the substance and distribution of each scene, while the dialogue was left to the will of the representers. Such histrionic farces contained various trivial buffooneries, and different masks were employed in them.
These performances, in which the actor was left to his own talents and discretion in furnishing the dialogue, were once extremely popular throughout Italy; but from the very nature of the representation, it unluckily happens that not a single specimen has been handed down to our time. The few sentences extracted above, we think, will serve to explain a good deal of the supposed mystery of those ancient English "plots," or "platforms" of theatrical representations discovered in Dulwich College; in which the celebrated Tarlton and others were concerned, and which so long puzzled Malone, Steevens, and some of the other commentators on Shakespeare.[1] Several of the most distinguished actors of that day had travelled in Italy, and were remarkable for their impromptu; and Nash, who had been there, in one of his tracts especially terms the famous clown, Kempe, a "harlequin," (a character constantly engaged in such representations) and adds that his fame had extended south of the Alps.[2]
However, to pursue this topic would lead us away from the object of our present inquiry. We take it for granted, that Silvio Fiorillo invented Pulcinella, and first introduced him as a variety in the list of buffoons required to represent the impromptu comedies of Naples: but, although he may date his separate existence from about the year 1600, it is a matter of much doubt, whether he was not, in fact, only a branch of a family of far greater antiquity. The discovery, in the year 1727, of a bronze statue of a mime, called by the Romans Maccus, has indeed led some antiquaries to the conclusion, that he was, in fact, Pulcinella under a different name, but with the same attributes, and among them a hump-back and a large nose.[3] But that the figure was meant for Maccus at all seems mere
