatic literature the Italian Extemporal
Comedies and their Pantomimical characters have also had a considerable
amount of influence.

Livy mentions that actors were sent for (_circa_ 364 B.C.) from Etruria,
who, without verses or any action expressive of verses, danced not
ungracefully, after the Tuscan manner to the flute. In process of time
the Roman youth began to imitate these dancers intermixing raillery with
unpolished verses, their gestures corresponding with the sense of the
words. Thus were these plays received at Rome, and being improved and
refined by frequent performance the Roman actors acquired the name of
_Histriones_, from the Etruscan _Hister_, meaning a dancer or a stage
player. (From this we obtain our words histrion and histrionic). But
their dialogue did not consist of unpremeditated and coarse jests in
such rude verses as were used by the _Fescennini_, but of satires,
accompanied with music set to the flute, recited with suitable gestures.
After satires, which had afforded the people subject of coarse mirth
and laughter, were, by this regulation, reduced to form and acting, by
degrees became an art, the Roman youth left it to players by profession,
and began, as formerly, to act farces at the end of their regular
pieces. These dramas were called _Exodia_, and were generally woven with
the _Atellanae_ Comedies. These were borrowed from the Osci, and were
always acted by the Roman youth. Tacitus speaks of _Atellanae_ Comedies
written in the spirit and language of the Osci having been acted in his
time.

It is thought that the Etruscans possessed histories, poems, and dramas,
and, if these, then certainly they knew the Pantomimic Art, out of
which, in all probability, their dramatic entertainments grew. To the
Etruscans the Romans owe their early civilization.

The Etruscan era is supposed to have commenced about 1044 B.C., and we
are told that the Etruscans shared with the Greeks, and the Phoenicians,
the maritime supremacy of the Mediterranean. In the sepulchral chambers
of the Necropolis of Tarquinii, which extends for many miles, there are
several scenes painted in the archaic style by the Etruscans,
representing the Chase, the Circus, and Dancing Girls.

Soon after its innovation among the Romans, Pantomime spread all over
Italy and the provinces. So attractive did it become in Rome, and so
popular, that Tiberius issued a decree forbidding the knights and nobles
to frequent their houses of entertainment, or to be seen walking in the
streets with them. Trajan also oppressed and banished the Pantomimists.
Under Caligula, however, they were received with great favour, and
Aurelius made them priests of Apollo. Nero, who carried everything to
the extremity of foolishness, was not content in patronising the
Pantomimes, but must needs assist, and appear himself, as a _Mimi_. Here
again, in Nero, another claimant as the author of Pantomime has been put
forward.

"So great (observes Gaston Vuillier, in his 'History of Dancing,') was
the admiration for Pylades and Bathyllus that the theatrical supporters
clothed themselves in different liveries, and broils in the public
streets were of frequent occurrence." "The rivalries of Pylades and
Bathyllus," says De Laulnaye, "occupied the Romans as much as the
gravest affairs of state. Every citizen was a Bathyllian or a Pyladian."
Augustus reproved Pylades on one occasion for his quarrels with
Bathyllus. The Mime retorted, "It is well for you that the people are
engrossed by our disputes; their attention is thus diverted from your
actions." A bold retort, but it shows how important these Mimes were.
The banishment of Pylades brought about an insurrection, and the Emperor
had to recall him.

Cassius attributes the disgrace of Pylades to the intrigues of
Bathyllus, Suetonius to his effrontery; for on one occasion, when acting
Hercules, annoyed by the criticism of the spectators, he tore off his
mask, and shouted to them: "Fools, I am acting a madman." They thought
his gestures too extravagant. Another time he shot off arrows amongst
the spectators. Amongst other privileges extended by the Emperor
Augustus to the _Mimis_ was being exempt from magisterial control and
immunity from military serving.

