CHAPTER XXIII. P. I.

ROWLAND DIXON AND HIS COMPANY OF PUPPETS.

Alli se ve tan eficaz el llanto,     las fabulas y historias retratadas,     que parece verdad, y es dulce encanto.        *              *              *              *              * Y para el vulgo rudo, que ignorante     aborrece el manjar costoso, guisa     el plato del gracioso extravagante; Con que les hartas de contento y risa,     gustando de mirar sayal grossero,     mas que sutil y candida camisa.                                   JOSEPH ORTIZ DE VILLENA.

Were it not for that happy facility with which the mind in such cases commonly satisfies itself, my readers would find it not more easy to place themselves in imagination at Ingleton a hundred years ago, than at Thebes or Athens, so strange must it appear to them that a family should have existed in humble but easy circumstances, among whose articles of consumption neither tea nor sugar had a place, who never raised potatoes in their garden nor saw them at their table, and who never wore a cotton garment of any kind.

Equally unlike any thing to which my contemporaries have been accustomed, must it be for them to hear of an Englishman whose talk was of philosophy moral or speculative not of politics; who read books in folio and had never seen a newspaper; nor ever heard of a magazine, review, or literary journal of any kind. Not less strange must it seem to them who if they please may travel by steam at the rate of thirty miles an hour upon the Liverpool and Manchester rail-way, or at ten miles an hour by stage upon any of the more frequented roads, to consider the little intercourse which in those days was carried on between one part of the kingdom and another. During young Daniel's boyhood, and for many years after he had reached the age of manhood, the whole carriage of the northern counties, and indeed of all the remoter parts was performed by pack-horses, the very name of which would long since have been as obsolete as their use, if it had not been preserved by the sign or appellation of some of those inns at which they were accustomed to put up. Rarely indeed were the roads about Ingleton marked by any other wheels than those of its indigenous carts.

That little town however obtained considerable celebrity in those days as being the home and head quarters of Rowland Dixon, the Gesticulator Maximus, or Puppet-show-master-general, of the North; a person not less eminent in his line than Powel whom the Spectator has immortalized.

My readers must not form their notion of Rowland Dixon's company from the ambulatory puppet shows which of late years have added new sights and sounds to the spectacles and cries of London. Far be it from me to depreciate those peripatetic street exhibitions, which you may have before your window at a call, and by which the hearts of so many children are continually delighted: Nay I confess that few things in that great city carry so much comfort to the cockles of my own, as the well-known voice of Punch.

——the same which in my school-boy days
I listened to,——

as Wordsworth says of the Cuckoo,

And I can listen to it yet— And listen till I do beget         That golden time again.

It is a voice that seems to be as much in accord with the noise of towns, and the riotry of fairs, as the note of the Cuckoo, with the joyousness of spring fields and the fresh verdure of the vernal woods.

But Rowland Dixon's company of puppets would be pitifully disparaged, if their size, uses or importance were to be estimated by the street performances of the present day.

The Dramatis Personæ of these modern exhibitions never I believe comprehends more than four characters, and these four are generally the same, to wit, Punch, Judy as she who used to be called Joan is now denominated, the Devil and the Doctor, or sometimes the Constable in the Doctor's stead. There is therefore as little variety in the action as in the personages. And their dimensions are such that the whole company and the theatre in which they are exhibited are carried along the streets at quick time and with a light step by the two persons who manage the concern.

But the Rowlandian, Dixonian, or Ingletonian puppets were large as life; and required for their removal a caravan (in the use to which that word is now appropriated),—a vehicle of such magnitude and questionable shape, that if Don Quixote had encountered its like upon the highway, he would have regarded it as the most formidable adventure which had ever been presented to his valour. And they went as far beyond our street-puppets in the sphere of their subjects as they exceeded them in size; for in that sphere quicquid agunt homines was included,—and a great deal more.

