black knee-breeches and white stockings, a very long, full-skirted black
coat, and a three-cornered hat. His individual traits are displayed in all
his characters, and he is ever a coward, a boaster, and a liar; a glutton
and avaricious, but withal of an agreeable bonhomie that wins the heart.
To tell the truth, I care little for the plays in which he has no part and
I have learned to think a certain trick of his--lifting his leg rigidly to
a horizontal line, by way of emphasis, and saying, "Capisse la?" or "Sa
la?" (You understand? You know?)--one of the finest things in the world.

In nearly all of Goldoni's Venetian comedies, and in many which he wrote
in Italian, appear the standard associates of Facanapa,--Arlecchino, il
Dottore. Pantalon dei Bisognosi, and Brighella. The reader is at first
puzzled by their constant recurrence, but never weary of Goldoni's witty
management of them. They are the chief persons of the obsolete _commedia
a braccio_, and have their nationality and peculiarities marked by
immemorial attribution. Pantalon is a Venetian merchant, rich, and
commonly the indulgent father of a wilful daughter or dissolute son,
figuring also sometimes as the childless uncle of large fortune. The
second old man is il Dottore, who is a Bolognese, and a doctor of the
University. Brighella and Arlecchino are both of Bergamo. The one is a
sharp and roguish servant, busy-body, and rascal; the other is dull and
foolish, and always masked and dressed in motley--a gibe at the poverty of
the Bergamasks among whom, moreover, the extremes of stupidity and cunning
are most usually found, according to the popular notion in Italy.

The plays of the Marionette are written expressly for them, and are much
shorter than the standard drama as it is known to us. They embrace,
however, a wide range of subjects, from lofty melodrama to broad farce, as
you may see by looking at the advertisements in the Venetian Gazettes for
any week past, where perhaps you shall find the plays performed to have