No More Learning

• Reyher gives a list of plays with masques inserted ; Les Masques Anglais, p. 497.
5 Bk. I, canto iv. 6 Bk, III, canto xii. 7 Bk. II, cantos ix and xi.
8 Bk. II, canto vii. • Bk. II, canto xii.
9


## p. 336 (#354) ############################################

336
Masque and Pastoral
house of Holiness and scores of others, are just such as meet us
in masques; but a line of description like 'bitter Penaunce with
an yron whip,' calls up the figure before us more effectually
than Jonson's most exact prose ; and Spenser's poem abounds in
similar vivid lines and stanzas. The poem, again, like almost every
masque, is an elaborate compliment. Its relation to Elizabeth is
precisely that of Jonson’s masques to James or Charles. Spenser's
poem, it should be remembered, greatly influenced Ben Jonson
and other writers of masque-Ben Jonson in especial.
Elizabeth's frugality prevented the masque from developing
in her reign. It was in frequent use, but the queen had not the
special taste for it which made it prominent as an amusement of
the aristocracy in the courts of Henry VIII and James I. But
'entertainments,' during the queen's numerous progresses, were
plentifully produced. The entertainment was the masque out-of-
doors, and consisted of some kind of welcoming device or function
arranged for greeting the queen on her arrival, or discovered B
afterwards, as she was conducted round gardens and park. The
entertainment had more dramatic possibilities in it than the
masque, because it depended less upon scenery, but the English
climate kept it always short and slight. One, by Sir Philip Sidney,
of considerable merit, has survived—The May Lady', presented
in May 1578, when the queen visited his uncle, the earl of
Leicester, at Wanstead. Jonson's reverence for Sidney makes it
likely that he did not overlook Sidney's work when he composed
the entertainments which were the beginning of his masque
work. But it seems more probable that The May Lady guided
Jonson's views on pastoral than that it influenced his con-
ception of masque, and it remains by itself as a short out-of-doors
scene of pastoral comedy, not without influence upon Shakespeare's
early comedy. The schoolmaster, master Rombus, is, obviously,
an ancestor of Holofernes, and the play's likeness to masque lies
in its complimentary character. Some of Lyly's plays, also, have
affinities with the masque. They are elaborate compliments; their
ideas are not concerned with the real world of men and women;
their characters are mythological. But perhaps their most im-
portant connection with the masque is their influence upon Jonson's
Cynthia's Revels. This play magnifies at all points Lyly's limited
strength to such a degree that the reader may easily fail to notice
a
its debt to Lyly. But its connection with Jonson’s masques is
1 Bk. 1, canto x.
Called, also, The Lady of the May.
• See vol. V, chap. VI.
4 Cf. ante, chap. v, p. 18.


## p. 337 (#355) ############################################

Daniel's First Masque
337
obvious. In Cynthia's Revels, a great realist, the author of
Bartholomew Fayre, succeeds in making us understand how he
came to write masques. We see his mind becoming absorbed
in the particular art and method of which the masque was an
expression.
But, before we pass to Jonson's masques, one Elizabethan play
must be mentioned which was neither a masque, nor a pastoral, nor
a drama, but partook of the character of all three. It is, perhaps,
the most elaborate and beautiful entertainment extant, and the
brilliance of its total effect makes us regret that such a delightful
type of renascence art did not receive fuller development. Peele's
Araygnement of Paris comes before the development of the
ma que, as Milton's Comus comes after it, to suggest to us that
in the method of the out-of-door entertainment or pastoral there
is inherent a truer breath of poetry than is to be found in that of
the indoor masque, in which scenery and carpentry and music and
,
dance were always tending to smother and suppress the poetical
soull.
The first court masque after king James's accession was pro-
duced on 8 January 1604 at Hampton court, because plague was
prevalent in London. It was The Vision of the Twelve Goddesses,
in which the masquers were queen Anne herself and eleven of
her ladies. By the recommendation of Lucy countess of Bedford,
Daniel was chosen to design and write the masque. An indiscreet
printer presumptuously brought out an unauthorised account, and
this obliged Daniel in self-defence to print a description of the
whole form thereof in all points as it was then performed by a
most magnificent Queen, whose heroical spirit and bounty only
gave it so fair an execution as it had. ' Daniel thinks that these
ornaments and delights of peace' deserve to be remembered; and,
therefore, he relates how he devised his twelve goddesses to re-
present the blessings enjoyed by the realm under king James.
Night ascends from below and awakes Somnus, who is sleeping in
his cave, that he may conjure up the visions which are to delight
and entertain the spectators. By the waving of the white horny
wand of Somnus, the spectators are enabled to see the temple of
Peace, elaborately constructed, where a sibyl stands as priestess,
Preparing reverent rites with holy hand.
To her, comes Iris from a mountain raised at the lower end of
1 As to The Araygnement of Paris, see vol. V, chap. vi, and cf. chap. XI of the
present volume.
E. L. VI. CH, XIII.
22


