although we have now enjoined him to silence, and have converted the instrument with which of old he cudgelled the Devil, into a talisman to raise him.
The dress, too, of Harlequin corresponds very much with the motley or parti-coloured habit of the clowns of our old dramatic poets. It is true, that the different hues have been arranged with greater regularity, and the patches are of smaller size. The ordinary habiliments of Punch at the present day, preserved by ancient usage, with his pointed fool's-cap, bear a much nearer resemblance; and this is one circumstance that evidences the strong family-resemblance between the Vice, Harlequin, and Puncinella.[1] Riccoboni represents the ancient Harlequin in a dress composed of patches, as if his ragged clothes had been often mended, and Goldoni speaks of him as originally a poor foolish dolt. There can be little doubt that this was the real origin of the motley of the dramatic and domestic fools in former times. They were retained, or were supposed to be retained, by the nobility, commonly out of charity, and one of their ordinary appellations was Patch. Cardinal Wolsey had a fool whose parental name has been lost, and he is now only known by the nick-name belonging to his profession.
Upon the continent, to this day, Harlequin is as talkative as ever, even if his jokes are a little less coarse, and his satire kept within narrower bounds. Voltaire, in his Encyclopedie[2] and elsewhere, quotes several capital sayings and aphorisms by Harlequin; but the account that Addison gives of him would hardly lead us to suppose that in his time he possessed so much wit and acuteness.
- ↑ Dr. Johnson, in a note on "Hamlet," (Act 3, Scene 4,) asserts positively, that "the modern Punch is descended from the ancient Vice;" but this opinion is disputed by Mr. Douce, "Illustrations of Shakspeare," vol. 2, p. 251.
- ↑ Vol. 4, p. 427, edition 1775.
ris-bells and the bladders are particularly mentioned by Cervantes, in his description of the Parliament of Death: "whilst they were thus discoursing, it fell out, that one of the company came toward them, clad for the Fool in the play, with morris-bells, and at the end of a stick he had three cows' bladders full blown," &c. Shelton's "Don Quixote," part 2, chap. 11.
