The higher class of marionettes, that have permanent establishments in all the towns of Italy and in various other Continental countries, and a colony of whom lately settled in London, would surely feel a thrill of indignation through every fibre and atom of their composite bodies, were they to hear themselves assimilated to the hardy plebeian puppets that pitch their tent in the gutter or by the road-side, and jest for all comers on the chance of coppers. Here you have him at the street corner—Punch, the ribald and the profligate, maltreating his wife, teasing his dog, hanging the hangman, and beating the devil himself. Or, open this portfolio, containing Pinelli’s charming collection of Italian picturesque costumes. Here is Pulcinella, with his black half-mask, his tight white jerkin, his mitre-shaped cap. What a group he has gathered around him:—idle monks, stately and beautiful Roman women, swarthy and vigorous _Trasteverini_, children on tiptoe with delight, a lingering peasant, who has stopped his ass to enjoy for a moment the fascinating spectacle and pungent jokes. Nor is the audience always of so humble a description. Persons of rank and education have frequently been known to mingle with it; and tradition relates that the celebrated Leone Allacci, librarian of the Vatican under Alexander VII., author of many great theological works, and of the _Dramaturgia_, went nightly for recreation to the puppet-show. In social position, however, the _al fresco_ performers are necessarily far inferior to the more elegant and tender puppets who have a settled habitation, a smart and spacious stage, a fixed price, and who, instead of having their master’s hands rudely thrust under their petticoats, are decorously and genteelly manœuvred by means of springs and wires. The difference is manifest: it is Richardson’s booth to the Italian Opera; the _Funambules_ to the _Comédie Française_. Moreover, the materials of the marionette aristocracy are very superior indeed to those of the common out-of-door jokers. They are by no means of the same clay or from the same mould. They are not cut out of a block, daubed with gaudy paint, and dressed in coarse and tawdry rags. M. Magnin lets us into the secret of their structure and motions. “Their head is usually of card-board; their body and thighs are wooden, their arms of cord; their extremities (that is to say, their hands and their legs) are of lead, or partially so, which enables them to obey the slightest impulse given them, without losing their centre of gravity.” From the top of their head issues a little iron rod, by means of which they are easily transported from one part of the stage to another. To conceal this rod and the movement of the threads from the spectators, the plan was devised of placing in front of the stage a sort of screen, composed of very fine perpendicular threads, drawn very tight, which, blending with those that move the puppets, deceive the most attentive eye.