mimic actors may be applied to many of them during their flourishing period :

"Toute sa vie il a fait rire ;

Il a fait pleuré à 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.

What was the nature of that perfection to which the Italian pantomime reached; and that prodigality of genius, which excited such enthusiasm, not only among the populace, but the studious, and the noble, and the men of genius?

The Italian Pantomime had two peculiar features; a species of buffoonery technically termed Lazzi, and one of a more extraordinary nature, the extempore dialogue of its comedy.

These Lazzi were certain pleasantries of gesticula. tion, quite national, yet so closely allied to our notions. of buffoonery, that a northern critic will not readily detect the separating shade; yet Riccoboni asserts that they formed a critical, and not a trivial art. That these arts of gesticulation had something in them peculiar to Italian humour, we infer from Gerardi, who could not explain the term but by describing it as "Un Tour;

JEU ITALIEN!" It was so peculiar to them, that he could only call it by their own name. It is difficult to describe that of which the whole magic consists in being seen; and what is more evanescent than the humour which consists in gestures?

"Lazzi," says Riccoboni, "is a term corrupted from the old Tuscan Lacci, which signifies a knot, or something which connects. 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, then, seems a kind of mimicry and gesture, corresponding with the passing scene; and we may translate the term by one in our green-room dialect, side-play. Riccoboni has ventured to describe some Lazzi. When Harlequin and Scapin represent two famished servants of a poor young mistress, among the arts by which they express their state of starvation, Harlequin having murmured, Scapin exhorts him to groan, a music which brings out their young mistress. Scapin explains Harlequin's impatience, and begins a proposal to her which mig. extricate them all from their misery. While Scapin is talking, Harlequin performs his Lazzi-imagining he holds a hatful of cherries, he seems eating them, and gaily flinging the stones at Scapin; or with a rueful countenance he is trying to catch a fly, and with his hand, in comical despair, would chop off the wings

before he swallows the chameleon game. These, with similar Lazzi, harmonise with the remonstrance of Scapin, and re-animate it; and thus these "Lazzi, 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." These Lazzi are in great danger of degenerating into puerile mimicry or gross buffoonery, unless fancifully conceived and vividly gesticulated. But the Italians seem to possess the arts of gesture before that of speech; and this national characteristic is also Roman. Such, indeed, was the powerful expression of their mimetic art, that when the select troop under Riccoboni, on their first introduction into France only spoke in Italian, the audience, who did not understand the words, were made completely masters of the action by their pure and energetic imitations of nature. The Italian theatre has, indeed, recorded some miracles of this sort. A celebrated Scaramouch, without uttering a syllable, kept the audience for a considerable time in a state of suspense by a scene of successive terrors; and exhibited a living picture of a panic-stricken man. Gherard, in his "Théatre Italien," conveys some idea of the scene. Scaramouch, a character usually represented in a fright, is waiting for his master Harlequin in his apartment; having put everything in order, according to his confused notions, he takes the guitar, seats himself in an arm-chair, and plays. Pasquariel comes gently behind him, and taps time on his shoulders-this throws Scaramouch into a panic. "It was then that incomparable

model of our most eminent actors," says Gherardi, "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." On this memorable scene a great prince observed that "Scaramuccia non parla, e dica gran cosa:" "He speaks not, but he says many great

things."

In gesticulation and humour our Rich appears to have been a complete Mime: his genius was entirely confined to Pantomime; and he had the glory of introducing Harlequin on the English stage, which he played under the feigned name of Lun. He could describe to the audience by his signs and gestures as intelligibly as others could express by words. There is a large caricature print of the triumph which Rich had obtained over the severe Muses of Tragedy and Comedy, which lasted too long not to excite jealousy and opposition from the corps dramatique.

Garrick, who once introduced a speaking Harlequin, has celebrated the silent but powerful language of Rich:

"When LUN appear'd, with matchless art and whim,

He gave the power of speech to every limb;

Tho' mask'd and mute, conveyed his quick intent,

And told in frolic gestures what he meant:

But now the motley coat and sword of wood
Require a tongue to make them understood!"

VOL. III.

The Italian EXTEMPORAL COMEDY is a literary curiosity which claims our attention.

EXTEMPORAL COMEDIES.

Ir is a curiosity in the history of national genius to discover a people with such a native fund of comic humour, combined with such passionate gesticulation, that they could deeply interest in acting a Comedy, carried on by dialogue, intrigue, and character, all' improvista or impromptu; the actors undergoing no rehearsal, and, in fact, composing while they were acting. The plot, called Scenario, consisting merely of the scenes enumerated, with the characters indicated, was first written out; it was then suspended at the back of the stage, and from the mere inspection, the actors came forward to perform, the dialogue entirely depending on their own genius".

"These pieces must have been detestable, and the actors mere buffoons," exclaim the northern critics, whose imaginations have a coldness in them, like a frost. in spring. But when the art of Extemporal Comedy flourished among these children of fancy, the universal

* 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."