No More Learning

The leading dramatists were pressed into the service of
masque and pageant, and contributed an element to the spectacle
which, in many cases, has survived. The words supplied to pageants
and masques by Munday and Middleton, by Campion, Chapman,
Beaumont and Brown and, above all, by Jonson, form a small, but
very interesting, appendix to the many volumes of the drama.
The extant masques have considerable literary merits, and they ! 1
lead on to Milton's Comus, in which masque expands into pastoral: ;
with pastoral, generally, they have an important connection. But,
in studying masques as a literary form, we have to bear in mind
that we are not dealing with essential masque. Even Ben Jonson's
words are not much more than the stick of the rocket after the
firework has flamed and faded. Essential masque was the appeal
of the moment to the eye and the ear, the blaze of colour and
light, the mist of perfume, the succession of rapidly changing
scenes and tableaux, crowded with wonderful and beautiful figures.
All the gods of Olympus, all the monsters of Tartarus, all the
heroes of history, all the ladies of romance, the fauns, the satyrs,
the fairies, the witches—all these were presented to the eye, while
every kind of musical instrument charmed the ear, and eye and
ear together were delighted by an elaboration of dance and
measured motion which has never been known since. We have
put away these childish things : but our maturity has elaborated
no art equally joyous and whole-hearted. The actual remains
of the masque with the careful description of the scenes, written,
afterwards, in cold blood by the deviser, even though that deviser
were Jonson himself, are but broken meats of a banquet that
is over.
The curious modern reaches a direct and adequate conception
of the vanished splendour and joy, and is enabled to comprehend
clearly the medieval instinct, only when the medieval passion for
masque and pageant receives imaginative expression in the work
of a great descriptive poet. Such a poet there was, but he was
not a dramatist. Spenser came before the drama. The masque


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Masque and Pastoral
was not drama; in many respects, it was the antithesis of drama.
Dramatists who wrote while the masque was still alive often,
in some metaphor or description, thrill us with a touch of its
glamour. Shakespeare, for instance, regards the masque as a
pol of the evanescent. This world and all its inhabitants
shall dissolve
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind.
The words express negatively the delight of the spectator in the
show by exhibiting his dismay that it must stop—'Our revels now
are ended. ' But we require a positive description, in which the
masque is not what it must be to the dramatist, unreal and un-
satisfying ; rather, on the contrary, the expression of life's wonder
and joy. This positive description is given us with extraordinary
power and fulness in Spenser's Faerie Queene, especially in the
first three books, which were published in 1590, before English
drama had developed its strength.
But, before we touch upon the relation of Spenser's art to the
masque, we must attempt to summarise the history of masque and
pageant before his time. The masque, like the drama, runs back
into remote antiquity, and we must make an effort to conceive
of masque as it was practised in England during the fifteenth and
sixteenth centuries, if we are to understand clearly what a masque
was, and what modifications it underwent while, in Ben Jonson's
hands, it was the main amusement of the English court and
nobility. Out of numerous accounts of masques that have come
down to us, we may take two as typical of the kind of enter-
tainments which, by their combination, finally produced the true
masque. For the first, we will go back to the fourteenth century.
Edward III died on 2 January 1377. On the second of February
following, being Candlemas day, the Commons of London made
great sporte and solemnity' in honour of his successor, prince
Richard, who was lodged with his mother and the leading nobles
of the realm at the palace in the royal manor of Kennington,
which had been a favourite residence of the Black prince. “At
night and in the night,' a cavalcade of 130 men, 'disguizedly
aparailed and well mounted on horsebacke to goe on mumming,
rode ‘from Newgate through Cheape over London Bridge to
Kennington. They went ‘with great noyse of minstralsye, trumpets,
cornets and shawmes, and great plenty of waxe torches lighted. '
First came 48 esquires, two and two, “in cotes and clokes of red
say or sendall, and their faces covered with vizards well and
6
1