The subjects chosen for the Roman Pantomimes, like those of the Grecian
mysteries, from which they doubtless were borrowed, were of a
Mythological description, and they were of such a nature that the
audience could follow them easily, even if they were not already
previously acquainted with them. Between the Roman Pantomime, and the
Western _ballet d'action_, there is hardly any difference. The Romans
always liked to see their stages well peopled; and to help in the action
of their Pantomimes, a chorus accompanied with music, formed part of the
entertainment. The _Mimis and Mimas_, like the ballet of the present
day, provided the dances in addition to their Pantomimic Art of posing
and posturing.

Mr. Isaac Disraeli, in his work, "Curiosities of Literature," edited by
the late Earl of Beaconsfield, thus distinguishes between the _Mimi_ and
the _Pantomimi_ of the Ancients. The _Mimi_ were an impudent race of
buffoons who excelled in mimicry, and like our domestic fools, were
admitted into convivial parties to entertain the guests. Their powers
enabled them to perform a more extraordinary office; for they appear to
have been introduced into funerals to mimic the person, and even the
language of the deceased. Suetonius describes an _archimimus_
accompanying the funeral of Vespasian. This _archimimus_ performed his
part admirably, not only representing the person, but imitating,
according to custom, _ut est mos_, the manners and language of the
living Emperor. He contrived a happy stroke at the prevailing foible of
Vespasian, when he enquired the cost of all this funeral pomp--"Ten
million of sesterces!" On this he observed that if they would give him
but a hundred thousand they might throw his body into the Tiber.

The _Pantomimi_ were quite of a different class. They were tragic
actors, and usually mute; they combined the arts of gesture, music, and
dances of the most impressive character. Their silent language has often
drawn tears by the pathetic emotions they excited; "Their very nod
speaks, their hands talk, and their fingers have a voice," says one of
their admirers.

These Pantomimists seem to have been held in great honour. The tragic
and the comic masks were among the ornaments of the sepulchral monuments
of an _Archmime_ and a _Pantomimi_. Montfaucon conjectures that they
formed a select fraternity.

The parti-coloured hero (Harlequin), with every part of his dress, has
been drawn out of the greatest wardrobe of antiquity; he was a Roman
Mime. Harlequin is described with his shaven head (_rasis capitibus_);
his sooty face (_fuligine faciem abducti_); his flat unshod feet,
(_planipedes_), and his patched coat of many colours, (_Mimi
centunculo_). Even _Pulcinello_, whom we familiarly call "Punch," may
receive, like other personages of no great importance, all his dignity
from antiquity; one of his Roman ancestors having appeared to an
antiquary's visionary eye in a bronze statue; more than one erudite
dissertation authenticates the family likeness; the nose long, prominent
and hooked; the staring goggle eyes; the hump at his back, and at his
breast; in a word, all the character which so strongly marks the Punch
race, as distinctly as whole dynasties have been featured by the
Austrian lip and the Bourbon nose.

The genealogy of the whole family is confirmed by the general term which
includes them all: in English, Zany; in Italian, _Zanni_; in the Latin,
_Sannio_; and a passage in "Cicero _De Oratore_," paints Harlequin and
his brother gesticulators after the life; the perpetual trembling motion
of their limbs, their ludicrous and flexible gestures, and all the
mimicry of their faces: "_Quid enim potest tam ridiculum quam Sannio
esse? Qui ore vultu, imitandis motibus, voce, denique corpore ridetur
ipso._" Lib II., Sect. 51. ("For what has more of the ludicrous than
Sannio? Who, with his mouth, his face, imitating every motion with his
voice, and, indeed, with all his body, provokes laughter.")

The Latin Sannio was changed by the Italians into (as Ainsworth
explains) Zanni, as, in words like Smyrna and Sambuco, they change the
s into z, which gives Zmyrna and Zambuco, and hence we derive our word
Zany. The word is, however, originally obtained from the Greek _Sannos_
(observes Quadrio), from whence the Latins derived their _Sannio_.

