hinello_ is in Italian _Pulcinella_,
which means a _hen-chicken_. Chickens' voices are _squeaking_ and
_nasal_; and they are _timid_, and _powerless_, and for this reason my
whimsical countrymen have given the name of _Pulcinella_, or
hen-chicken, to that comic character, to convey the idea of a man that
speaks with a squeaking voice through his nose, to express a timid and
weak fellow, who is always thrashed by the other actors, and always
boasts of victory after they are gone."--_Tolondron_, p. 324. In
Italian, _Policinello_ is a little flea, active and biting and skipping;
and his mask puce-colour, the nose imitating in shape the flea's
proboscis. This grotesque etymology was added by Mrs. Thrale. I cannot
decide between "the hen-chicken" of the scholar and "the skipping flea"
of the lady, who, however, was herself a scholar.]

[Footnote 38: How the Latin _Sannio_ became the Italian _Zanni_, was a
whirl in the roundabout of etymology, which put Riccoboni very ill at
his ease; for he, having discovered this classical origin of his
favourite character, was alarmed at Menage giving it up with obsequious
tameness to a Cruscan correspondent. The learned Quadrio, however, gives
his vote for the Greek _Sannos_, from whence the Latins borrowed their
_Sannio_. Riccoboni's derivation, therefore, now stands secure from all
verbal disturbers of human quiet.

_Sanna_ is in Latin, as Ainsworth elaborately explains, "a mocking by
grimaces, mows, a flout, a frump, a gibe, a scoff, a banter;" and
_Sannio_ is "a fool in a play." The Italians change the S into Z, for
they say Zmyrna and Zambuco, for Smyrna and Sambuco; and thus they
turned _Sannio_ into _Zanno_, and then into _Zanni_, and we caught the
echo in our _Zany_.]

[Footnote 39: Riccoboni, Histoire du Theatre Italien, p. 53; Gimma,
Italia Letterata, p. 196.]

[Footnote 40: There is an earlier and equally whimsical series bearing
the following title--"Mascarades recuillies et mises en taille douce par
Robert Boissart, Valentianois, 1597," consisting of twenty-four plates
of Carnival masquers.]

[Footnote 41: Signorelli, Storia Critica de Teatri, tom. iii. 263.]

[Footnote 42: Mem. of Goldoni, i. 281.]

[Footnote 43: Mem. of Goldoni, ii. 284.]

[Footnote 44: I am here but the translator of a grave historian. The
Italian writes with all the feeling of one aware of the important
narrative, and with a most curious accuracy in this genealogy of
character: "_Silvio Fiorillo