## p. 338 (#356) ############################################

338
Masque and Pastoral
the hall, to announce the coming of a 'celestial presence of
Goddesses,' who are leaving their ancient haunts to visit Britain,
“the land of civil music and of rest. ' Iris hands Sybilla a 'pro-
spective’ through which to view the goddesses : and Sybilla pro-
ceeds to describe all the twelve, one after the other, in four-lined
stanzas. Of these, that descriptive of Flora is the best :
Then cheerful Flora all adorned with flowers,
Who clothes the earth with beauty and delight
In thousand Sunday suits, whilst shining hours
Will scarce afford a darkness to the night.
The stanzas read like faint echoes of Tennyson's descriptions in his
Dream of fair Women, except that the last line is not shortened.
After being thus described, the goddesses descend from the
mountain, in threes, ushered by the three graces, with their
torchbearers, also in threes, separating them. As they come
down, the cornets sitting in the concaves of the Mountain, and
seen but to their breasts ; in the habit of Satyrs, sound a stately
march. ' This is the entry of the masquers. The company halt
before the temple, and 'the consort music begins'—the musicians
being concealed in the cupola of the temple. Meanwhile, the
goddesses, one after another, ascended to the temple and delivered
their presents to Sybilla, while the graces sang. Then came the
dance of the masquers, to the music of viols and lutes placed
on one side of the hall. It was performed 'with great majesty
and art, consisting of divers strains framed into motions circular,
square, triangular, with other proportions exceeding rare and full
of variety. ' This ended, the graces sang again, in order to rest the
ladies; after which, the masquing ladies 'prepared to take out the
Lords to dance; with whom they performed certain measures,
galliards and corantos. ' Iris then came to say that the deities
must return, and, after her speech,
they fell to a short departing dance and so ascended the Mountain, whilst
the cornets taking their notes from the ceasing of the music below, sounded
another delightful march.
From this description, we can gather what the masque was
in its outward features. A band of masquers assume an im-
pressive and magnificent disguise. Some sort of explanation
must be given of the nature and meaning of the disguise cul-
minating in the entry of the masquers, which should be as sudden
and impressive as possible. After the entry, the main or chief
dance is performed by the masquers alone. Then, the masquers
.


## p. 339 (#357) ############################################

Daniel. Jonson's Earliest Entertainments 339
6
>
‘take out' partners from among the spectators—lords if the
masquers are ladies, but, more usually, ladies, the masquers
being lords. With these partners, slow dances, called by Daniel
'certain measures,' are performed; and then quick dances-
galliards and corantos. ' It is to these quick dances that the title
the revels' is properly and strictly given? After the revels, the
masquers make their exit, usually with some preliminary dance
by themselves. In Daniel's account of his masque, we see clearly
how large a part of the interest was absorbed by spectacle, music
and dance. The poet has his opportunity only when Sybilla pre-
tends that she can see through her prospective or spy glass the
masquers who are presently to march in, and describes them that
they may be understood when they appear. The poetry for which
occasion is thus found has some touch of the quiet grace of Daniel's
best work, and the pure English of his prose and poetry alike is
delightful to read. But this masque would seem to have survived
in order to mark Ben Jonson's superiority. Daniel's contem-
plative temperament is contented to keep the masque undramatic,
without either briskness or fire, and undifferentiated, without any
contrast of its parts. In other words, he does not in the least
realise the possibilities of the art he is practising. By his own
rashness in the publication of Philotas”, he lost favour at court,
and the queen’s next masque was written by Jonson.
But, before we consider this, we must examine some slighter
pieces by Jonson, which preceded his first court masque: In
June 1603, the queen and prince Henry, when they first came into
the kingdom, were received by Sir Robert Spencer at Althorpe,
and Jonson composed the entertainment* which welcomed them.
As the queen came through the park, certain cornets sounded,
whereupon a satyr 'advanced his head above the top of the
wood,' wondering at the solemnities and, after a short strain on
his pipe, jumped down to look close at the queen and prince,
declaring,
That is Cyparissus' face!
And the dame hath Syrinx' grace!
O that Pan were now in place-
Sure they are of heavenly race.
1 The derivation of the word, according to Skeat, is neither from réveiller, to
awaken, nor from rêver, to dream, but from 0. F. revel, meaning rebellion, disorder,
sport, and coming from Latin rebellare, to rebel.
2 As to the supposed reference in Philotas to Essex's plot, cf. vol. v, chap. XIV,
p. 371, and see Ward, vol. 11, p. 619.
3 For some general observations on Jonson's masques, cf. ante, chap. 1, p. 12.
+ Gifford calls it The Satyr.
.
22-2


