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 Pennilesse," which shows that he was well
acquainted with their nature. He, indeed, exults over them, observing
that our plays are "honourable and full of gallant resolution, not
consisting, like theirs, of Pantaloon, a Zany, and a w---e (alluding to
the women actors of the Italian stage); but of emperors, kings, and
princes." My conviction is still confirmed, when I find that Stephen
Gosson wrote the comedy of "Captain Mario;" it has not been printed, but
"Captain Mario" is one of the Italian characters.

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 eighteen of these irregular
productions, was Andreini, whose name must have the honour 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 traveller; and thus
also the "Empiric" of Massinger might have reached us from the Bolognese
Dottore.

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 Gentilhomme_," and the other's "Noble
Gentleman," bear in some instances a great resemblance. Both may have
been drawn from the same Italian source of comedy which I have here
indicated.

Many years after this article was written, appeared "The History of
English Dramatic Poetry," by Mr. Collier. That very laborious
investigator has an article on "Extem