Melmoth's Letters of Cicero, B. viii. lett. 20; in Grævius's edition, Lib. ix. ep. 16.
This passage also shows that our own custom of annexing a Farce, or petite pièce, or Pantomime, to a tragic Drama, existed among the Romans: the introduction of the practice in our country seems not to be ascertained; and it is conjectured not to have existed before the Restoration. Shakspeare and his contemporaries probably were spectators of only a single drama.
Storia Critica del Teatri de Signorelli, tom. iii. 258.—Baretti mentions a collection of four thousand dramas, made by Apostolo Zeno, of which the greater part were comedies. He allows that in tragedies his nation is inferior to the English and the French; but "no nation," he adds, "can be compared with us for pleasantry and humour in comedy." Some of the greatest names in Italian literature were writers of comedy. Ital. Lib. 119.
Altieri explains Formica as a crabbed fellow who acts the butt in a farce.
I refer the reader to Steevens's edition, 1793, vol. ii. p. 495, for a sight of these literary curiosities.
The commencement of the "Platt" of the "Seven Deadly Sinnes," believed to be a production of the famous Dick Tarleton, will sufficiently enlighten the reader as to the character of the whole. The original is preserved at Dulwich, and is written in two columns, on a pasteboard about fifteen inches high, and nine in breadth. We have modernised the spelling:—
"A tent being placed on the stage for Henry the Sixth; he in it asleep. To him the lieutenant, and a pursuivant (R. Cowley, Jo. Duke), and one warder (R. Pallant). To them Pride, Gluttony, Wrath, and Covetousness at one door; at another door Envy, Sloth, and Lechery. The three put back the four, and so exeunt.
"Henry awaking, enter a keeper (J. Sincler), to him a servant (T. Belt), to him Lidgate and the keeper. Exit, then enter again—then Envy passeth over the stage. Lidgate speakes."
Women were first introduced on the Italian stage about 1560—it was therefore an extraordinary novelty in Nash's time.
That this kind of drama was perfectly familiar to the play-goers of the era of Elizabeth, is clear from a passage in Meres' "Palladis Tamica," 1598; who speaks of Tarleton's extemporal power, adding a compliment to "our witty Wilson, who, for learning and extemporal wit, in this faculty is without compare or compeer; as to his great and eternal commendations, he manifested in his challenge at the Swan, on Bank-side." The Swan was one of the theatres so popular in the era of Elizabeth and James I., situated on the Bankside, Southwark.