## p. 340 (#358) ############################################

340 Masque and Pastoral
He runs off in a fit of shyness and, 'to the sound of excellent
soft music,' a bevy of fairies come tripping up the lawn attending
on Mab their queen. The fairies dance in a ring, and queen Mab
begins to welcome queen Anne, when the satyr peeps out of the
bush again and interrupts :
Trust her not, you bonnibell,
She will forty leasings tell;
I do know her pranks right well.
The fairies try to catch the satyr, while he runs about singing
in riming eight-syllabled couplets a graphic account of Mab's
traditional pranks. Finally, he is caught and well pinched, but
escapes again into his bush. Then the style changes from gay to
stately, while a song of welcome is sung to Oriana-quasi Oriens
Anna, Jonson explains in a note; this song is not quite the poet's
best. But it is in such a setting as this that Jonson produces
exquisite lyrics. Suddenly, he heightens his style, while the
movement and merriment cease, and, for a moment, all ears listen.
After the song, Mab presents the queen with a jewel, the fairies
‘hop away in a fantastic dance,' and the satyr runs out again
with his saucy octosyllables. After some references to Sir Robert
Spencer, he fetches out the eldest son, attired and appointed like a
huntsman, who is presented to the service of the prince along with
some more gifts :
The bow was Phoebe's, and the horn
By Orion often worn;
The dog of Sparta breed, and good,
As can RING within a wood;
Thence his name is : you shall try
How he hunteth instantly.
At this, the whole wood resounded with the noise of cornets, horns
and other hunting music, and a brace of choice deer were driven
up and 'fortunately killed, as they were meant to be, even in the
sight of her majesty. '
Nothing could be better in its kind than this vivacious enter-
tainment. It is not too long ; it is full of movement, being broken
up into dialogue, song and speeches, all written in easy rimes.
The satyr is own brother to Fletcher's satyr in The Faithfull
Shepheardesse. Jonson expands him into a charming antimasque
in Oberon the Fairy Prince.
It is surprising to find Jonson, who often gives us too much,
and sows with the whole sack, restraining his hand thus artfully.
It would seem as if he were able to put off his satiric and


## p. 341 (#359) ############################################

Jonson's Entertainment at Highgate 341
moralising instincts only when he conceives himself to be called
upon for mere amusement. Perhaps, the awe of royalty natural
to an Elizabethan held him in. Next year, on 1 May 1604, he
composed a second entertainment", when the king and queen
visited Sir William Cornwallis at Highgate. It is not so happy
as the first; but it is quite new in its invention. The Penates or
household gods, correctly attired, receive the king at the porch,
addressing him in eight five-lined stanzas. The Penates lead the
royal party into the house, where Mercury receives them in a
prose speech which has more breath of poetry in it than the
stanzas. Mercury takes them through the house into the garden,
where are various goddesses—Maia, Aurora, Flora and others.
Three of the goddesses, when Mercury's speech is ended, sing a
three-part song, beginning, “See, see, O see, who here is come
a maying. Maia then recites some graceful octosyllabic verses
of welcome. This is the morning's entertainment. After dinner,
the king and queen are, once more, taken into the garden, when
Mercury again accosts them. He explains that a certain son of
mine, whom the Arcadians call a god, howsoever the rest of the
world receive him,' is at hand : 'yonder he keeps, and with him
the wood nymphs. ' This is Pan. Mercury apologises for Pan's un-
couth appearance and behaviour, but asks the royal guests to
accept from him a cup of 'a lusty liquor, that hath a present
virtue to expel sadness, and is flowing from the fountain of
Bacchus in the middle of the lawn. Pan then accosts the king,
and, in rollicking verses, hopes he will let a god be his skinker?
When the king has drunk, the lords and ladies are served. A last
word of apology for Pan's familiarities follows from Mercury, and
thus it ended. ' The fancy of all this is sprightly and the execution
adequate. What is especially to be noticed is Jonson's effort to
get some contrast into his show, first, by means of the satyr, and,
secondly, of Pan. The entertainment is not to be mere spectacle ;
the tableaux are not to be merely explained; they explain them-
selves. A breath of the drama gives them life. The entertainment
lent itself to this semi-dramatic treatment more readily than the
masque, which was a lengthy evening function in a large hall.
But Ben Jonson, having written these two entertainments,
was less likely to let his masque be mere spectacle enlivened
only by tedious description. He was commanded to supply queen
Anne's second masque, The Masque of Blacknesse, 'personated at
i Called, by Gifford, The Penates.
2 Drawer of wine or ale.


## p. 342 (#360) ############################################

342
Masque and Pastoral
the Court at Whitehall on the Twelfth-Night, 1605,' in which,
again, the queen and her ladies were the masquers. It lacks the
light touch of the two entertainments; it is a first attempt, and,
evidently, the effort to devise an ingenious, splendid and impressive
spectacle has made too absorbing a demand on Jonson's attention.
How ingenious this spectacle was may appear from a short
summary of Jonson's graphic description. Oceanus, presented in
human form, the colour of his flesh blue, and Niger, in form
and colour of an Aethiop, riding on two great sea-horses, with
attendant tritons and sea-maidens, seem to advance out of the
sea, which is artfully made to shoot forth as if it flowed to the
land. This cavalcade 'induces' the masquers, who are twelve
nymphs, negroes and daughters of Niger, attended by twelve
Oceaniae, who are their lightbearers. The masquers are all
placed in ‘a great concave Shell, like mother of pearl, curiously
made to move on those waters and rise with the billow'; the
torch-bearing Oceaniae are on the backs of 'six huge sea-monsters,'
disposed round the great shell. Cunningly placed lights raise the
whole elaborate show to the highest point of brilliance. The
‘lines of prospective of this show were planned with exact
reference to the state at the upper end of the hall. 'So much
for the bodily part, which was of master Inigo Jones's design and
act. When the shell came to a standstill, a triton and two sea-
maidens sang a song-a tenor and two trebles. Then, Oceanus
enquires of Niger why he is far out of his course here in the
west. Niger explains that his daughters, having heard the fable
of Phaëton, are discontented with their blackness, and have seen a
vision which ordered them to seek a land whose name ends in the
syllables ‘tania. They have tried Mauritania and Lusitania and
Aquitania; can Oceanus help them to any other ? Oceanus
answers that they have arrived at Albion, named after his own
son ; but, at this point, a vision of the moon, 'discovered in the
upper part of the house,' as a beautiful queen on a throne, makes
Niger 'interrupt Oceanus with this present passion': 'O see, our
silver star,' he begins. The Aethiopians, of course, worshipped
the moon as Aethiopia ; and this is Aethiopia herself come to tell
them that this is the land they are seeking. It is ruled by a sun
Whose beams shine day and night and are of force,
To blanch an Æthiop and revive a corse.
King James is the sun :
His light sciential is, and, past mere nature,
Can salve the rude defects of every creature.
>


