Curiosities of Literature Volume Ii Part 50

[Footnote 26: This use of what most persons would consider waste paper, obtained for the poet the designation of "paper-sparing Pope."]

[Footnote 27: Dr. Johnson, in noticing the MSS. of Milton, preserved at Cambridge, has made, with his usual force of language, the following observation: "Such reliques show how excellence is acquired: what we hope ever to do with ease, we may learn first to do with diligence."]

[Footnote 28: _Silent_ in the MS. (observes a critical friend) is greatly superior to _secret_, as it appears in the printed work.]

[Footnote 29: The great feature of the modern stage within the last twenty years has been the Cla.s.sical Burlesque Drama, which, though originating in the last century in such plays as _Midas_, really reached its culmination under the auspices of Madame Vestris.]

[Footnote 30: Motteux, whose translation Lord Woodhouselee distinguishes as the most curious, turns the pa.s.sage thus: "I wish you well, good people: drive on to act your play, for in my very childhood I loved _shows_, and have been a great admirer of _dramatic representations_."

Part II. c. xi. The other translators have nearly the same words. But in employing the generic term they lose the species, that is, the thing itself; but what is less tolerable, in the flatness of the style, they lose that delightfulness with which Cervantes conveys to us the recollected pleasures then busying the warm brain of his hero. An English reader, who often grows weary over his Quixote, appears not always sensible that one of the secret charms of Cervantes, like all great national authors, lies concealed in his idiom and style.]

[Footnote 31: The author of the descriptive letter-press to George Cruikshank's ill.u.s.trations of _Punch_ says he "saw the late Mr. Wyndham, then one of the Secretaries of State, on his way from Downing-street to the House of Commons, on the night of an important debate, pause like a truant boy until the whole performance was concluded, to enjoy a hearty laugh at the whimsicalities of the 'motley hero.'"]

[Footnote 32: Rich, in his "Companion to the Latin Diction," has an excellent ill.u.s.tration of this pa.s.sage:--"This art was of very great antiquity, and much practised by the Greeks and Romans, both on the stage and in the tribune, induced by their habit of addressing large a.s.semblies in the open air, where it would have been impossible for the majority to comprehend what was said without the a.s.sistance 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 cla.s.ses, 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 p.r.o.nouncing 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 fore-finger of the left hand; an imputation or a.s.severation by holding forth the right hand; a denial by raising the same hand, extending the fingers. In mediaeval works of art, a particular att.i.tude of the fingers is adopted to exhibit malicious hate: it is done by crossing the fore-finger of each hand, and is generally seen in figures of Herod or Judas Iscariot.]

[Footnote 33: Tacitus, Annals, lib. i. sect. 77, in Murphy's translation.]

[Footnote 34: This measure of "restrictive policy," which gave to the patent theatres the sole right of performing the legitimate drama properly, led to the construction of plays for the minor theatres, entirely carried on by action, occasionally aided by inscriptions painted on scrolls, and unrolled and exhibited by the actor when his power of expressing such words failed. This led to the education of a series of pantomimists, who taught action conventionally to represent words. At the close of the last century, there were many such; and the reader who may be curious to see the nature of these dumb dramas, may do so in two volumes named "Circusiana," by J.C. Cross, the author of very many that were performed at the Royal Circus, in St. George's Fields.

The whole action of the drama was performed to music composed expressly to aid the expression of the performers, among the best of whom were Bologna and D'Egville. It is a cla.s.s of dramatic art which has now almost entirely pa.s.sed away; or is seen, but in a minor degree, in the pantomimic action of a grand ballet at the opera.]

[Footnote 35: L'Antiq. Exp. v. 63.]

[Footnote 36: Louis Riccoboni, in his curious little treatise, "Du Theatre Italien," ill.u.s.trated by seventeen prints of the Italian pantomimic characters, has duly collected the authorities. I give them, in the order quoted above, for the satisfaction of more grave inquirers.

Vossius, Inst.i.t. Poet, lib. ii. 32, -- 4. The Mimi blackened their faces.

