Without doubt the modern pantomime opening owes much of its form to modern burlesque and extravaganza, of which the late Mr. Planche may be regarded as the inventor.  Mr. Planche’s first burlesque was produced at Drury Lane in 1818, and was called “Amoroso, King of Little Britain.”  “The author!” wrote a fierce critic in “Blackwood”—­“but even the shoeblacks of Paris call themselves marchands de cirage!” Mr. Planche had compensation, however.  His burlesque was quoted in a leading article in The Times; the King of Little Britain’s address to his courtiers, “My lords and gentlemen—­get out!” was alluded to in relation to a royal speech dissolving Parliament.  “Amoroso” was a following of “Bombastes Furioso.”  But, by-and-by, Mr. Planche was to proceed to “Pandora,” “Olympic Revels,” “Riquet with the Tuft,” and other productions, the manner and character of which have become identified with his name.  Gradually he created a school of burlesque-writers indeed; but his scholars at last rebelled against him and “barred him out,” a fate to which schoolmasters have been often liable.  Still burlesque of the worthy Planche form, and of the spuriously imitative kind, which copied, and at the same time degraded him, grew and throve, and at last invaded the domains of pantomime.  “Openings” fell into the hands of burlesque-writers, their share in the pantomime work ceasing with the transformation scene; punning rhymes and parodies, and comic dances, delayed the entrance of clown and harlequin, till at last their significance and occupation seem almost to have gone from them.  The old language of gesture, with perhaps the occasional resort to a placard to supplement and interpret the “dumb motions” of the performers (a concession to, or an evasion of the old prohibition of speech in the “burletta houses"), vanished from the stage.  The harlequinade characters ceased to take part in the opening, and that joy to youthful cunning of detecting the players of the later scenes in the disguises of their earlier presentment—­harlequin, by the accidental revelation of parti-colour and spangles, and clown by the chance display of his motley trunk and hose—­was gone for ever.  Smart young ladies in the blonde wigs, the very curt tunics, the fleshings and the high heels of burlesque, appeared in lieu of these; and the spectacle of the characters in the opening loosening tapes and easing buttons in good time to obey the behest of the chief fairy, and transform themselves for harlequinade purposes, became an obsolete and withdrawn delight.

Yet what were called “speaking pantomimes,” that is, pantomimes supplied to an unusual extent with spoken matter, were occasionally produced in times not long past.  Hazlitt mentions, only to condemn however, an entertainment answering to this description.  It was called “Shakespeare versus Harlequin,” and was played in 1820.  It would seem to have been a revival of a production of David Garrick’s.  “It is called