ad servilely copied the duped fathers, the
wild sons, and the tricking valets, of Plautus and Terence; and,
perhaps, not being writers of sufficient skill, but of some invention,
were satisfied to sketch the plots of dramas, but boldly trusted to
extempore acting and dialogue. Ruzzante peopled the Italian stage with a
fresh enlivening crowd of pantomimic characters; the insipid dotards of
the ancient comedy were transformed into the Venetian Pantaloon and the
Bolognese Doctor; while the hare-brained fellow, the arch knave, and the
booby, were furnished from Milan, Bergamo, and Calabria. He gave his
newly-created beings new language and a new dress. From Plautus he
appears to have taken the hint of introducing all the Italian dialects
into one comedy, by making each character use his own; and even the
modern Greek, which, it seems, afforded many an unexpected play on
words, for the Italian.[39] This new kind of pleasure, like the language
of Babel, charmed the national ear; every province would have its
dialect introduced on the scene, which often served the purpose both of
recreation and a little innocent malice. Their _masks_ and _dresses_
were furnished by the grotesque masqueraders of the carnival, which,
doubtless, often contributed many scenes and humours to the quick and
fanciful genius of Ruzzante. I possess a little book of Scaramouches,
&c. by Callot. Their masks and their costume must have been copied from
these carnival scenes. We see their strongly-featured masks; their
attitudes, pliant as those of a posture-master; the drollery of their
figures; while the grotesque creatures seem to leap, and dance, and
gesticulate, and move about so fantastically under his sharp graver,
that they form as individualised a race as our fairies and witches;
mortals, yet like nothing mortal![40]

The first Italian actors wore masks--objections have been raised against
their use. Signorelli shows the inferiority of the moderns in deviating
from the moveable or rather double masks of antiquity, by which the
actor could vary the artificial face at pleasure. The mask has had its
advocates, for some advantages it possesses over the naked face; a mask
aggravates the features, and gives a more determined expression to the
comic character; an important effect among this fantastical group.[41]

The HARLEQUIN in the Italian theatre has passed through all the
vicissitudes of fortune. At first he was a true representative of the
ancient