£46 
PANTOMIME. 
ing their countenance and behaviour as the fubjeft of the 
fong varied. Chambers. 
Not that I think thofe pantomines. 
Who vary aftion with the times, 
Are lefs ingenious in their art 
Than thofe who duly aft one part. Hudibras. 
The word feems not to have been anglicifed very early 
in the feventeeth century. Dr. Johnfon’s earlieft example 
(above) is from Hudibras. Bacon and Ben Jonfon ufe 
the Latin form, pantomimi. —“ There be certain pantomimi, 
that will reprefent the voices of players.” Nat. Hilt. 
Cent. 3. No. 24.0.—“After the manner of the old pan- 
tomimi, they dance over a diftrafted comedy of love.” 
Mafque of Love’s Triumph, &c. 1630. 
Mr. d’lfraeli diftinguilhes between the Mimi and the 
Pantomimi of the ancients. “The Mimi were an impu¬ 
dent race of buffoons, who excelled in mimicry, and, like 
ourdomeftic fools, were admitted into convivial parties to 
entertain the guefts; from them we derive the term, 
mimetic art. Their powers enabled them to perform a 
more extraordinary office ; for they appear to have been 
introduced into funerals, to mimic the perfon, and even 
the language, of the decealed. Suetonius defcribes an 
archimimus, accompanying the funeral of Vefpalian. 
This archmime performed his part admirably, not only 
reprefenting the perfon, but imitating, according to cuf- 
tom, ut eji mos, the manners and language of the living 
emperor. He contrived a happy ftroke at the prevailing 
foible of Vefpalian, when he inquired the colt of all this 
funeral pomp ? ‘ Ten millions of fellerces!’ On this he 
obferved, that, if they would give him but a hundred 
thoufand, they might throw his body into the Tiber. 
“ The Pantomimi were quite of a different clafs. They 
were tragic aftors, and ufually mute; they combined 
with the arts of gefture, mulic and dances of the molt 
impreffive charafter, Their filent language has often 
drawn tears by the pathetic emotions they excited : ‘ Their 
very nod fpeaks, their hands talk, and their fingers have 
a voice,’ lays one of their admirers. Seneca, the father, 
grave as was his profeffion, confeffed his take for panto¬ 
mimes had become a puffion; and, by the decree of the 
fenate that the Roman knights (hould not attend the pan¬ 
tomimic players in the ftreets, it is evident that the per¬ 
formers were greatly honoured. Lucian has compofed a 
curious treatife on pantomimes. 
“ Thefe pantomimics feem to have been held in great 
honour. The tragic and the common malks were among 
the ornaments of the fepulchral monuments of anarch- 
mime and a pantomime. Montfaucon conjeftures that 
they formed a feleft fraternity. 
“The particoloured hero, with every part of his drefs, 
has been drawn out of the greatelt wardrobe of antiquity ; 
lie was a Roman mime. Harlequin is defcribed with his 
lhaven head, rafts capitibus; his footy face, Juligine faciem 
ohdudi; his fiat unihod feet, planipecles; and his patched 
coat of many colours, mimi centunculo. Even Pullicine/la , 
whom we familiarly call Punch, may receive, like other 
perl'onages of not greater importance, all his dignity from 
antiquity; one of his Roman anceftors having appeared 
to an antiquary’s vifionary eye in a bronze ftatue: more 
than one erudite differtation authenticates the family- 
liker.efs; the nofe long, prominent, and hooked; the 
flaring goggle eyes; the hump at his back and at his 
bread; in a word, all the charafter which fo ftrongly 
marks the Punch-race, as diftinftly as whole dynalties 
have been featured by the Auftrian lip and the Bourbon 
nofe. 
“The genealogy of the whole family is confirmed by 
the general term, which includes them all; for our Zany, 
in Italian Zaimi, comes direct from faunio, a buffoon ; and 
a paffage in Cicero de Oratore, paints Harlequin and his 
brother-gefliculators after the life ; the perpetual trem¬ 
bling motion of their limbs, their ludicrous and flexible 
geftures, and all the mimicry of their faces: Quid enim 
potejl tarn ridiculum quam Sannio effe? Qai ore, vultu, 
imitandis motibus, voce, denique corporc ridetur ipfo. ‘ 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.’ 
