Grieve, is most brilliant.

The advent of Pantomime, early in the eighteenth century, gave a special
fillip to spectacular display, as they were all announced to be set off
with "new scenery, decorations, and flyings."

Some of the stage devices of Pantomime are of considerable antiquity;
as, for instance, the basket-work hobby-horses, that figured as far back
as the old English Morris dances, to be revived in the French ballet of
the seventeenth century, and, in after years, in English Pantomime.

The Pantomime donkey is at least, we are told, 200 years old. In
"_Arlequin Mercure Galant_," produced in Paris in 1682, by the Italian
Comedians, Harlequin made his entrance on a moke's back--and the
merriment afterwards being greatly enhanced when Master "Neddy," with
Pan seated on its back, suddenly came in two, to the consternation of
the beholders. To the Italian Pantomime Comedians we owe many of our
stage devices and tricks. The statue scene in "Frivolity," played by the
Messrs. Leopolds, was introduced by the Italians in "_Arlequin Lingere
du Palais_," when this piece was performed at Paris in 1682. Again, the
device of cutting a hole in a portrait for an eaves-dropper's head to be
inserted, was used in "_Columbine Avocat_" as far back as 1685.

In "_Arlequin Lingere du Palais_," played at the Hotel de Bourgogne in
October, 1682, there was represented two stalls--an underclothier's and
a confectioner's. Harlequin dressed half like a man and half like a
woman, with a mask on each side of his face to match presides in this
dual capacity at both stalls. Pasquariel, who comes to buy, is utterly
bewildered, and is made the target of both jests and missiles of
monsieur of the confectioners, and mademoiselle of the adjoining stall.
Possibly the shop scenes in our English Harlequinades may have
originated from this. A similar idea to the above was given in O'Keefe's
Pantomime of "Harlequin Teague; or the Giants' Causeway," performed at
the Haymarket in 1782. Charles Bannister appeared in this Pantomime and
sang a duet as a giant with two heads, one side representing a gentleman
of quality, and the other a hunting squire. Mrs. German Reed, about
1855, appeared representing two old women, between whom an imaginary
conversation was held, Mrs. Reed turning first one side of her face to
the audience, and then the other. Fred Maccabe, in his "Essence of
Faust," had also a similar allusion, and by many "transformation
dancers" wa