Chapter 30
Section 30 of Curiosities of Literature, Volume 2. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Curiosities of Literature, Volume 2, by Isaac Disraeli. Massinger, Milton, and the Italian Theater. The pantomimic characters and the extemporal comedy of Italy may have had some influence even
on our own dramatic poets. This source has indeed escaped all notice, yet I incline to think it explains a difficult point in Massinger, which has baffled even the keen spirit of Mr. Gifford. A passage in Massinger bears a striking resemblance with one in Moliere's Malade imaginaire. It is in The Emperor of the East, volume 3, 317. The quack, or empiric's humorous notion, is so closely that of Moliere's that Mr. Gifford, agreeing with Mr. Gilchrist,
finds it difficult to believe the coincidence accidental. But the greater difficulty is to conceive that Massinger ever fell into Moliere's hands. At that period in the infancy of our literature, our native authors and our own language were as insulated as their country. It is more than probable that Massinger and Moliere had drawn from the same source, the Italian comedy. Massinger's empiric, as well as the acknowledged copy of Moliere's
Madassin, came from the Dottori of the Italian comedy. The humor of these old Italian pantomimes was often as traditionally preserved as proverbs massinger was a student of italian authors and some of the lucky hits of their theatre which then consisted of nothing else but these burlesque comedies might have circuitously reached the english bard and six-and-thirty years afterwards the same traditional jests might have been gleaned by the gallic one from the dotore who was still repeating what he knew was sure of pleasing our theatres of the elizabethan period seem to have had here the extemporal comedy after the manner of the italians we surely possess one of these scenarios in the remarkable platts which were accidentally discovered at dulwich college bearing every feature of an italian scenario Stevens calls them a mysterious fragment of ancient stage direction, and adds that the paper describes a species of dramatic entertainment of which no memorial is preserved in any annals of the English stage.
The commentators on Shakespeare appear not to have known the nature of these scenarios. The plat, as it is called, is fairly written in a large hand, containing directions appointed to be stuck up near the prompter's station, and it has even an oblong hole in its center to admit of being suspended on a wooden peg. Particular scenes are barely ordered, and the names, or rather nicknames, of several of the players appear in the most familiar manner, as they were known to their companions in the rude green room of that day, such as Pig,
White and Black Dick and Sam, Little Will Barn, Jack Gregory, and the Red-Faced Fellow. Footnote. The commencement of The Platt of the Seven Deadly Sins, believed to be a production of the famous Dick Tarleton, will sufficiently enlighten the reader as to the character of the whole the original is preserved at dulwich and is written in two columns on a pasteboard about fifteen inches high and nine in breadth we have modernized the spelling a tent being placed on the stage for henry the sixth he in it asleep to him the lieutenant and a pursuivant r calley joe duke and one warder r pallant
to them pride gluttony wrath and covetousness at one door at another door envy sloth and luxury the three put back the four and so exeunt henry awaking enter a keeper j sinclair to him a servant t belt to him lydgate and the keeper exit then enter again then envy passeth over the stage lydgate speaks End of footnote. Some of these plaits are on solemn subjects, like the tragic pantomime, and in some appear Pantaloon and his man Pease Cod with spectacles. Stevens observes that he met with no earlier example of the appearance of Pantaloon as a specific character on our stage,
and that this direction concerning the spectacles cannot fail to remind the reader of a celebrated passage in As You Like It, the lean and slippered pantaloon with spectacles on nose. Perhaps, he adds, Shakespeare alludes to this personage as habited in his own time. The old age of pantaloon is marked by his leanness and his spectacles and his slippers. He always runs after harlequin but cannot catch him, as he runs in slippers and without spectacles is liable to pass him by
without seeing him. Can we doubt that this pantaloon had come from the Italian theatre, after what we have already said? Does not this confirm the conjecture that there existed an intercourse between the Italian theatre and our own? Farther, Tarleton, the comedian, and others celebrated for their extemporal wit, was the writer or inventor of one of these plats. Stowe records of one of our actors that he had a quick, delicate, refined extemporal wit, and of another,