From the size of the ancient theatres it was not possible to notice the
visage of the actors, and this was one, but not the only reason, why
masks were adopted. The Ancients did not like a character to be
attempted, to which a proper appropriation was not annexed, and these
masks were so contrived, that the profile on one side exhibited chagrin,
and on the other serenity, or whatever other passion was most required.
The actor thus, according to the part he was playing, presented the side
of the mask best suited to the passage which he was reciting. The large
mouths of these masks were presumed to have contained some bronze
instrument suited to assist the voice, upon the principle of the
speaking trumpet; for the mask was wider, and the recitation in tragedy
much louder than in comedy, so that the voice might be heard all over
the theatre. The masks of the dancers were of regular features.

By some it has been contended that these masks covered both the head and
the shoulders under the supposed idea that when the head was thus
enlarged it would throw the whole body into symmetry when raised upon
stilts. It has, also, been argued that the masks for some of the
characters were made of gold-beaters skin, or some transparent substance
just covering the face so that the facial muscles could be seen through
it, and the eyes, mouth, and ears being left uncovered. These masks,
however, delineated very carefully the features of the character that
were to be represented. Something not unlike the huge Pantomime masks of
a hideous and frightful shape that we sometimes see in our present day
Pantomimes must have appeared, especially those that covered the head
and shoulders of the _Mimis_ in the days of the Romans. Those that were
just of the size of the face in all probability were fantastic and
picturesque; and the third and remaining species of mask made of a
transparent substance could hardly have been very effective.

Mr. Wright tells us, in his book on the Chester Mystery plays (which
work I shall again refer to later on), that masks were used in the
Mystery series of plays acted in England during the thirteenth and
fourteenth centuries.

Julius Pollux is still more ample in his account of theatrical masks
used in Tragedy, Satyr, and Comedy. Niobe weeping, Medea furious, Ajax
astonished, and Hercules enraged. In Comedy, the slave, the parasite,
the clown, the captain, the old woman, the harlot, the austere old man,
the debauched young man, the prodigal, the prudent young woman, the
matron, and the father of a family, were all constantly characterised by
particular masks.

Lucian and the other writers of the Augustan era, have handed down to us
sufficient information to show how Pantomime in Rome was so highly
thought of. Cassiodorous, speaking of them, says:--"Men whose eloquent
hands had a tongue, as it were, on the tip of each finger--men who spoke
while they were silent, and knew how to make a recital without opening
their mouths--men, in short, whom Polyhymnia had formed in order to show
that there was no necessity for articulation in order to convey our
thoughts." Demetrius, a cynic philosopher, laughed at the Romans for
permitting so strange an entertainment; but having been, with much
difficulty, prevailed upon to be present at the representation of one of
them, he was confounded with wonder. The story represented was that of
Mars and Venus, the whole performed by a single actor, who described the
fable in _dumb show_. At length the philosopher, wrought up to the
highest pitch of admiration, exclaimed, "That the actor _had no occasion
for a tongue, he spoke so well with his hands_."

Of one Pontus, who had come on a visit to Nero, we are told that he was
present at a performance, in the course of which a favourite Mime gave a
representation of the Labours of Hercules. The Mime's gestures were so
precise that he could follow the action without the slightest
hesitation. Being struck by the performance, on taking leave he begged
Nero to give him the actor, explaining that there was a barbarous tribe
adjoining his dominions, whose language no one could learn, and that
Pantomime could express his intentions to them so faithfully by gestures
that they would at once understand.

The dress of the performers of Pantomime was made to reveal, and not to
conceal, their figures. After the second century women began to act in
their representations, and even down to the sixth century we find them
associating themselves with Pantomime, and mention is made of a
celebrated _Mima_, who was ultimately raised to the imperial throne.
Through the lewdness of the _Mimis_ and _mimas_ in Pantomime, their
dress, or rather lack of dress, Pantomimes were denounced, not only by
the early Christian writers, but also by some of the Pagan writers, like
Juvenal, as being very prejudicial to morality.