Diomedes, de Orat. lib. iii. Apuleius, in Apolog. And further, the patched dress was used by the ancient peasants of Italy, as appears by a pa.s.sage in Varro, De Re Rust, lib. i. c. 8; and Juvenal employs the term _centunculus_ as a diminutive of _cento_, for a coat made up of patches.

This was afterwards applied metaphorically to those well-known poems called _centos_, composed of shreds and patches of poetry, collected from all quarters. Goldoni considered Harlequin as a poor devil and dolt, whose coat is made up of rags patched together; his hat shows mendicity; and the hare's tail is still the dress of the peasantry of Bergamo. Quadrio, in his learned _Storia d'ogni Poesia_, has diffused his erudition on the ancient _Mimi_ and their successors. Dr. Clarke has discovered the light lath sword of Harlequin, which had hitherto baffled my most painful researches, amidst the dark mysteries of the ancient mythology! We read with equal astonishment and novelty, that the prototypes of the modern pantomime are in the Pagan mysteries; that _Harlequin_ is _Mercury_, with his short sword called _herpe_, or his rod the _caduceus_, to render himself invisible, and to transport himself from one end of the earth to the other; that the covering on his head was his _petasus_, or winged cap; that _Columbine_ is _Pysche_, or the _Soul_; the _Old Man_ in our pantomimes is _Charon_; the _Clown_ is _Momus_, the buffoon of heaven, whose large gaping mouth is an imitation of the ancient masks. The subject of an ancient vase engraven in the volume represents Harlequin, Columbine, and the Clown, as we see them on the English stage. The dreams of the learned are amusing when we are not put to sleep. Dr. Clarke's Travels, vol. iv. p. 459. The Italian antiquaries never entertained any doubt of this remote origin. It may, however, be reasonably doubted. The chief appendage of the Vice or buffoon of the ancient moralities was a _gilt wooden sword_, and this also belonged to the old Clown or Fool, not only in England but abroad.

"The wooden sword directly connects Harlequin with the ancient Vice and more modern Fool," says the author of the letter-press to Cruikshank's _Punch_, apparently with the justest derivation.]

[Footnote 37: This statue, which is imagined to have thrown so much light on the genealogy of Punch, was discovered in 1727, and is engraved in Ficoroni's amusing work on _Maschere sceniche e le figure coniche d'antichi Romani_, p. 48. It is that of a Mime called _Maccus_ by the Romans; the name indicates a simpleton. But the origin of the more modern name has occasioned a little difference, whether it be derived from the _nose_ or its _squeak_. The learned Quadrio would draw the name _Pullicinello_ from _Pulliceno_, which Spartia.n.u.s uses for _il pullo gallinaceo_ (I suppose this to be the turkey-c.o.c.k) because Punch's hooked nose resembles its _beak_. But Baretti, in that strange book the "Tolondron," gives a derivation admirably descriptive of the peculiar squeaking nasal sound. He says, "_Punchinello_, or Punch, as you well know, speaks with a squeaking voice that seems to come out at his nose, because the fellow who in a puppet-show manages the puppet called Punchinello, or Punch, as the English folks abbreviate it, speaks with a tin whistle in his mouth, which makes him emit that comical kind of voice. But the English word _Punchinello_ is in Italian _Pulcinella_, which means a _hen-chicken_. Chickens' voices are _squeaking_ and _nasal_; and they are _timid_, and _powerless_, and for this reason my whimsical countrymen have given the name of _Pulcinella_, or hen-chicken, to that comic character, to convey the idea of a man that speaks with a squeaking voice through his nose, to express a timid and weak fellow, who is always thrashed by the other actors, and always boasts of victory after they are gone."--_Tolondron_, p. 324. In Italian, _Policinello_ is a little flea, active and biting and skipping; and his mask puce-colour, the nose imitating in shape the flea's proboscis. This grotesque etymology was added by Mrs. Thrale. I cannot decide between "the hen-chicken" of the scholar and "the skipping flea"

of the lady, who, however, was herself a scholar.]