that he had a wondrous plentiful pleasant extemporal wit these actors then who were in the habit of exercising their impromptus resembled those who performed in the unwritten comedies of the italians gabriel harvey the aristarchus of the day compliments tarleton for having brought forward a new species of dramatic exhibition if this compliment paid to tarleton merely alludes to his dexterity extemporaneous wit in the character of the clown as my friend mr deuce thinks this would be sufficient to show that he was attempting to introduce on our stage the extemporal comedy of the italians which gabriel harvey distinguishes as a new species as for these plaits which i shall now venture to call scenarios they surprise by their bareness conveying no notion of the piece itself though quite sufficient for the actors they consist of mere exits and entrances of the actors and often the real names of the actors are familiarly mixed with those of the dramatis personae
Stevens has justly observed, however, on these skeletons that, although the drift of these dramatic pieces cannot be collected from the mere outlines before us, yet we must not charge them with absurdity. Even the scenes of Shakespeare would have worn as unpromising an aspect had their skeletons only been discovered. The printed scenarios of the Italian theatre were not more intelligible, exhibiting only the hints for scenes. Thus I think we have sufficient evidence of an intercourse subsisting between the English and Italian theatres, not hitherto suspected, and I find an allusion to these Italian pantomimes by the great town-wit Tom Nash in his Pierce Pennellis, which shows that he was well acquainted with their nature. He indeed exalts over them, observing that our plays are honorable and full of gallant resolution,
not consisting like theirs of Pantalone, a Zany, and a W-blank-blank-E, alluding to the women actors of the Italian stage, but of emperors, kings, and princes. Footnote. Women were first introduced on the Italian stage about 1560. It was therefore an extraordinary novelty in Nash's time. End of footnote. My conviction is still confirmed when I find that Stephen Gosen wrote the comedy of Captain Mario. It has not been printed, but Captain Mario is one of the Italian
characters. Footnote. That this kind of drama was perfectly familiar to the playgoers of the era of Elizabeth is clear from a passage in Mears' Pallidus Tamica, 1598, who speaks of Tarleton's extemporal power, adding a compliment to our witty Wilson, who, for learning and extemporal wit in this faculty, is without compare or compare. As to his great and eternal commendations, he manifested in his challenge at the Swan on Bankside. The Swan was one of the theaters so popular in the era
of Elizabeth and James I, situated on the bankside Southwark. End of footnote. Even at a later period, the influence of these performances reached the greatest name in the English Parnassus. One of the great actors and authors of these pieces, who published 18 of these irregular productions, was Andriani, whose name must have the honor of being associated with Milton's,
for it was his comedy or opera which threw the first spark of The Paradise Lost into the soul of the epic poet, a circumstance which will hardly be questioned by those who have examined the different schemes and allegorical personages of the first projected drama of Paradise Lost. Nor was Andreini, as well as many others of this race of Italian dramatists, inferior poets. The Adamo of Andreini was a personage sufficiently original and poetical to serve as the model of the Adam of Milton. The youthful English poet, at its representation, carried it away in his mind. Wit, indeed, is a great traveler, and thus also the empiric of Massinger might have reached us from the Boulonese d'Otore.
the late mr hole the ingenious writer on the arabian nights observed to me that moliere it must be presumed never read fletcher's plays yet his bourgeois gentillum and the others noble gentlemen bear in some instances a great resemblance both may have drawn from the same italian source of comedy which i have here indicated many years after this article was written has appeared the history of english dramatic poetry by mr collier that very laborious investigator has an article on extemporal plays and plots three three ninety three the nature of these plots or plots he observes our theatrical antiquaries have not explained the truth is that they never suspected their origin in the italian scenarios my conjectures are amply confirmed by mr collier's notices of the intercourse of our players with the italian actors whetstone's heptameron in fifteen eighty two mentions the comedians of ravenna who are not tied to any written device in kid's spanish tragedy the extemporal art is described the italian tragedians were so sharp of wit
that in one hour of meditation they would perform anything in action these extemporal players were witnessed much nearer than in italy at the theatre des italiens at paris for one of the characters replies i have seen the like in paris among the french tragedians ben jonson has mentioned the italian extemporal plays in his case is altered and an italian comandante his company were in london in fifteen seventy eight who probably let our players into many a secret end of section thirty