It has, however, always been a favourite topic of the Prynne's, the
Jeremy Collier's and the Dr. Style's, and such like opponents of the
theatre, to contrast the English stage with the purity of the Grecian
and Roman Theatres. Now, without stopping to enquire whether this has
any particular connection with the subject of their dissertations, or
whether it is not in fact quite irrelevant to the question, it is
impossible not to remark the crass ignorance which these assertions
display of the manners and customs of the theatres of either the Greeks
or the Romans. Without wearying the reader by entering into a long
discussion upon the subject, it will be sufficient to recall certain
passages in Aristophanes, Xenophon, Plautus, and Terence to induce them
to hesitate in assenting to such vague assertions of the purity of
either the Grecian or Roman dramatic writers. William Prynne, the
English Puritan writer, in his violent attack on the stage in the
"_Histrio-Mastix_" or "Players Scourge"--which book, by the way, for
some unfavourable comments therein on the Queen of Charles I., and the
ladies of her Court, for attending theatrical representations, was
debarred his rooms (he was a barrister), by the Court of Star Chamber,
sentenced to be imprisoned for life, fined £5,000, committed to the
Tower, placed in the pillory, both ears cut off, and his book burnt by
the common hangman; yet after undergoing all these pains and penalties,
he published a _recantation of all that he had previously written in his
"Histrio-Mastix_"--says "It seems that the Grecian actors did now and
then to refresh the spectators, bring a kind of cisterne on the stage,
wherein naked women did swim and bathe themselves between the acts and
scenes; which wicked, impudent, and execrable practice the holy father
Chrysostom doth sharpely and excellently declaime against."

Xenophon mentions the tale of "Bacchus and Ariadne," Pantomimically
played, and Martial tells us he saw the whole story of "Pasiphae,"
minutely represented on the stage of the _Mimis_, and Plautus, in his
epilogue to "Casina," has--

    "Nunc vos aequim est, manibus meritis,
    Meritam mercedem dare.
    Qui faxit, clam uxorem, ducat scortum
    Semper quod volet.
    Verum qui non manibus clare, quantum
    Potent, plauserit,
    Ei, pro scorto, supponetur hircus unctus nantea."

On the Roman stage female parts were represented in tragedy by men, is
ascertained (says Malone) by one of Cicero's letters to Atticus, and by
a passage in Horace. Horace mentions, however, a female performer called
Arbuscula, but as we find from his own authority men personated women on
the Roman stage, she was probably an _Emboliariae_. Servius calls her a
_Mima_, or one who danced in the Pantomimic dances, and which seems more
probable, as she is mentioned by Cicero, who says the part of Andromache
was played by a male performer on the very day Arbuscula also performed.

The principal Roman _Mimas_ were:--Arbuscula, Thymele, Licilia,
Dionysia, Cytheris, Valeria, and Cloppia.

In the satirical interludes of the Grecian stage, and the _Fabulae
Atellanae_ of the Roman theatres, the _Exodiarii_ and _Emboliariae_ of
the Mimes, were the remote progenitors (says Malone) of the Vice or
Devil, and the Clown of our English Mystery plays, the latter series of
plays being the origin of the drama of this country. The exact
conformity between our Clown and the _Exodiarii_ and _Emboliariae_ of
the Roman stage is ascertained by that passage in Pliny--"_Lucceia Mima
centum annis in scena pronuntiavit. Galeria, Copiola, Emboliariae,
reducta est in scenam: annum certissimum quartum agens_," is thus
translated by an English author, Philemon Holland, "Lucceia, a common
Vice in a play, followed the stage, and acted thereupon 100 yeeres. Such
another Vice that _plaied the foole, and made sporte between whiles in
interludes_, named Galeria Copiola, was brought to act upon the stage
when she was in the 104th yeere of her age." We shall, in another
chapter, return to the Vice, or Clown.




CHAPTER VII.

