Here comes a gentleman in a great ruff, yellow-starched, an egg-shaped pearl dangles from one ear. One hand rests on his padded hip, the other holds a case of toothpicks and a napkin; he is going to his tavern to dine. His doublet is bellied like a pea’s cod, and his breeches are bombasted, his little hat is stuck on one side and the feather in it curls over the brim. His doublet is covered with a herring-bone pattern in silk stitches, and is slashed all over. He is exaggerated, monstrous; he is tight-laced; his trunks stick out a foot all round him, and his walk is, in consequence, a little affected; but, for all that, he is a gallant figure.
Behind him comes a gentleman in loose knee-breeches barred with velvet; at the knee he has a frill of lace. His jerkin is not stuffed out, and his ruff is not starched to stick up round his head. His hair is cut in three points, one over each ear and the third over the centre of his forehead, where we see a twisted lock tied with ribbon. We seem to know these people well—very well. The first, whose clothes are of white silk sewn with red and blue, whose trunk hose have clocks of silk sewn on them, reminds us of whom? And the second gentleman in green and red, with heels of red on his shoes? Suddenly there flashes across our memory the picture of a lighted stage, a row of shops, a policeman, and then a well-known voice calling, ‘Hello, Joey, here we are again!’
Here we are again after all these centuries—clown and pantaloon, the rustic with red health on his face, the old man in Venetian slops—St. Pantaloone—just as Elizabethan, humour included, as anything can well be.
Then, enter Harlequin in his clothes of gorgeous patches; the quick, almost invisible thief, the instigator of all the evil and magic. His patches and rags have grown to symmetrical pattern, his loose doublet has become this tight-fitting lizard skin of flashing gold and colours, but his atmosphere recalls the great days.
To these enter 1830—Columbine—an early Victorian lady, who contrives to look sweetly modest in the shortest and frilliest of skirts; she looks like a rose, a rose on two pink stalks. She, being so different, gives the picture just the air of magic incongruity. Once, years ago, she was dressed in rags like Harlequin, but I suppose that the age of sentiment clothed her in her ballet costume rather than see her in her costly tatters.
We are a conservative nation, and we like our own old jokes so much that we have kept through the ages this extraordinary pleasing entertainment straight down, clothes and all, from the days of Queen Elizabeth.
Even as we dream of this, and the harlequinade dazzles our eyes, the dream changes—a new sound is heard, a sound from the remote past, too. We listen eagerly, clown, pantaloon, harlequin, and columbine vanish to the sound of the pan-pipes and the voice of Punch.
‘Root-ti-toot, rootity-toot!’ There, by the corner of the quiet square, is a tall box covered with checkered cloth. Above a man’s height is an opening, and on a tiny stage are two figures, one in a doublet stiffened out like a pea pod, with a ruff hanging loose about his neck, bands at his wrists, a cap on his head—Punch. The other with a linen cap and a ruff round her neck—Judy. Below, on the ground by the gentleman who bangs a drum and blows on the pan-pipes stuck in his muffler, is a dog with a ruff round his neck—Toby. And we know—delightful to think of it—that a box hidden by the check covering, contains many curiously dressed figures—all friends of ours. The world is certainly curious, and I suppose that an Elizabethan revisiting us to-day would find but one thing the same, the humour of the harlequinade and the Punch and Judy show.
Now let us get to the dull part. If you wish to swim in a sea of allusions there are a number of books into which you may dive—