In no country and in no stage of society has the drama ever existed in a ruder state than that in which this company presented it. The Drolls of Bartholomew Fair were hardly so far below the legitimate drama, as they were above that of Rowland Dixon; for the Drolls were written compositions: much ribaldry might be, and no doubt was, interpolated as opportunity allowed or invited; but the main dialogue was prepared. Here on the contrary, there was no other preparation than that of frequent practice. The stock pieces were founded upon popular stories or ballads, such as Fair Rosamond, Jane Shore, and Bateman who hanged himself for love; with scriptural subjects for Easter and Whitsun-week, such as the Creation, the Deluge, Susannah and the Elders, and Nebuchadnezzar or the Fall of Pride. These had been handed down from the time of the old mysteries and miracle-plays, having, in the progress of time and change, descended from the monks and clergy to become the property of such managers as Powel and Rowland Dixon. In what manner they were represented when thus

Fallen, fallen, fallen, fallen, Fallen from their high estate,

may be imagined from a play-bill of Queen Anne's reign, in which one of them is thus advertised:

“At Crawley's Booth, over against the Crown Tavern in Smithfield, during the time of Bartholomew Fair, will be presented a little Opera, called the Old Creation of the World, yet newly revived; with the addition of Noah's flood. Also several fountains playing water during the time of the play. The last scene does present Noah and his family coming out of the Ark, with all the beasts two and two, and all the fowls of the air seen in a prospect sitting upon trees. Likewise over the Ark is seen the Sun rising in a most glorious manner. Moreover a multitude of Angels will be seen in a double rank, which presents a double prospect, one for the Sun, the other for a palace, where will be seen six Angels, ringing of bells. Likewise machines descend from above double and treble, with Dives rising out of Hell, and Lazarus seen in Abraham's bosom; besides several figures dancing jigs, sarabands and country dances, to the admiration of the spectators; with the merry conceits of Squire Punch, and Sir John Spendall.”

I have not found it any where stated at what time these irreverent representations were discontinued in England, nor whether (which is not unlikely) they were put an end to by the interference of the magistrates. The Autos Sacramentales, which form the most characteristic department of the Spanish drama, were prohibited at Madrid in 1763, at the instance of the Conde de Teba, then Archbishop of Toledo, chiefly because of the profaneness of the actors, and the indecency of the places in which they were represented: it seems therefore that if they had been performed by clerks, and within consecrated precincts, he would not have objected to them. The religious dramas, though they are not less extraordinary and far more reprehensible, because in many instances nothing can be more pernicious than their direct tendency, were not included in the same prohibition; the same marks of external reverence not being required for Saints and Images as for the great object of Romish Idolatry. These probably will long continue to delight the Spanish people. But facts of the same kind may be met with nearer home. So recently as the year 1816, the Sacrifice of Isaac was represented on the stage at Paris: Samson was the subject of the ballet; the unshorn son of Manoah delighted the spectators by dancing a solo with the gates of Gaza on his back; Dalilah clipt him during the intervals of a jig; and the Philistines surrounded and captured him in a country dance!

That Punch made his appearance in the puppet-show of the Deluge, most persons know; his exclamation of “hazy weather, master Noah,” having been preserved by tradition. In all of these wooden dramas whether sacred or profane, Punch indeed bore a part, and that part is well described in the verses entitled Pupæ gesticulantes, which may be found among the Selecta Poemata Anglorum Latina, edited by Mr. Popham.

Ecce tamen subitò, et medio discrimine rerum, Ridiculus vultu procedit Homuncio, tergum Cui riget in gibbum, immensusque protruditur alvus: PUNCHIUS huic nomen, nec erat petulantior unquam Ullus; quinetiam media inter seria semper Importunus adest, lepidusque et garrulus usque Perstat, permiscetque jocos, atque omnia turbat. Sæpe puellarum densa ad subsellia sese Convertens,—sedet en! pulchras mea, dixit, amica Illic inter eas! Oculo simul improbus uno Connivens, aliquam illarum quasi noverat, ipsam Quæque pudens se signari pudefacta rubescit; Totaque subridet juvenumque virumque corona. Cum vero ambiguis obscœnas turpia dictis Innuit, effuso testantur gaudia risu.