Introduction of the Roman Pantomimic Art into Britain--First English
reference to the word Pantomime--The fall of the Roman Empire--The
sacred play--Cornish Amphitheatres--Pantomimical and Lyrical elements in
the sacrifice of the Mass--Christian banishment of the
_Mimis_--Penalties imposed by the Church--St. Anthony on Harlequin and
Punch--Vandenhoff--what we owe to the _Mimis_.


With the advent of Julius Caesar and the conquest of Britain by the
Romans, about the year 52 B.C., we have, in all probability, the first
introduction of the Roman Pantomimic Art into this country. Inasmuch as
we have it upon the authority of history that Caesar travelled with his
Mimes, and it is, therefore, not improbable that they came into Britain
with him. England, then, during the occupancy of the Romans, must have
known the Dramatic Art, or else (as Dibdin observes) Pacuvius, Accius,
and Livius Andronicus were ignorant of it. Martial tells us that it did,
and so does Boadicea, so that we have not only Roman authorities for it,
but also British.

The word "Pantomime" could not, I may say here, have been Anglicised
earlier than sometime during the seventeenth century. Dr. Johnson's
earliest example is from "Hudibras"--

    "Not that I think those _Pantomimes_,
    Who vary action with the times,
    Are less ingenious in their art
    Than those who duly act one part."

Bacon and Ben Jonson use the Latin _Pantomimi_--"Here be certain
_Pantomimi_ that will represent the voices of players." Again in the
"Masque of Love's Triumph," etc., 1630, "After the manner of the old
_Pantomimi_ they dance over a distracted Comedy of Love."

The fall of the Roman Empire and the progress of Christianity in Europe
sounded the death knell of Paganism and its attributes, of which
Pantomime was deemed to be one, owing to the bad odour in which this
form of entertainment had got to during the last days of the Empire.
Notwithstanding this the church was only too glad to avail itself of
Pantomime as a vehicle to portray before the world at large, and in
order to turn attention to the great moral truths to be deduced from the
death of Him on Calvary Hill. These exhibitions of religious subjects,
in the form of _tableaux vivants_, took place in the churches, and,
having regard to the sacred edifices in which they were given, they
were, especially in the beginning, I conjecture, performed in dumb show,
without any dialogue. Afterwards dialogue was introduced, and they began
to be, not only held in the churches, but also in the church-yards, the
streets, and in booths.

It is true the sacred play was not a new institution, as one is said to
be mentioned about the time of the Fall of Jerusalem. In Cornwall, plays
were given in the ancient times in the open air, after the fashion of
the Roman Amphitheatre, with the dialogue in the Cymric tongue.
Pantomimical performances might also have been given in those open-air
theatres by the Romans.

Perhaps no better example of the early Sacred Drama I can give, and
which is still with us, and performed daily, is the sacrifice of the
Mass in all Roman Catholic Churches throughout the length and breadth of
the world. In the Mass we have a dramatic action _pantomimically_
presented, in part aided by lyrical and epical elements. I will not,
however, pursue this portion of my subject further, save than to add
that at the Catholic Churches' festivals, especially during Holy Week or
Passion Week, what I have mentioned of the Mass becomes at these times
marked in even a greater degree.

With the decline and fall of the Roman Empire, the _Mimis_ became
wanderers on the face of the earth, only appearing at festivals and the
like, when they were wanted, and returning to their haunts as
mysteriously as they came.

In the fourth century A.D. they were excluded from the benefit of the
rites of the Church, and even those who visited their entertainments,
instead of churches, on the Sundays and holidays, were excommunicated.
The Theodosian creed provided that the actors were not to have the
sacraments administered to them save when death was imminent, and then
only that, in case of recovery, their calling should be renounced.

In the second century one of the Fathers of the Church wrote a special
treatise against plays (_Tertulian De Spectaculis_), in which he asks
those who will not renounce them "Whether the God of truth, who hates
all falsehood, can be willing to receive into His kingdom those whose
features and hair, whose age and sex, whose sighs and laughter, love and
anger, are all feigned. He promises them a tragedy of their own when, in
the day of Judgment, they shall be consigned to everlasting suffering."