[Footnote 38: How the Latin _Sannio_ became the Italian _Zanni_, was a whirl in the roundabout of etymology, which put Riccoboni very ill at his ease; for he, having discovered this cla.s.sical origin of his favourite character, was alarmed at Menage giving it up with obsequious tameness to a Cruscan correspondent. The learned Quadrio, however, gives his vote for the Greek _Sannos_, from whence the Latins borrowed their _Sannio_. Riccoboni's derivation, therefore, now stands secure from all verbal disturbers of human quiet.

_Sanna_ is in Latin, as Ainsworth elaborately explains, "a mocking by grimaces, mows, a flout, a frump, a gibe, a scoff, a banter;" and _Sannio_ is "a fool in a play." The Italians change the S into Z, for they say Zmyrna and Zambuco, for Smyrna and Sambuco; and thus they turned _Sannio_ into _Zanno_, and then into _Zanni_, and we caught the echo in our _Zany_.]

[Footnote 39: Riccoboni, Histoire du Theatre Italien, p. 53; Gimma, Italia Letterata, p. 196.]

[Footnote 40: There is an earlier and equally whimsical series bearing the following t.i.tle--"Mascarades recuillies et mises en taille douce par Robert Boissart, Valentianois, 1597," consisting of twenty-four plates of Carnival masquers.]

[Footnote 41: Signorelli, Storia Critica de Teatri, tom. iii. 263.]

[Footnote 42: Mem. of Goldoni, i. 281.]

[Footnote 43: Mem. of Goldoni, ii. 284.]

[Footnote 44: I am here but the translator of a grave historian. The Italian writes with all the feeling of one aware of the important narrative, and with a most curious accuracy in this genealogy of character: "_Silvio Fiorillo, che appetter si facea il Capitano Matamoros_, INVENTO _il Pulcinella Napoletano, e collo studio e grazia molto_ AGGIUNSE _Andrea Calcese dello Ciuccio por soprannome_."--Gimma, Italia Letterata, p. 196. There is a very curious engraving by Bosse, representing the Italian comedians about 1633, as they performed the various characters on the Parisian stage. The cracked voice and peculiarities of this "great invention" are declared by Fiorillo and Signorelli to be imitations of the peculiarities of the peasants of Acerra, an ancient city in the neighbourhood of Naples. For a curious dissertation on this popular character, see the volume so admirably ill.u.s.trated by Cruikshank, quoted on a previous page.]

[Footnote 45: John Rich was the patentee of Covent Garden Theatre, and spent large sums over his favourite pantomimes. He was also the fortunate producer of the "Beggar's Opera," which was facetiously said to have made Rich _gay_, and Gay _rich_. He took so little interest in what is termed the "regular drama," that he is reported to have exclaimed, when peeping through the curtain at a full house to witness a tragedy--"What, you are _there_, you fools, are you!" He died wealthy, in 1761; and there is a costly tomb to his memory in Hillingdon churchyard, Middles.e.x.]

[Footnote 46: Some of the ancient _Scenarie_ were printed in 1661, by Flaminius Scala, one of their great actors. These, according to Riccoboni, consist of nothing more than the skeletons of Comedies; the _canevas_, as the French technically term a plot and its scenes. He says, "They are not so short as those we now use to fix at the back of the scenes, nor so full as to furnish any aid to the dialogue: they only explain what the actor did on the stage, and the action which forms the subject, nothing more."]

[Footnote 47: The pa.s.sage in Livy is, "Juventus, histrionibus fabellarum actu relicto, ipsa inter se, more antiquo, ridicula intexta versibus jact.i.tare caepit." Lib. vii. cap. 2.]

[Footnote 48: As these _Atellanae Fabulae_ were never written, they have not descended to us in any shape. It has, indeed, been conjectured that Horace, in the fifth Satire of his first Book, v. 51, has preserved a scene of this nature between two practised buffoons in the "Pugnam Sarmenti Scurrae," who challenges his brother Cicerrus, equally ludicrous and scurrilous. But surely these were rather the low humour of the Mimes, than of the Atellan Farcers.]