## p. 343 (#361) ############################################

Jonson's Masque of Blacknesse
343
6
Then comes the main dance of the masquers. When it is
finished, and the masquers are about 'to make choice of their
men, one from the sea was heard to call them with this Charm,
sung by a tenor voice. ' The song very aptly bids the sirens of the
sea beware of the sirens of the land. After the measures and
corantos with the men, which are the revels,' the ladies 'were
again accited to sea with a song of two trebles whose cadences
were iterated by a double echo from several parts of the land. '
The echo song over, Aethiopia gives a receipt for removing ‘this
veil the sun has cast Above your blood'; and the masquers 'in a
dance returned to sea where they took their Shell, and with this
full song went out. '
We have said that this is not one of the best of Jonson's
masques. The general conception is richly poetical ; but he
writes the heroic couplet awkwardly, the rimes are very harsh
and the addresses of Oceanus and Niger are stiff. The arrange-
ment of the songs is admirable ; but their effect must have de-
pended more upon the music and singing than the words. There
is a lack of charm in the workmanship when we compare it with
later work, or even with the earlier entertainments; but this makes
only more apparent the contrast in method between this masque
and Daniel's. The latter, in the main, is a description of the
masquers ; Jonson perceives the absurdity of describing to the
audience what they can see for themselves. Since he has no
elaborate description, he must invent some incident, and, accord-
ingly, we have Niger's journey, his colloquy with Oceanus and the
appearance of Aethiopia—all ingeniously contrived to compliment
king James. For the use of those who did not see the masque,
a prose description of the 'landtschape,' the dresses of the masquers
and the scenic arrangements—a fine piece of terse English—is
prefixed to the actual words; and we are told in a short foreword
that 'it was her majesty's will to have the masquers blackmoors
at first. This curious desire of the queen and her ladies is the
starting-point of Jonson's scheme of Niger, whose people are the
blackest nation of the world? '
There were no court masques in the beginning of 1606 and
1607; but Jonson was a second time requisitioned for the masque
of 10 January 1608. The queen wanted the daughters of Niger
1. At first' must not be taken to mean in the first part of the masque. ' This
would introduce an antimasque too soon ; we must paraphrase, “it was originally her
majesty's will. '
? For other sources of Jonson's ideas, see Reyher, p. 161.
2


## p. 344 (#362) ############################################

344 Masque and Pastoral
again, with ‘their beauties varied according to promise,' and four
ladies added to their number. The Masque of Beauty, therefore, is
a continuation of The Masque of Blacknesse. Master Thomas Giles
'made the dances,' which were exceptionally elaborate, and per-
sonated the river Thamesis. The six steps before the throne were
occupied by the torchbearers—'a multitude of Cupids, chosen
out of the best and most ingenious youth of the Kingdom, noble
and others.
' Here, unconsciously, the device of the antimasque is
anticipated. As in some other masques, the torchbearers wear a
distinctive dress, which makes them at once a kind of antimasque.
Moreover, The Masque of Beauty, in itself, is a contrast to The
Masque of Blacknesse, and their relation must have helped Jonson
to reach that theory of the antimasque which is fully developed
in his third court masque, The Masque of Queens. But, before
going on to this, we have to consider two masques written for
weddings.
Jonson's share in the solemnities which celebrated the marriage'
of the earl of Essex, Robert Devereux, and Frances Howard', on
5 January 1606, was the masque Hymenaei, printed with a careful
account of the whole arrangement of the dresses and spectacle in
the same year. This, therefore, is the first full-grown masque as
distinguished from an entertainment which he published. The
introductory note shows the high ideals with which Jonson took up
the composition of masques. It braced and encouraged his genius
to feel that he was producing work to be presented by the highest
notabilities of the realm, the queen herself taking the lead.
It is a noble and just advantage,' he says, 'that the things subjected to
understanding have of those which are objected to sense; that the one sort
are but momentary and merely taking; the other, impressing and lasting:
else the glory of all these solemnies had perished like a blaze, and gone out,
in the beholders' eyes : so short-lived are the bodies of all things in com-
parison of their souls. '
This consideration has made royal princes and greatest persons,
who are commonly the personators of these actions, not only
'studious of riches and magnificence in the outward celebration
or shew,' but, also,
6
curious after the most high and hearty inventions to furnish the inward
parts, and those grounded upon antiquity and solid learning; which thongh
their voice be taught to sound to present occasions, their sense or doth or
should always lay hold on more removed mysteries.
1 It was dissolved on the ground of nullity, and the lady was married again to the
favourite of James, Robert Carr, earl of Somerset.
9 The earl of Suffolk's second daughter.


