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[Footnote 9:
How the Latin Sannio became the Italian Zanni, was a whirl in the roundabout of etymology, which put Riccoboni very ill at his ease; for he, having discovered this classical origin of his favourite character, was alarmed at Menage giving it up with obsequious tameness to a Cruscan correspondent. The learned Quadrio, however, gives his vote for the Greek Sannos, from whence the Latins borrowed their Sannio. Riccoboni’s derivation, therefore, now stands secure from all verbal disturbers of human quiet.

Sanna is in Latin, as Ainsworth elaborately explains, “a mocking by grimaces, mows, a flout, a frump, a gibe, a scoff, a banter;” and Sannio is “a fool in a play.” The Italians change the S into Z, for they say Zmyrna and Zambuco, for Smyrna and Sambuco; and thus they turned Sannio into Zanno, and then into Zanni, and we caught the echo in our Zany.
]

[Footnote 10:
Riccoboni, Histoire du Theatre Italien, p. 53; Gimma, Italia Letterata, p. 196. ]

[Footnote 11:
There is an earlier and equally whimsical series bearing the following title–“Mascarades recuillies et mises en taille douce par Robert Boissart, Valentianois, 1597,” consisting of twenty-four plates of Carnival masquers. ]

[Footnote 12:
Signorelli, Storia Critica de Teatri, tom. iii. 263. ]

[Footnote 13:
Mem. of Goldoni, i. 281. ]

[Footnote 14:
Mem. of Goldoni, ii. 284. ]

[Footnote 15:
I am here but the translator of a grave historian. The Italian writes with all the feeling of one aware of the important narrative, and with a most curious accuracy in this genealogy of character: “Silvio Fiorillo, che appetter si facea il Capitano Matamoros, INVENTO il Pulcinella Napoletano, e collo studio e grazia molto AGGIUNSE Andrea Calcese dello Ciuccio por soprannome.”–Gimma, Italia Letterata, p. 196. There is a very curious engraving by Bosse, representing the Italian comedians about 1633, as they performed the various characters on the Parisian stage. The cracked voice and peculiarities of this “great invention” are declared by Fiorillo and Signorelli to be imitations of the peculiarities of the peasants of Acerra, an ancient city in the neighbourhood of Naples. For a curious dissertation on this popular character, see the volume so admirably illustrated by Cruikshank, quoted on a previous page. ]

[Footnote 16:
John Rich was the patentee of Covent Garden Theatre, and spent large sums over his favourite pantomimes. He was also the fortunate producer of the “Beggar’s Opera,” which was facetiously said to have made Rich gay, and Gay rich. He took so little interest in what is termed the “regular drama,” that he is reported to have exclaimed, when peeping through the curtain at a full house to witness a tragedy–“What, you are there, you fools, are you!” He died wealthy, in 1761; and there is a costly tomb to his memory in Hillingdon churchyard, Middlesex. ]

The Italian EXTEMPORAL COMEDY is a literary curiosity which claims our attention.