on 2 August, 1688, of pneumonia, contracted
through neglecting to change damp clothes, the loss to the Italian
theatre seemed irreparable, but in the following year an equally
celebrated Harlequin, finer and wittier if not more popular than he,
appeared in the person of Evariste Gherardi. Gherardi was a man of
culture, and he collected and edited a number of scenes, written in
French, which were on the boards intermingled and played with the
Italian farces in order to raise the tone of, and give something more
solid and durable to, these entertainments. In 1695 three volumes of
these scenes were published at Amsterdam, 'chez Adrian Braakman,' under
the title _Le Theatre Italien, ou le Recueil de toutes les Comedies et
Scenes Francoises qui ont ete jouees sur le Theatre Italien par la
Troupe des Comediens du Roy de l'Hotel de Bourgogne a Paris.

Arlequin Empereur dans la Lune_ had been published in its entirety
eleven years previously (1684), but it was sufficiently popular for
Gherardi to include various scenes therefrom in his collection.
Accordingly he commences his first volume by giving the 'Scene de la
Fille de Chambre', where Harlequin, disguised as a woman, pretends to
be seeking a place as waiting-maid to the Doctor--_Emperor of the Moon_,
Act ii, v. In the French, Pierrot, dressed as the Doctor's wife,
interviews the applicant. Gherardi also gives a scene between Isabella
(Elaria) and Colombine (Mopsophil); a scene where Harlequin arrives
tricked out as an Apothecary to win Colombine (in Mrs. Behn it is
Scaramouch who thus attempts to gain Mopsophil); and the final scene
which differs considerably from the conclusion of the English farce. In
Vol. II there are two further extracts 'obmises dans le premier Tome',
a dialogue between the Doctor and Harlequin, 'recit que fait Arlequin au
Docteur, du Voyage qu'il a fait dans le Monde de la Lune', and a short
passage between Harlequin and Colombine, both of which can be closely
paralleled in the English version. Mrs. Behn of course used the edition
of 1684. Her statement that she only took 'a very barren and thin hint
of the Plot' from the Italian, and again that 'all the Words are wholly
new, without one from the Original' must not be pressed too strictly,
although she has undeniably infused a new life, new wit and humour into
the alien scenes.

In Maurice Sand's standard work on Italian comedy, _Masques et Bouffons_
(Paris, 1860) there will be found copious citatio