“ The Harlequin in the Italian theatre has palled 
through all the viciffitudes of fortune. At firft he was a 
true reprefentative of the ancient Mime ; but, during the 
fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, he degenerated into a 
booby and a gourmand, the perpetual butt for a fharp- 
witted fellow, his companion, called Brighella; the knife 
and the whetftone. Harlequin, under the reforming hand 
of Goldoni, became a child of nature, the delight of his 
country.” Curiolities of Literature, vol. iii. 
Pantomime is alfo very properly ufed for the delight 
of our young folks; a colleftion of feenes exhibited in 
gefture and dumb-fiiovv. —He put off the reprefentation 
of pantomimes till late hours on market-days. Arbuthitot. 
The characters of the pantomime, as well as of the old 
Italian comedy, are well explained by Goldoni in his 
“ hiftory of the four mafks.” 
“ Comedy, which has at all times been the favourite 
fpeftacle of civilized nations, had ffiared the fate of the 
arts and fciences, and been fwaliowed up in the ruin of 
empires and the decline of letters : but the germ of 
comedy was never quite extinft in the fertile imagination 
of the Italians. The firft who laboured to revive it, 
being difappointed, during a dark age, in fkilful writers, 
had the boldnefs to compofe plans, to divide them into 
afts and feenes, and to utter as impromptus, converfations, 
thoughts, and pleafantries, which were previoufly con¬ 
certed. Thofe who could read (and the rich were not of 
the number) obferved, that the comedies of Plautus and 
Terence always contained fathers who were dupes, de¬ 
bauched Ions, amorous girls, lying valets, and corrupt 
inaid-fervants; and, traverfing the different cantons of 
Italy, they took their fathers at Venice and at Bologna, 
their valets at Bergamo, their enamoured youths and 
maids, and their fouhrettes, in the ftates of Rome and 
Tufcany. 
“ We muft not wait for written proofs of this reafoning, 
becaufe we are fpeaking of an age in which writing was 
nearly unknown ; but I prove myaffertion in this manner. 
The Pantaloon has always been Venetian, the Doftor a 
Bolognefe, and the Harlequin and Clown have ever been 
from Bergamo ; from thefe places, the aftors took thofe 
comic charafters which are known to us by the name of 
the four Italian malks. I advance thefe remarks not 
entirely from my own conception : I am in poffeffion of 
a manufeript of the fifteenth century, jn good preferva- 
tion, bound in parchment, which contains a hundred and 
twenty lubjefts or canvaffes of Italian pieces, called 
Comedies of the Art; and of which the principal balls 
confifts invariably of a Pantaloon, a Venetian Merchant ; 
the Doftor, a Lawyer of Bologna; Brighella and Har¬ 
lequin, valets of Bergamo ; the firft quick and aftive, the 
other heavy. Their antiquity and permanent exiftence 
prove their origin. With regard to their employment, 
the Pantaloon and the Doftor, whom the Italians call the 
two old men, reprefent the part of fathers and other 
venerable charafters, (les roles a manteau. ) The firft is a 
merchant, becaufe Venice was in thofe ancient times the 
richeft and moft exteniive commercial country in Italy. 
He has ever preferred the ancient Venetian coftume. 
The black robe and woollen bonnet are yet worn at 
Venice; while the red waiftcoat, breeches cut like drawers, 
and red (lockings and flippers, reprefent exadlly the drefs 
of the ancient inhabitants of the Adriatic lagoons ; and 
the beard, which was a great ornament in thofe diftant 
ages, has been carried to a grotefque extreme in thefe 
latter days. The fecond old man, called the Doftor, has 
been felefted from the legal profeffion for the purpofe 
of contrafting the learned with the commercial man ; 
and he is from Bologna, becaufe an univerfity exifted 
in that city, which, with all the ignorance of the time, 
yet 