In one particular only this description is unlike the Punch of the Ingleton Company. He was not an homuncio, but a full grown personage, who had succeeded with little alteration either of attributes or appearance to the Vice of the old Mysteries, and served like the Clown of our own early stage, and the Gracioso of the Spaniards, to scatter mirth over the serious part of the performance, or turn it into ridicule. The wife was an appendage of later times, when it was not thought good for Punch to be alone; and when as these performances had fallen into lower hands, the quarrels between such a pair afforded a standing subject equally adapted to the capacity of the interlocutor and of his audience.

A tragic part was assigned to Punch in one of Rowland Dixon's pieces, and that one of the most popular, being the celebrated tragedy of Jane Shore. The Beadle in this piece, after proclaiming in obvious and opprobrious rhyme the offence which had drawn upon Mistress Shore this public punishment, prohibited all persons from relieving her on pain of death, and turned her out, according to the common story, to die of hunger in the streets. The only person who ventured to disobey this prohibition was Punch the Baker; and the reader may judge of the dialogue of these pieces by this Baker's words, when he stole behind her, and nudging her furtively while he spake, offered her a loaf, saying, “tak it Jenny, tak it!” for which act so little consonant with his general character, Punch died a martyr to humanity by the hangman's hands.

Dr. Dove used to say he doubted whether Garrick and Mrs. Cibber could have affected him more in middle life, than he had been moved by Punch the Baker and this wooden Jane Shore in his boyhood. For rude as were these performances, (and nothing could possibly be ruder,) the effect on infant minds was prodigious, from the accompanying sense of wonder, an emotion which of all others is at that time of life the most delightful. Here was miracle in any quantity to be seen for two-pence, and be believed in for nothing. No matter how confined the theatre, how coarse and inartificial the scenery, or how miserable the properties; the mind supplied all that was wanting.

“Mr. Guy,” said young Daniel to the schoolmaster, after one of these performances, “I wish Rowland Dixon could perform one of our Latin dialogues!”

“Aye Daniel,” replied the schoolmaster, entering into the boy's feelings; “it would be a grand thing to have the Three Fatal Sisters introduced, and to have them send for Death; and then for Death to summon the Pope and jugulate him; and invite the Emperor and the King to dance; and disarm the soldier, and pass sentence upon the Judge; and stop the Lawyer's tongue; and feel the Physician's pulse; and make the Cook come to be killed; and send the Poet to the shades; and give the Drunkard his last draught. And then to have Rhadamanthus come in and try them all! Methinks Daniel that would beat Jane Shore and Fair Rosamond all to nothing, and would be as good as a sermon to boot.”

“I believe it would indeed!” said the Boy: “and then to see MORS and NATURA; and have DAMNATUS called up; and the Three Cacodæmons at supper upon the sirloin of a King, and the roasted Doctor of Divinity, and the cruel Schoolmaster's rump! Would not it be nice Mr. Guy?”

“The pity is, Daniel,” replied Guy, “that Rowland Dixon is no Latiner, any more than those who go to see his performances.”

“But could not you put it into English for him, Mr. Guy?”

“I am afraid Daniel, Rowland Dixon would not thank me for my pains. Besides I could never make it sound half so noble in English as in those grand Latin verses, which fill the mouth and the ears, and the mind,—aye and the heart and soul too. No, boy! schools are the proper places for representing such pieces, and if I had but Latiners enough we would have them ourselves. But there are not many houses, my good Daniel, in which learning is held in such esteem as it is at thy father's; if there were, I should have more Latin scholars;—and what is of far more consequence, the world would be wiser and better than it is!”