CHAPTER XI. THE CLOWN.
The clowns are the most popular members of the motley crowd that attracts the audience of the circus, hippodrome and other places of amusement, where strength and beauty form the basis of the entertainment. Their pirouettes fill the house, they are the “attraction,” the great success of the programme. As they are not very numerous, for there are not more than thirty of them scattered over the globe, [p278] the directors compete for them at very high salaries. Like the star-tenors they contract engagements for many years in advance, and receive the emoluments of an ambassador, and their requirements increase with their success. I am told by the agents that their commissions have never been so high as in the last few years.
Although much appreciated in France, the clown is not a creation of the Latin genius. It only invented the three personages of the comedy dell’arte, the three typical masks from which every expression of the human face arise: Pierrot the coward, Arlequin the crafty, and between them, the perverse Columbine. During many centuries these three puppets have moved through every shade and variety of psychological pantomime.
At the present time Italian pantomime is an extinct art. In the time of Watteau the poor masks had already lost their definite outlines, and their idiosyncrasies had become misty and dim. They are now effaced, dispelled by the cloud of powder which the clown, launched from the other side of the Channel, scattered in the air as he tumbled upon the French stage.
Etymologically the clown is the rustic, the rough peasant, pugnacious, ignorant and silly, who enlivens the sombre dramas of Shakespeare by his foolish quibbles. In England this ludicrous personage was the indispensable accessory of every play; he is nearly related to the French Jocrisse, who also wears the garb of a well-to-do countryman, and is equally ridiculed by the city folk.
The Shakesperian clown has not yet disappeared. He is to be found with all his traditional attributes in the three [p279] companies of Hengler’s Circus, which travel all over England, and at Christmas time give simultaneous performances in London, Liverpool, and Dublin.
I remember entering the arena of this national circus one Sunday morning in London, and being considerably surprised to find the whole company in morning dress assembled in the ring. A black-coated individual, Bible in hand, was addressing the acrobats. He was a clergyman. I have been told since that Mr. Hengler exacts punctual attendance at the Sunday services from every member of his troupe.
In this traditional house, the Shakesperian clown, the jester, as he is called in the profession, appears in white tights, [p280] ornamented with blue or red patches indiscriminately arranged, with a short drapery round the hips, and a fool’s cap on his head. Thus attired, he does not caper and joke, but declaims passages from Shakespeare and sings Irish songs which delight the public in the cheap places.