which disturb the gravity of some, who are apt, however, to be more entertained by them than they choose to acknowledge. Don Quixote thus dismisses a troop of merry strollers, "Andad con dios buena gente, y hazad vuestra fiesta, porque desde muchacho fui aficionado a la Carátula, y en mi mocedad se ne ivan los ojos tras la Farándula.” In a literal version the passage may run thus:-"Go, good people, God be with you, and keep your merry-making! for from childhood I was in love with the Carátula, and in my youth my eyes would lose themselves amidst the Farándula.” According to Pineda La Carátula is an actor masked, and La Farándula is a kind of farce *.

* Motteux, whose translation Lord Woodhouselee distinguishes as the most curious, turns the passage 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.

Even the studious Bayle, wrapping himself in his cloak, and hurrying to the market-place to Punchinello, would laugh when the fellow had humour in him, as was usually the case; and I believe the pleasure some still find in pantomimes, to the annoyance of their gravity, is a very natural one, and only wants a little more understanding in the actors and the spectators.

The truth is, that here our Harlequin and all his lifeless family are condemned to perpetual silence. They came to us from the genial hilarity of the Italian theatre, and were all the grotesque children of wit, and whim, and satire. Why is this burlesque race here privileged to cost so much, to do so little, and to repeat that little so often? Our own pantomime may, indeed, boast of two inventions of its own growth: we have turned Harlequin into a magician, and this produces the surprise of sudden changes of scenery, whose splendour and curious correctness have rarely been equalled; while in the metamorphosis of the scene, a certain sort of wit to the eye, "mechanic wit," as it has been termed, has originated; as when a surgeon's shop is turned into a laundry, with the inscription "Mangling done here;" or counsellors at the bar changed into fish-women.

Every one 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 Rans 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 Arlequino, 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 revolutions 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 enno

bled. 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 extem

VOL. IV.

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