However, the church was not always against the stage, even in those
early times, as St. Thomas Aquinas says that "The office of the player
as being serviceable for the enlivenment of men, and as not being
blameworthy if the player leads an upright life." Both Saints Thomas
Aquinas and Anthony supported the stage, the latter only stipulating
that the character of Harlequin should not be represented by a
clergyman, nor that Punch should be exhibited in church.

It is one of the most remarkable things that, despite the bitterness,
hostility, and deadly enmity that has been levelled at the stage, and
its players termed "Rogues and Vagabonds" from time immemorial, how it
has lived through it all. In connection with this how the lines of that
great actor, Vandenhoff, occurs to me, a few of which, with the reader's
permission, I subjoin.

    "The drama's now a great established fact,
    That can't be blink'd, ignored how'er attack'd
    By vain abuse or angry prejudice;
    The time's gone by when _playing was a vice_;
    When bigots mark'd the actor with a ban,
    (Tho' saintly crowds to hear his accents ran),
    Denied him sacred rite and hallowed grave--
    Filching from God the soul he made to save--
    And, for the pleasure which his life had giv'n
    On earth, refused him dead, a place in heav'n.
    No! wiser days bring gentler feelings in,
    And 'Nature's touches makes the whole world kin'."

By degrees the _Mimis_, or mummers, with their fellows, spread
themselves all over Europe. The humbler of the craft, in fact it might
be said of them all, as Othello's occupation had (for them) long since
been gone, strolled from castle to castle, from village to town, and
earning their livelihood as best they could. To these wandering
Bohemians we owe such traditions of the drama that survived with them
into succeeding ages; and to them also we are indebted for keeping alive
by inculcating unto others the Art of _Pantomimus_, when in the heyday
of its popularity in the Roman Empire.




CHAPTER VIII.

Pantomime in the English Mystery or Miracle Plays and Pageants--A
retrospect of the Early Drama--Mysteries on Biblical events--Chester,
Coventry, York, and Towneley Mystery Plays--Plays in Churches--Traces of
the Mystery Play in England in the Nineteenth Century--Mystery Plays on
the Continent--The Chester series of Plays--The Devil or Clown and the
_Exodiarii_ and _Emboliariae_ of the Ancient Mimes.


It is presumed that, not only were the early sacred plays acted in
dumb-show, but that the Miracle or Mysteries of Religion series of
plays--which grew out of the sacred play--also the Pageants in the
beginning, and for long afterwards were acted in this wise. Percy, in
his "Reliques of Ancient English Poetry," also takes this view. He
says:--"They were (the Mysteries) probably a kind of _dumb show_,
intermingled, it may be, with a few short speeches, at length they grew
into regular scenes of connected dialogues, formally divided into acts
and scenes." Colley Cibber has: "It has been conjectured that the actors
of the Mysteries of Religion were _mummers_, a word signifying one who
makes and disguises himself to play the fool _without speaking_. They
were dressed in an antic manner, _dancing, mimicking_, and _showing
postures_." Mr. Wright also observes (in his work on the Mystery Plays
of Chester, published by the Shakespearean Society) that the "_chief
effect seems to have been caused by the dumb show_."

Before dealing with the Mysteries, and as perhaps a kind of retrospect,
let us have a look what Wharton has to say of the early drama. "Trade,"
he says (in the early centuries) "was carried on by means of fairs, which
lasted several days. Charlemagne established many great marts of this
sort in France, as did William the Conqueror and his Norman successors
in England. The merchants, who frequented these fairs in numerous
caravans and companies, employed every art to draw the people together.
They were, therefore, accompanied by jugglers, minstrels, and buffoons
(_i.e._, Pantomimists), who were no less interested in giving their
attendance and exercising their skill on these occasions. Few large
towns existed, no public spectacles or popular amusements were
established; and as the sedentary pleasures of domestic life and private
society were yet unknown, the fair time was the season for diversion. In
proportion as the shows were attended and encouraged, they began to be
set off with new decorations and improvements; and the arts of
buffoonery being rendered still more attractive by extending their
circle of exhibition, acquired an importance in the eyes of the people.
By degrees the Clergy, observing that the entertainments of dancing,
music, and mimicry exhibited at these annual celebrations made the
people less religious by promoting idleness and a love of festivity,
proscribed these sports and excommunicated the performers."

