The genealogy of the whole family is confirmed. by the general term, which includes them all; for

much light on the genealogy of Punch, was discovered in 1727, and is engraved in Ficoroni's amusing work on Le Maschere sceniche e le figure comiche 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 Spartianus uses for il pullo gallinaceo (I suppose this to be the turkeycock) 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 threshed by the other actors, and

our Zany, in Italian Zanni, comes direct from Sannio, a buffoon; 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*.

always boasts of victory after they are gone." Tolondron, p. 324.

*How the Latin Sannio became the Italian Zanni, was a whirl in the round-about of etymology, which put Riccoboni very ill at his ease ; for he, having discovered this classical 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

These are the two ancient heroes of Pantomime. The other characters are the laughing children of mere modern humour. Each of these chimerical personages, like so many County-Members, come from different provinces in the gesticulating land of Pantomime; in little principalities the rival inhabitants present a contrast in manners and characters which opens a wider field for ridicule and satire, than in a kingdom where an uniformity of government will produce an uniformity of manners. An inventor appeared in Ruzzante, an author and actor who flourished about 1530. Till his time they had servilely copied the duped fathers, the wild sons, and the tricking valets, of Plautus and Terence; and, perhaps, not being writers of sufficient skill, but of some invention, were satisfied to sketch the plots of dramas, but boldly trusted to extempore acting and dialogue. Ruzzante peopled the Italian stage with a fresh enlivening crowd of pantomimic characters; the insipid dotards of the ancient comedy were transformed into the Venetian Pantaloon and the Bolognese Doctor; while the hare-brained fellow, the arch knave, and the 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.

booby, were furnished from Milan, Bergamo, and Calabria. He gave his newly-created beings new language and a new dress. From Plautus he appears to have taken the hint of introducing all the Italian dialects into one comedy, by making each character use his own; and even the modern Greek, which, it seems, afforded many an unexpected play on words for the Italian*. This new kind of pleasure, like the language of Babel, charmed the national ear; every province would have its dialect introduced on the scene, which often served the purpose both of recreation and a little innocent malice. Their masks and dresses were furnished by the grotesque masqueraders of the carnival, which, doubtless, often contributed many scenes and humours to the quick and fanciful genius of Ruzzante. I possess a little book of Scaramouches, &c. by Callot. Their masks and their costume must have been copied from these carnival scenes. We see their stronglyfeatured masks; their attitudes, pliant as those of a posture-master; the drollery of their figures; while the grotesque creatures seem to leap, and dance, and gesticulate, and move about so fan

* Riccoboni Histoire du Theatre Italien, p. 53; Gimma Italia Letterata, 196.

tastically under his sharp graver, that they form as individualized a race as our fairies and witches; mortals, yet like nothing mortal!

The first Italian actors wore masks-objections have been raised against their use. Signorelli shows the inferiority of the modern in deviating. from the moveable or rather double masks of antiquity, by which the actor could vary the artificial face at pleasure. The mask has had its advocates, for some advantages it possesses over the naked face; a mask aggravates the features, and gives a more determined expression to the comic character; an important effect among this fantastical group*.

The HARLEQUIN in the Italian theatre has passed through all the vicissitudes of fortune. At first he was a true representative of the ancient Mime, but afterwards degenerated into a booby and a gourmand, the perpetual butt for a sharp-witted fellow, his companion, called Brighella; the knife and the whetstone. Harlequin, under the reforming hand of Goldoni, became a child of nature, 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 pre

* Signorelli Storia Critica de Teatri, tom. III. 263.