Dickens refers in paragraph 3 to the 'big heads' used in Victorian pantomime whereby many of the actors, especially the supers, wore gigantic grotesque heads of papier-mâche, originally used as 'transformation' devices (see G. Frow, 'Oh, Yes, It Is!': A History of Pantomime [1985], pp. 104-105).

Literary allusions

• 'mad Lear with straws in his wig': see Shakespeare, King Lear, Act 4, Sc. 6, 'Enter LEAR fantastically crowned';
• 'so potent art': Shakespeare, The Tempest, Act 5, Sc. 1;
• 'killed ... as Polonius': Shakespeare, Hamlet, Act 5, Sc. 2;
• 'Juliet': Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet;
• 'as Sterne took his Captive': see Laurence Sterne, A Sentimental Journey, Vol. 2 (1768), 'The Captive, Paris';
• 'Rolla': Rolla is the hero of Pizarro (1799), Sheridan's highly popular adaptation of Kotzebue's drama Die Spanier in Peru.

Author: Michael Slater; © J. M. Dent/Orion Publishing Group, Dickens' Journalism Volume III: 'Gone Astray' and Other Papers from Household Words, 1851-1859, 1998.

DJO gratefully acknowledges permission to reproduce this material.

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