Mystery plays were afterwards divided into three classes, though the
generic term Mysteries, meaning all three, is generally used. In the
Mysteries, Biblical events were principally used; Miracle plays were
obtained from the legends of the saints; and the last, Moralities,
allegorical stories of a moral character not essentially taken from the
Bible, or from the legends of the saints, comprised the third heading.
The Mysteries were for several centuries known on the Continent before
they were performed in England. The earliest Mystery play known to have
been acted in England was at Dunstable about the year 1110. It was
probably in Latin, and composed by a Norman monk.

It is a peculiarity of the English Mystery plays that they were combined
into a series of plays on the Old and New Testament; and in which the
whole course of Divine Providence, from the Creation to the Day of
Judgment, is set before the spectator. Four noted groups of plays were
the Chester, the Towneley, Coventry, and York Mystery plays. The Chester
plays began on Whit Monday, and, continued till the following Wednesday.
Permission to perform them, in the beginning of their institution, had
twice to be asked of the Pope. They consisted of 24 plays, and were
almost annually performed till 1577. Before the suppression of the
monasteries the Grey Friars at Coventry were celebrated for their
exhibitions of the Mystery plays usually on _Corpus Christi_. The
Towneley, or Woodkirk group of plays were acted at Woodkirk, about four
miles from Wakefield, and they are of a style that may be likened to the
times of Henry VI., or Edward IV. Until the Mystery play fell into
disuse, the trading companies and guilds seem principally to have
maintained them. The mixture of secular with ecclesiastical players
helped to change the characters of the English plays and to provoke
censure, which began to be levelled at them from the beginning of the
thirteenth century.

The practise of performing plays in sacred edifices in England, had not
ceased in 1542, when Bishop Bonner prohibited them in his diocese.
However, so late as 1572, it appears that Interludes were occasionally
performed in Churches.

Collier speaks of a kind of Mystery, or Miracle play, exhibited in the
last century, with the characters of Herod, Beelzebub, and others. In
1838 Sandy mentions of having seen the play of "St. George and the
Dragon," presented in the Northern and Western parts of the Kingdom, or
rather Queendom, as Victoria had just ascended the throne. I myself
remember quite well, within a couple of decades ago, what was probably
at the time a remnant of the old Mystery play presented in a rural part
of Lancashire by men in a fantastic garb, and termed by the country
folk, "Paste-eggers." They generally appeared about Good Friday and on
to Easter; and their performance consisted of a mixture of music (?),
songs, and sometimes not over choice language. This custom does not now
exist where I write of, but it may do--though I very much doubt--in some
rural parts. On the Continent, as at Oberammergau, Mystery plays are
still enacted.

