She came forward upon the footpath, and
looked after the fast receding figure of her husband,
as he bent deferentially towards the woman
she had seen that morning, until she could see
it no longer; and still stood there when the
level shaded road was blank and empty.

HARLEQUIN'S EARLY DAYS.

THE progress of December directs the thoughts
of many of us towards the pantomimes, and
these are naturally associated with harlequin.
We all know that that motley personage came
in the first instance from Italy, though he
underwent strange modifications before he
assumed the peculiar shape in which he now,
every Christmas, presents himself to the patrons
of the English theatres. We have all some
general notion about a certain kind of Italian
drama, in which the actors, of which he was
one of the principal, played extempore. But I
think I can fill up this mere outline of knowledge
with something that is less generally familiar,
and that at this season will not be altogether
unacceptable. At all events, I will make
the attempt.

Though the Masked Comedy and the Commedia
dell' Arte had much in common, and are
both equally distinct from the Commedia Erudita,
or "learned comedy" of Italy, they are
not to be confounded with each other, as is too
commonly the case. The dialogue of the commedia
dell' arte was spoken extempore, though
in accordance with a given plot, and the gaps
that occurred in the progress of the piece
were filled up by certain gesticular pleasantries,
devised by arlechino, or harlequin, and called
"lazzi." The word "lazzo," though in dictionaries
it will be found with "jest" as its equivalent,
seems to have been a form of "laccio,"
which denotes a "snare," and primarily a "tie."
It was by means of the " lazzo" that harlequin
tied the disjointed scenes together. The
dictionary meaning probably followed the theatrical
usage, as frequently happens in other countries.
I may here take the opportunity of warning
the reader against the very strong temptation
he will feel to translate "commedia dell'
arte" into "Comedy of Art." The rending looks
so very easy and natural, it agrees so nicely with
one's lexicon, it has respectable authority on its
side, and it harmonises so beautifully with our
modern fashion of calling things "artistic," that
one cannot reject it without a sigh. The primitive
Italian comedy was so artistic, that its
compatriots, with one accord, determined to call
it the "artistic comedy," the "comedy of art,"
as distinguished from all other dramatic works,
past, present, and to come. What a splendid
vision of precocious perfection rises before the
eyes. It is said of the old English harlequin,
Rich, who first opened Covent Garden Theatre,
that his representation of the hatching of the
motley gentleman from an egg by the heat of
the sun, was a masterpiece of dumb show. First
the egg was chipped, then he gradually received
motion, then with becoming timidity he felt the
ground, then he stood upright, and at last,
convinced of his independent powers, he danced in
triumph round the fragments of the shell. What
a sublime thought that the very first harlequin
in the world was equally clever at his birth.
Unfortunately, "arte" denotes "trade" as well
as "art," or, more properly speaking, can be
used in the same sense as our own word, when
we say that a 'prentice learns the art and
mystery of dyeing, &c. The "commedia dell' arte"
was first so called because it was performed by
professional comedians, and not by those
amateurs of the court and the universities who
were so conspicuous at the time of the revival of
learning. Perhaps if we translate the expression
"guild comedy," we shall not go very far
wrong.

It is on record that the inventor of the
commedia dell' arte was Francesco Cherea, a
favourite comedian of that noted patron of art,
Pope Leo the Tenth, but the statement must
be received with very considerable reservation.
Even if we were wholly unacquainted with the
admitted connexion between the Italian masks
and the primitive farces of the ancient Romans,
we might be perfectly sure that a drama
without written dialogue, but carried out in
conformity with some sort of plot, existed long
before history, properly so called, began, and in
countries that have not been deemed dramatic.
The Puritan children of New England,
mentioned by Mr. Hawthorne, who amiably played
at "scourging Quakers," must have gone
dramatically to work, though they had never seen
a stage–play, or, perhaps, heard of one in their
lives. There must have been a Quaker to be
scourged, an executioner to inflict, and a judge
whose sentence gave authority to the proceeding.
Without three parts, in the strict theatrical
sense of the word, nothing could be conformed
to the title of the kindly game, and I do not
think that I indulge in wild hypothesis when I
conjecture that the finest part was that of the
executioner. However we may classify the
drama, by dividing it into species, or into schools,
a play, to be a play at all, must be a story
represented by action. Whether it have written
dialogue, or extempore dialogue, or no dialogue
at all, is a secondary consideration. Probably
in some countries the action in dumb–show
preceded the extempore dialogue, while in others it
was otherwise, and in either case a plot,
however rude or simple, must have been agreed
upon by the performers. But that a fixed
invariable dialogue, written in more erudite
countries, orally taught to illiterate troops,
must have been the result of an after–thought,
seems to me beyond the possibility of a doubt.
The first object of the fixed dialogue must have
been further to limit the sphere of action
already defined by the plot. Possibly the more
lively actors spoke too much, the slower
"coaches" too little, and the least retentive
tried to maintain a dumb show where none was
designed. At all events, we may assume that
the thing regulated preceded the regulation. A