[Footnote 49: Melmoth's Letters of Cicero, B. viii. lett. 20; in Graevius's edition, Lib. ix. ep. 16.]

[Footnote 50: This pa.s.sage also shows that our own custom of annexing a Farce, or _pet.i.te piece_, or Pantomime, to a tragic Drama, existed among the Romans: the introduction of the practice in our country seems not to be ascertained; and it is conjectured not to have existed before the Restoration. Shakspeare and his contemporaries probably were spectators of only a single drama.]

[Footnote 51: Storia Critica del Teatri de Signorelli, tom. iii.

258.--Baretti mentions a collection of four thousand dramas, made by Apostolo Zeno, of which the greater part were comedies. He allows that in tragedies his nation is inferior to the English and the French; but "_no nation_," he adds, "_can be compared with us for pleasantry and humour in comedy._" Some of the greatest names in Italian literature were writers of comedy. Ital. Lib. 119.]

[Footnote 52: Altieri explains _Formica_ as a crabbed fellow who acts the b.u.t.t in a farce.]

[Footnote 53: I refer the reader to Steevens's edition, 1793, vol. ii.

p. 495, for a sight of these literary curiosities.]

[Footnote 54: The commencement of the "Platt" of the "Seven Deadly Sinnes," believed to be a production of the famous d.i.c.k Tarleton, will sufficiently enlighten the reader as to the character of the whole. The original is preserved at Dulwich, and is written in two columns, on a pasteboard about fifteen inches high, and nine in breadth. We have modernised the spelling:--

"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. Sincler), to him a servant (T. Belt), to him Lidgate and the keeper. Exit, then enter again--then Envy pa.s.seth over the stage. Lidgate speakes."]

[Footnote 55: Women were first introduced on the Italian stage about 1560--it was therefore an extraordinary novelty in Nash's time.]

[Footnote 56: That this kind of drama was perfectly familiar to the play-goers of the era of Elizabeth, is clear from a pa.s.sage in Meres'

"Palladis Tamica," 1598; who speaks of Tarleton's extemporal power, adding a compliment to "our witty Wilson, who, for learning and extemporal wit, in this faculty is without compare or compeer; as to his great and eternal commendations, he manifested in his challenge at the Swan, on Bank-side." The Swan was one of the theatres so popular in the era of Elizabeth and James I., situated on the Bankside, Southwark.]

[Footnote 57: Dr. Clarke's Travels, vol. iv. p. 56.]

[Footnote 58: In the poem on the entrenchment of New Ross, in Ireland, in 1265 (Harl. MS., No. 913), is a similar account of the minstrelsy which accompanied the workers. The original is in Norman French; the translation we use is that by the late Miss Landon (L.E.L.):--

Monday they began their labours, Gay with banners, flutes, and labours; Soon as the noon hour was come, These good people hastened home, With their banners proudly borne.

Then the youth advanced in turn, And the town, they make it ring, With their merry carolling; Singing loud, and full of mirth, A way they go to shovel earth."

[Footnote 59: Deip. lib. xiv. cap. iii.]

[Footnote 60: The Lords of the Admiralty a few years ago issued a revised edition of these songs, for the use of our navy. They embody so completely the idea "of a true British sailor," that they have developed and upheld the character.]

[Footnote 61: In Durfey's whimsical collection of songs, "Wit and Mirth," 1682, are several trade songs. One on the blacksmiths begins:--

Of all the trades that ever I see, There's none to a blacksmith compared may be, With so many several tools works he; Which n.o.body can deny!"

The London companies also chanted forth their own praises. Thus the Mercers' Company, in 1701, sang in their Lord Mayor's Show, alluding to their arms, "a demi-Virgin, crowned":--

"Advance the Virgin--lead the van-- Of all that are in London free, The mercer is the foremost man That founded a society; Of all the trades that London grace, We are the first in time and place."