The following account of the Chester Mysteries may be of interest, and
appears (says Warton) in the Harleian Catalogue. M.S. Harl. 2013, etc.
Exhibited at Chester in the year 1327 at the expense of the different
trading companies of that city. "The Fall of Lucifer," by the tanners;
"The Creation," by the drapers; "The Deluge," by the dyers; "Abraham,
Melchizedeck and Lot," by the barbers; "Moses, Balak and Balaam," by the
cappers; "The Salutation and the Nativity," by the wrights (carpenters);
"The Shepherds feeding the Flocks by Night," by the painters and
glaziers; "The Three Kings," by the vintners; "The oblation of the Three
Kings," by the mercers; "The Killing of the Holy Innocents," by the
goldsmiths; "The Purification," by the blacksmiths; "The Temptations,"
by the butchers; "The Blindmen and Lazarus," by the glovers; "Jesus and
the Lepers," by the cowesarys; "Christ's Passion," by the bowyers,
fletchers and ironmongers; "Descent into Hell," by the cooks and
inn-keepers; "Resurrection," by the skinners; "Ascension," by the
taylors; "The Election of St. Matthias," "Sending of the Holy Ghost,"
etc., by the fishmongers; "Anti-christ," by the clothiers; and "The Day
of Judgment," by the websters (weavers). The reader will perhaps smile
at some of these combinations. This is the substance and order of the
former part of the play. God enters, creating the world, he breathes
life into Adam, leads him into Paradise, and opens his side while
sleeping. Adam and Eve appear _naked_, and _not ashamed_; and the old
Serpent enters, lamenting his fall. He converses with Eve. She eats part
of the forbidden fruit, and gives part to Adam. They propose, according
to the stage directions, to make themselves, _subligacula a folis
quibus tegamus pudenda_, cover their nakedness with leaves and converse
with God. God's curse. The Serpent exits, hissing. They are driven from
Paradise by four angels, and the Cherubim with a flaming sword. Adam
appears digging the ground, and Eve spinning. Their children, Cain and
Abel, enter, the former kills his brother. Adam's lamentation. Cain is
banished, etc., etc.

Adam and Eve, in the "altogether," so to speak, were acted like this as
late as the sixteenth century. In a play called "The Travails of the
Three English Brothers," acted in 1607, there occurs this:--

"Many idle toyes, but the old play _that Adam and Eve acted in bare
action under the figge tree draws most of the gentlemen_."

An Account of the Proclamation of the Mystery plays, acted in "Ye Citye
on ye Dee," may prove of interest, and the copy of which I subjoin is
taken from the Harleian M.S. No. 2013.

"The proclamation for Whitsone playes made by Wm. Newell, Clarke of the
Pendice, 24 Hen. 8. Wm. Snead 2nd yere Maior."

"For as much as auld tyme, not only for the augmentation and increese of
the holy and catholick faith of our Saviour Jesu Christ, and to exort
the mindes of comon people to good devotion and holsome doctrine
thereof, but also for the comonwelth and prosperity of this citty, a
play and declaration of divers storyes of Bible beginning with the
Creation and fall of Lucifer, and ending with the generall Judgment of
the world, to be declared and played in Whitsonne weeke, was devised and
made by one Sir Henry Frances, sometyme moonck of this monastrey
disolved, who obtayning and gat of Clemant, then Bushop of Rome, a 1000
dayes of pardon, and of the Bushop of Chester at that tyme 40 dayes of
pardon, graunted from thensforth to every person resorting, in peaceable
manner with good devotion, to heare and see the sayd playes, from time
to time as oft as they shall be played within the said citty (and that
every person or persons disturbing the sayd playes in the maner wise to
be acused by the authority of the sayd pope Clemant's bulls, untill such
tyme as he or they be absolved thereof) which playes were devised to the
honor of God by John Arnway, then maior of this citty of Chester, his
brethren and whole cominalty thereof, to be brought forth, declared, and
played, at the cost and charges of the craftesman and occupations of the
sayd citty, which hitherto have from tyme to tyme used and performed the
same accordingly.

"Wherefore Mr. maior, in the King's name, stratly chargeth and
commandeth that every person and persons of what estate, degree, or
condition so ever he or they be resorting to the sayd playes, do use
themselves peaciblie, without making any assault, affray, or other
disturbance, whereby the same playes shall be disturbed, and that no
manner of person or persons, whiche so ever he or they be, do use or
wear any unlawfull weapons within the precinct of the sayd citty during
the tyme of the sayd playes (not only upon payn of cursing by authority
of the sayd Pope Clemant's bulls but also) upon payn of imprisonment of
their bodyes, and making fine to the King at Mr. maior's pleasure."

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 o

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