## p. 345 (#363) ############################################

>
Jonson's Annotations to his Masques 345
This is an admirable statement of what we find in Jonson's
earlier masques. The splendour and ingenuity of the spectacle
set forth some central idea, the characters are taken mainly from
classical literature, and the details of their dress and equipment
are all minutely accurate—that is to say, Jonson is ready to quote
the passage which sanctions his choice. Six masques—the three
already named, the second wedding masque, The Masque of Queens
and The Masque of Augures—are elaborately annotated by him? .
In the dedication of The Masque of Queens to prince Henry, we
are told that the prince? asked for this annotating and, accord-
ingly, it is in this instance that Jonson is most copious. It has,
he says, proved a work of some difficulty to me to retrieve the
particular authorities to those things, which I writ out of fulness
and memory of my former readings. ' We can hardly believe,
though Jonson would seem to hint as much, that he composed
these masques without a most diligent ransacking of all the
classical authors within his reach ; but, after making this deduc-
tion from his claim, his annotations remain astonishing, and of
special and unique interest as an exhibition of the scholarship
of an Elizabethan man of letters. Jonson did nothing carelessly ;
and these notes set a standard of style and establish annotation as
a branch of English literature. It is hardly necessary to add that
they throw a flood of light upon the culture of the time. The intro-
duction to Hymenaei denounces the folly of those who squeamishly
cry out that all endeavour of learning and sharpness in these tran-
sitory devices, is superfluous. This, doubtless, is a gird at Daniel,
who, in his Twelve Goddesses, had spoken slightingly of 'whosoever
strives to shew most wit about these punctilios of dreams and
shews. ' Jonson insists that the masque is to draw its types and
personages from classical mythology, and considers 'a few Italian
herbs, picked up and made into a sallad’a meal much too light
for a scholar. Hymenaei begins with a bridal procession, very
carefully arranged according to ancient Roman ritual, and con-
ceived as a sacrifice of the bride and bridegroom to the goddess
Juno or Unio. It is ushered in by Hymen, who is said to have
been personated by Jonson himself. Hymen, having addressed
>
1 He supplied notes, first of all, to his account of the coronation entertainment in
London, which he and Dekker devised.
Jonson also mentions the fact in his autograph address to the queen, written in
the copy presented to her, now in the British Museum library.
; Fleay's conjecture; because Pory, describing the masque, says that 'Ben Jonson
barned the globe of earth standing behind the altar. '


## p. 346 (#364) ############################################

346
Masque and Pastoral
6
the royalties seated in the state, 'the first masque of eight men’
appears out of a microcosm or globe marvellously planned in
its movement and adornment. These nobles personate the four
Humours, and the four Affections, who propose to disturb the
marriage ceremonial; whereupon, Hymen invokes Reason's aid to
curb the rudeness of the masquers. They are, therefore, a kind
of antimasque. Reason descends from the summit of the globe,
and, at his admonition, the Humours and Affections sheathe their
swords. Then, the upper part of the scene, which was all of
clouds and made artificially to swell and ride like the rack,' began
to open. Juno is discovered with eight of her nuptial powers,
each bearing one of her surnames, as used by classical writers.
The eight nymphs dance out in pairs led by Order, who is Reason's
servant. These ladies form the second masque. After dancing
alone, they pair with the men masquers, and the whole sixteen
dance, 'with this song provoked':
Now, now begin to set
Your spirits in active heat,
And since your hands are met,
Instruct your nimble feet,
In motions swift and sweet,
The happy ground to beat.
Jonson had prepared an epithalamion of fifteen eight-lined stanzas,
admirably translated from Catullus; but 'only one staff was
sung,' the company being exhausted by the length and elaboration
of the performance. The poet, however, ‘sets it down whole'
when he prints—and I do heartily forgive their ignorance whom
it chanceth not to please. '
While this masque does not reach the highest level of Jonson's
achievement, it is yet a beautiful and dignified composition, only
less charming than his next marriage masque, produced for the
marriage of lord Haddington? on 9 February 1608, at which Venus,
instead of Juno, is the presiding goddess. She appears in her
chariot at the top of the scene, and, descending on foot with the
three graces, declares that Cupid has disappeared and that she
must have him cried, "and all his virtues told. ' The verses in
which the three graces 'cry' Cupid, ‘Venus' runaway,' are the per-
fection of grace and lightness : a sprightlier opening to a masque
could hardly be imagined. As the verses end, Cupid discovers
himself, 'attended with twelve boys, most antickly attired, that
represented the Sports and pretty Lightnesses, that accompany
1 Called, by Gifford, The Hue and Cry after Cupid.


