opening, “which used to form merely a brief excuse for putting the harlequinade in motion,” had come to be a considerable part of the performance.  In modern pantomime it may be said that the opening is everything, and that the harlequinade is deferred as long as possible.  “Now the fun begins,” used to be the old formula of the playbills announcing the commencement of the harlequinade, or what is still known in the language of the theatre as the “comic business.”  Perhaps experience proved that in point of fact “the fun” did not set in at the time stated; at any rate the appearance of harlequin and clown is now regarded by many of the spectators as a signal for the certain commencement of dreariness, and as a notice to quit their seats.  The pantomime Kemble had in contemplation, however, was of the fashion Leigh Hunt looked back upon regretfully.  Harlequin was to enter almost in the first scene.  “I have hit on nothing I can think of better,” writes Kemble, “than the story of King Arthur and Merlin, and the Saxon Wizards.  The pantomime might open with the Saxon witches lamenting Merlin’s power over them, and forming an incantation by which they create a harlequin, who is supposed to be able to counteract Merlin in all his designs for the good of King Arthur.  If the Saxons came on in a dreadful storm, as they proceeded in their magical rites, the sky might brighten and a rainbow sweep across the horizon, which, when the ceremonies are completed, should contract itself from either end and form the figure of harlequin in the heavens; the wizards may fetch him down how they will, and the sooner he is set to work the better.  If this idea for producing a harlequin is not new do not adopt it.”

The main difficulty of pantomime-writers at this time seems to have been the contriving of some new method of bringing harlequin upon the scene.  Now he was conjured up from a well, now from a lake, out of a bower, a furnace, &c.; but it was always held desirable to introduce him to the spectators as early as might be.  In Tom Dibdin’s pantomime of “Harlequin in his Element; or, Fire, Water, Earth, and Air,” produced at Covent Garden in 1807, the first scene represents “a beautiful garden, with terraces, arcades, fountains,” &c.  The curtain “rises to a soft symphony.”  Aurino, the Genius of Air, descends on a light cloud; Aquina, the Spirit of Water, rises from a fountain; Terrena, the Spirit of Earth, springs up a trap; and Ignoso, the Genius of Fire, descends amid thunder from the skies.  These characters interchange a little rhymed dialogue, and discuss which of them is the most powerful.  Ignoso is very angry, and threatens his associates.  Terrena demands: 

    Fire, why so hot?  Your bolts distress not me,
      But injure the fair mistress of these bowers,
    Whose sordid guardian would her husband be,
    For lucre, not for love. 
      Rather than quarrel, let us use our powers,
    And gift with magic aid some active sprite,
    To foil the guardian and the girl to right.