Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 5.djvu/317

 12 S.T.DEC., 1919.]

NOTES AND QUERIES.

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literature. A Frenchman by birth, he was born in the year of the Restoration, 1660, .-and, on the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, he journeyed to England, where he ibecame a business magnate on a small
 * scale, " had a very genteel place in the

General Post Office, relating to foreign letters," and provided the theatres with upwards of seventeen or eighteen dramatic pieces, besides translating ' Don Quixote ' from the original, and writing numerous prologues, epilogues, and songs for plays other than his own. A complete proficient
 * in many languages, he assisted in acclima-

tising not only the Italian commedia dell' arte
 * in England,* but also the Italian opera,

' Arsinoe, Queen of Cyprus ' (Drury Lane, 1705), and ' Thomyris, Queen of Scythia '

(Drury Lane, 1707), both being his. It was -during the production of these intended tragic but really ludicrous musical dramas
 * that the two comedies referred to above
 * made their appearance.

' The Amorous Miser ' consists of three
 * acts, and the Prologue informs us of it :

To Night, Gallants, you're to expect from hence, No Satyr, Smut, or luscious baudy Scenes, The Poet's mannerly and cautious too. And neither will affront himself, nor you ; Faith both are needless, since 'tis done each Day, By you who judge, and him who writes a Play.

'The cynicism with which such prologues .and epilogues were written in the age of Queen Anne is not so apparent here, for the comedy does in reality not contain over- much of that " Smut " which the Reverend -Jeremy Collier had so inveighed against mainly with an old miser, Pedro by name, who desires to marry his own son's fiancee. 'The misery of both the young people seems assured when, like the old Vice in new clothing, Diego, the servant of the youth, -appears with his ready wit new-sharpened by the extremity of the case, dresses him- self as a Captain of Dragoons, gathers together an unholy band of roistering rascals of his acquaintance, pretends to the old Pedro that he is the young girl's brother, quarters himself and his companions in his house, and eventually frightens him, by his noise and his voraciousness, into abandon- ing his senile wishes and blessing the marriage
 * seven years previously. The plot deals


 * Cf. 'Natural Magic After the Italian

Manner ' which is the fifth act of ' The

Novelty. Every Act a Play ' (Lincoln's Inn Fields, 1697), and which introduces among other characters Pantalone, Pasquarel, Mezzelin, and Columbina. Motteux was indebted likewise to an witraced Italian comedy for his first production, "' Love's a Jest ' (Lincoln's Inn Fields, 1696).

which, this being a comedy or a farce, we knew from the beginning was inevitable. The play is, as I have said, unsigned by any author's name, but from the phrase in the Epilogue, ridiculing " L'pine's Italian Squeak," it could surely not have been penned by Motteux, as it was precisely the type of opera which the Signora Margarita L'Epine patronised that Motteux himself was striving to introduce in England. She did not appear in ' Arsinoe,' but in the later ' Thomyris ' she took the principal treble part. Such an insult as this Epi- logue gives to her is hardly likely to have come from a cosmopolitan like Motteux, and one addicted to the same style of art production.

' Farewel Folly ' is also farcical, which the Prologue condones by declaring that " Most Comedies owe something still to Farce." Its plot, it is true, does deal with a situation somewhat similar to that of ' The Amorous Miser,' the loves of Old Holdfast and of Young Holdfast for Isa- bella but the working out of the piece is entirely and completely different. No less than five persons " appear " as something other than they are. Mariana, Old Hold- fast's daughter " personates a young Rake," giving yet another of those female -male characters which, initiated by Lyly and Shakespeare, had their greatest popularity in the days of Nell Gwynne, and, later, of Mrs. Cross and of Mrs. Oldfield, the latter of whom, in this particular case, sustained the part. Again " Mimick, a Player, appears as a Woman, a Bully, and a Frenchman," giving ample scope for cheap histrionic effects. None knew better than Motteux how to appeal to an actor's heart, and incidentally, how to get his plays accepted.

Even from this brief sketch it is obvious how diverse the two comedies are. The latter of the pair is topical and ephemeral, the other deals with a more fundamental comic situation, and works the matter out in an artistic manner. Much theatrical allusion occurs in ' Farewel Folly,' such as where we are told in Act I., sc. i. that matters at the theatres are " very grave at one House ; and not very merry at the other, now no body comes behind the Scenes," or where we are informed that there are more new plays written in that age " than ever will be launch' d," a palpable hit at the motley mob of gentlemen amateurs of the theatre, who in the eighteenth century wrote, not with ease, but with the most excessive and painstaking dullness. There are also numerous other little allusions,