## p. 347 (#365) ############################################

Masque at Lord Haddington's Marriage 347
a
Love. ' Cupid gives the order to his ‘little jocund Sports '-—'with
your revel fill the room'; whereupon
they fell into a subtle capricious dance to as odd a music, each of them
bearing two torches, and nodding with their antic faces, with other variety
of ridiculous gesture which gave much occasion of mirth and delight to the
spectators.
But these boys are not the masquers. In the forewords of his
next masque—The Masque of Queens—Jonson calls them 'an
anti-masque of boys'; but his first conception of them made them
a dance of antics, who perform no true measures but a 'revel' of
‘ridiculous gesture. ' A dance of antics, in which the performers
wore absurd or monstrous masks, was not unknown in Elizabeth's
time? This, however, means only that Jonson does not reach a full
realisation of the antimasque until The Masque of Queens. The
torch-bearing Cupids of The Masque of Beauty, the contrast
between this and The Masque of Blacknesse, the contrast of the
two sets of masquers in the masque Hymenaei, and, finally, the
twelve boys in antic attire of The Hue and Cry after Cupid, are
the gradual steps by which the idea of the antimasque was reached
in Jonson's mind. After the dance of the twelve boys, Cupid is
about to explain what he has been doing when Hymen intervenes
and introduces the king to Venus as the modern pius Aeneas,
relating how the bridegroom of this great wedding has saved
his monarch's life, and expatiating upon the virtues of the bride.
Venus is further overwhelmed by the appearance of Vulcan, at
whose command, the red cliff at the end of the hall is cloven
apart, revealing the wonderful globe in which are the masquers
as the twelve signs of the zodiac. All the twelve are ingeniously
explained as
Sacred powers
That are presiding at all nuptial hours.
Inasmuch as in the 18th book of the Iliad, Vulcan's gifts for
Thetis were 'twenty tripods or stools with golden wheels to move
of themselves miraculously,' Jonson, regarding this passage 'a
most elegant place and worthy the tenth reading,' makes the
dances of the masquers signify the magic stools of Vulcan. Two
Cyclopes, as the masquers danced, beat a time to them with
their hammers. ' An epithalamion of seven verses comes at the
end ; and, this time, the poet insured the recitation of the whole
1 In Munday's John a Kent and John a Cumber there is a merry antique showe,
in which four antics dance (Collier's edition, pp. 31—34).
? At the time of the Gowrie conspiracy.
3 The bride was lady Elizabeth Radcliffe, danghter of the earl of Sussex.
6


## p. 348 (#366) ############################################

348
Masque and Pastoral
of it by the device of putting four dances by his masquers
'full of elegancy and curious device' between the verses. "The
two latter dances were made by Master Thomas Giles, the two
first by Master Hier. Herne,' who were the Cyclopes. "The tunes
were Master Alphonso Ferrabosco's. The device and act of the
scene Master Inigo Jones's. ' The epithalamion is a noble lyric,
which prepares our ears for the more wonderful music of Milton.
Again and again, in the verse of Jonson's masques, we find work-
manship afterwards elaborated and improved upon by Milton,
between whom and the Elizabethans Jonson is the true link.
His ardour and idealism prepare us for the deeper spiritual
sublimity of the puritan poet. These two wedding masques have
a special charm of their own, and the second of them is the finest
of its kind in the language.
We come now to The Masque of Queens—the third masque
written for queen Anne-in which, as we have said, the idea of the
antimasque is fully reached by Jonson and definitely stated by
him in his commentary. It was presented at Whitehall on
2 February 1609, and immediately printed by prince Henry's com-
mand. The dedication to the prince is worthy of comparison with
the dedication, two years earlier, of Volpone to the universities.
The same lofty note is struck ; 'poetry, my lord, is not born with
every man, nor every day’; and the poet goes on to explain that
because 'the nobility of the invention should be answerable to
the dignity' of the persons taking part in the masque, he
chose the argument to be A celebration of honourable and true Fame, bred
out of Virtue, observing that rule of the best artist 1, to suffer no object of
delight to pass without his mixture of profit and example.
This combination of the moralist and idealist is characteristic of
Jonson in all his art, but it forms the very soul of his masques
and gives meaning and dignity to all their glitter and mechanism.
He now gives us his definition of the antimasque.
And because her majesty (best knowing that a principle part of life in
these spectacles lay in their variety) had commanded me to think on some
dance or shew that might precede hers and have the place of a foil or false
masque, I was carefula to decline, not only from others, but mine own
steps in that kind, since the last year I had an anti-masque of boys; and
therefore now devised that twelve women in the habit of hags or witches,. . .
the opposites to good Fame, should fill that part; not as a masque but as a
spectacle of strangeness.
8
1 Horace's maxim is meant, Omne tulit punctum qui miscuit utile dulci, Ars Poet.
343.
2 Fleay is certainly right in explaining «Careful to decline' as='afraid of de-
clining' (English Drama, vol. 11, p. 4). See Careful, 5,' in Oxford Dictionary.
6


## p. 349 (#367) ############################################

The Masque of Queens 349
To make a band of witches the foil or opposite of a band of
heroines is a striking thought, and interesting from the light it
throws upon the general conception of the witch in Jacobean
times. The idea took a strong hold of Jonson's mind and, in
his masque, he worked it out with energy. The witches of the
masque hold their own beside even the weird sisters of Macbeth.
They are the witches of popular superstition, and Jonson's excep-
tionally elaborate annotations show the close agreement between
these superstitions in ancient and modern times. Jonson's witches
with a kind of hollow and infernal music came forth' from 'an
ugly Hell. ' There were eleven, with their dame. After a dance,
each one relates her misdeeds to the dame, who proposes that
they shall try to blast with their wicked incantations the glory of
the masque that is beginning :
Darken all this roof
With present fogs: exhale Earth's rot'nest vapours,
And strike a blindness through these blazing tapers.
They fall into 'a magical dance, full of preposterous change and
gesticulation? ' The loud music of the real masque interrupts
them, driving the witches back into hell and disclosing the mag-
nificent house of Fame in which the twelve true masquers are
seated. Heroic Virtue, 'in the furniture of Perseus,' explains the
heroines, who are twelve great queens, beginning with Penthesilea
and ending with Bel-Anna. The lyric at the close, “Who Virtue
can thy power forget,' influenced the ending of Comus. In
the witch scene, Jonson's wonderful power of specialising as a
dramatist—of 'getting up' a particular trade, or profession—is
shown to perfection. Elsewhere, we occasionally miss in him the
fire of imagination required for blending the accumulations and
observation of his intellect into a vitally artistic product; but, in
the present instance, his imagination is at its height, and he puts
out his full strength. The third charm conveys powerfully the
horrid thrill that was the soul of the witch superstitions, and that
depended for its force upon all things ugly and foul in nature.
The owl is abroad, the bat, and the toad,
And so is the cat-a-mountain,
The ant and the mole sit both in a hole,
And the frog peeps out o' the fountain;
1 It must have been impressive. The witches do all things at their meetings
'contrary to the custom of men, dancing back to back, and hip to hip, their hands
joined and making their circles backward, to the left hand, with strange fantastic
motions of their heads and bodies. All which were excellently imitated by the maker
of the dance, Master Hierome Herne. '


## p. 350 (#368) ############################################

350
Masque and Pastoral
The dogs they do bay and the timbrels play,
The spindle is now a turning;
The moon it is red, and the stars are fled,
But all the sky is a burning :
The ditch is made and our nails the spade,
With pictures full, of wax and of wool;
Their livers I stick with needles quick;
There lacks but the blood, to make up the flood,
Quickly, Dame, then bring your part in,
Spur, spur, upon little Martin1.
Jonson, having reached a clear idea of the antimasque, did not go
back upon it. But this antimasque quite eclipses its masque.
The queens are mere wax-works after the witches. Jonson's
imagination concentrated itself upon the first half of his work.
Perhaps he left it to Inigo Jones to supply, by the magic of his
scenery, the necessary contrast ; in Jonson's own work, certainly,
this is not done. If the second part had been carried out with
the imaginative intensity of the first, this masque would have
formed the prototype of an artistic species of great and enduring
significance.
In 1610, Daniel supplied the masque for the court, and his
Tethys' Festival shows no advance upon The Vision of the Twelve
Goddesses. In 1611, Jonson is again at work: on 1 January
1611, he produced Oberon at Whitehall for prince Henry, and, in
the beginning of February, Love freed from Ignorance and Folly
for queen Anne. Oberon is
Oberon is a most delightful masque.
The
opening is written in dainty octosyllabic verse and elaborates into
a charming antimasque the part of the satyr in the entertainment
already described. This antimasque made a distinct impression
upon the literature of the day? Oberon may be taken as an
almost perfect example of the first kind of Jonsonian masque,
in
which the antimasque is not so much ‘a foil or false masque' as an
antic-masque, something lighter and less dignified than the main
masque, but in keeping with it rather than in contrast, and not
yet, in any true sense, dramatic. The grace, balance and finish of
the whole composition are beyond praise. Unfortunately, this is
the last masque annotated by Jonson for the 1616 folio; his notes
stop in it halfway, before he reaches prince Oberon. The only later
masque which he annotated was The Masque of Augures, specially
printed as the first masque presented in the new banqueting hall
1
1 Their little Martin is he that calls them to their conventicles. They find him in
the shape of a great buck goat upon whom they ride to their meetings. '
2 See Reyher, Les Masques Anglais, p. 324. It is conjectured that the three dancers
of The Winter's Tale, act iv, sc. 4, 329, had been among Jonson's satyrs.


## p. 351 (#369) ############################################

Jonson's Development of the Presenter 351
at Whitehall. Love Freed is a companion piece to Oberon, but
inferior to it in conception and workmanship.
If January 1612 be the date of Love Restored, it is important
for the student of the masque.
Jonson innovated again on
previous practice. The masque proper is preceded, not by an
antimasque, but by a scene of excellent comedy. The scene is
the development in a new style of the part of the presenter, and
still gives to that character the larger part of the dialogue, which
is in prose. Just as the satyr of the first entertainment was the
germ of the antimasque of Oberon, so the prose of Pan and his
dialogue with Mercury in the second entertainment may have
prompted this scene. The king and court being ready, Masquerado
enters to declare that there can be no masque, 'the rogue play-
boy, that acts Cupid, is got so hoarse, your majesty cannot hear
him half the breadth of your chair. ' But Plutus, 'as Cupid,' here
interrupts, ordering Masquerado off. What makes this light,
feathered vanity here? Away, impertinent folly! Infect not this
assembly. Plutus objects to the expense of the masque: 'I tell
thee, I will have no more masquing ; I will not buy a false and
fleeting delight so dear: the merry madness of one hour shall not
cost me the repentance of an age. ' But, here, Plutus is interrupted
in his turn by Robin Goodfellow, who is aghast at the news of
there not being any masque. He declares,
I am the honest plain country spirit, and harmless; Robin Goodfellow, he
that sweeps the hearth and the house clean, riddles for the country maids,
and does all their other drudgery, while they are at hot-cockles: one that
has discoursed with your court spirits ere now; but was fain to-night to run
a thousand hazards to arrive at this place: never poor goblin was so put to
his shifts to get in to see nothing.
Plutus will not listen : 'Your rude good-fellowship must seek
some other sphere for your admitty. ' Robin's answer is a triumph
of comic description. It puts before us all the crush and crowding,
all the tricks and pretences, which were a part of the fierce
competition to get a place at these great court masques. Robin
has been hit over the head by the porter, and shoved off a ladder
by one of the guards; then he tried the carpenters' way,' but
'the wooden rogues let a huge trap-door fall on my head. ' He
thought of getting in in a trunk, 'but that I would not imitate
so catholic a coxcomb as Coryat. ' So he tried disguises. 'I was
an engineer and belonged to the motions'; then, 'an old tire-
woman’; then,'a musician-marry, I could not shew mine instru-
ment and that bred a discord’; then,
6
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## p. 352 (#370) ############################################

352 Masque and Pastoral
a feather-maker of Blackfriars, . . . but they all made as light of me, as of my
feathers; and wondered how I could be a Puritan, being of so rain a---
vocation; I answered, We are all masquers sometimes.
At last, 'with my broom and my candles,' he was himself, 'and
came on confidently, giving out I was a part of the Device. ' This
admirable speech exhibits Jonson's comic power in its most genial
and, therefore, most delightful vein. When Plutus goes on pro-
testing against the expense of masques as “superfluous excesses,'
Masquerado and Robin detect him for an impostor— Plutus, the god
of money, who has stolen Love's ensigns. At this point, the real
Cupid enters in his chariot 'guarded with the Masquers, in number
ten,' who, says Cupid, were 'the spirits of courts and flower of
men. ' But, here again, the masque, as it has come down to us, is
quenched by its antimasque. That antimasque, quite frankly, is a
dramatic scene, although the long harangue of Robin Goodfellow
may be called only a modification of the presenter's oration, and
the colloquy is suggested rather by what was customary at an
entertainment than by the new idea of the antimasque.
In Jonson's remaining masques, there are many similar scenes,
and they are all admirable. But their right to a place in the
masque may be called in question. They represent the intrusion
of drama into masque, and it may be contended that Jonson
never succeeds in evolving a type of masque which really absorbs
them. The plays of Aristophanes afford an example on the
grandest scale of the kind of artistic product that is aimed at,
and Jonson, in the scene we have just criticised and in other
places in his masques, is Aristophanic in his combination of robust
naturalism with imaginative fancy. Another consideration must
be kept in mind. The masquers themselves were always the
highest notables of the land, and, therefore, of course, amateurs
in everything but dancing. The nobleman could dance exquisitely,
but he might not act. This fact, of itself, prevented the develop-
ment in a dramatic direction of the real masque. But the
presenters and the allegoric personages who explained the masque
were, usually, professionals, and the antimasque, when it came, was
performed very largely by professionals. This is why the develop-
ment of the antimasque in a dramatic direction was easy, and why
the real coherence of masque and antimasque when the dramatic
element intruded was impossible.
The development of the Jonsonian masque is now complete,
although we have not yet considered half his work. Broadly
speaking, there are two types of Jonsonian masque : the masque
a


## p. 353 (#371) ############################################

Thomas Campion
353
proper, in which the antimasque is a foil to the masque; and the
;
masque improper, in which the antimasque is a dramatic scene.
But the masque proper may be said to include two species ; that
in which the antimasque is an antic-masque, and that in which it
is a true foil or opposite of the masque.
The date 1612, which we have now reached, offers a suitable
occasion for considering shortly the work of certain other masque
writers, since Jonson wrote no masque for the January and
February of 1613.
The death of prince Henry in November 1612 plunged the
nation into great grief. Nevertheless, in three months' time, it
welcomed, as an excuse for throwing off its gloom, the marriage
of the princess Elizabeth to the elector Palatine. The festivities
on this occasion were of an unparalleled magnificence and cost.
It was arranged that, on the evening of the wedding, being Sunday
14 February, the courtiers should present the first masque, known
since as The Lords Masque, and written by Thomas Campion,
and that, on the two following evenings, the inns of court should
present masques. So exhausted were the king and court generally
by the elaborate proceedings, that the third masque had to be put
off till the 20th of the month. The second masque-The Masque
of the Middle Temple and Lyncolnes Inn—was written by George
Chapman, and the third—The Masque of Grayes-Inne and the
Inner-Temple-by Francis Beaumont. Jonson said to Drummond
that 'next himself only Fletcher and Chapman could make a
masque? ' Probably, he had Beaumont's masque in his mind, as
we have no record of a masque by Fletcher. But Campion, rather
than either Chapman or Beaumont, deserves the next place
longo intervallo to Jonson? The Lords' Masque has an anti-
masque of 'Frantics. ' These are such characters as the lover,
the self-lover, the melancholic man, the schoolman overcome with
fantasy, the over-watched usurer, with others that made an absolute
medley of madness. These ‘Lunatics' danced 'a mad measure
fitted to a loud fantastic tune,' after which the music changed
to a solemn air, which drove out the 'Frantics. ' Prometheus
displays eight stars shining and dancing—a kind of second anti-
masque of stars. "The stars moved in an exceeding strange and
delightful manner, and I suppose few have ever seen more neat
artifice than Master Inigo Jones shewed in contriving their motion. '
6
1 Jonson's Conversations with Drummond (ed. Laing, D. ), p. 4. It is curious that
Jonson gives The Faithfull Shepheardesse to Fletcher and Beaumont.
? For a general account of Campion's life and work, see ante, vol.