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6
Mummings and Disguisings 331
handsomely made'; next followed 48 knights, 'well arayed after
the same maner'; then a single figure, 'as he had bene an
emperor'; then another single figure, 'as a pope'; after him,
24 'arayed like Cardinals'; and, last, 8 or 10 with black vizardes
like devils, nothing amiable, seeming like legates. ' On reaching
the palace, all alighted and entered the hall, into which presently
came the prince, his mother and the leading nobles, whom the
said mummers saluted'; the mummers then proceeded to play
with a pair of prepared dice with the prince and other gentry for
valuable gifts. When the gifts had all been won, the prince and
the lordes danced on the one side and the mummers on the other
a great while,' and then they drank and took their leave and
departed to London.
In this account, we have what is probably the oldest and
simplest form of what is afterwards the masque! It is called
'a mumming,' and the performers are ‘mummers. ' The word
means that the disguised performers say nothing that would
betray their identity. They dice in silence, using only dumb show
where they wish to signify their meaning. But they are all
disguised with vizards, the old word for mask; they are accom-
panied by musicians ; they dance together among themselves when
their ‘mumming' business is over and torchbearers conduct them
on their way. Simple as their scheme was, the entry of masked
mummers with blare of trumpets and blaze of torches into the
great banqueting hall must have been highly picturesque. The
impressiveness of the moment is splendidly given by the drama-
tist :
Night, like a masque, is entered heaven's great hall,
With thousand torches ushering the way2!
а
>
In this particular ‘mumming,' the vizarded procession repre-
sented the emperor and pope as coming with attendant knights
and cardinals to greet the uncrowned king. When a 'mumming'
was regarded from the point of view of the dress assumed by the
'mummers,' it was called a 'disguising'; and, by the sixteenth
century, this name quite superseded the other, as, in the seven-
teenth century, it was itself superseded by 'masque’; so that Ben
Jonson, in 1622, makes Notch aver, ‘Disguise was the old English
word for a masque, Sir'; to which the groom of the revels answers,
"There is no such word in the office now, I assure you, Sir;
6
6
1 We shall use this spelling for the spectacle, and mask' for a vizard.
? The Insatiate Countesse, at end.


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332
Masque and Pastoral
I have served here, man and boy, a prenticeship or twain, and
I should know1. '
'Mumming' came to be applied particularly to the custom,
practised usually at Christmas time, of going round in masking
habit from house to house and gaming with dice; the game itself
was called 'mumchance. There are many allusions to it in the
Elizabethan dramatists. Finally, we may notice in this example of
a disguising, the '8 or 10 with black vizardes, like devils, nothing
amiable’; these are the germ of the Jonsonian antimasque.
For our second typical instance, let us go to the reign of
Henry VII in the year 1501. The marriage of prince Arthur to
Katharine of Arragon was celebrated in London with great magni-
ficence. The walls of Westminster hall were 'richly banged with
pleasant clothes of arras,' and, in the upper end, had ‘a Royall
and great Cupboard’ erected, upon which was displayed a 'goodly
and rich treasure of plate. ' The king and queen took their
seats 'under their Clothes of Estate,' and all the nobility 'were
ordered in their Roomes. ' To this great assembly entered a
'most goodly and pleasant disguising, convayed and shewed in
pageantes proper and subtile': of which the first was a Castle
right cunningly devised sett uppon certaine wheeles and drawne
into the said great hall of fower great beastes with chaines of
gold. ' The beasts were two lions, a hart and an ibex, personated,
each one of them, by two men. In the castle were 'disguised
VIII goodly and fresh ladyes looking out of the windowes of
the same,' and, in the turrets, 'fowre children singing most
sweetly and harmoniously. The castle was drawn into the
hall and up to the king's state? , and then set on one side to allow
of the entry of a second car, this time 'a shippe,' having 'her
mastes toppes sayles her tackling and all other apperteynances
necessary unto a seemely vessel as though it had been sayling. '
The ship cast anchor in front of the king, next the castle. On
board the ship was a lady, in apparel like to the princess of Spain.
Hope and Desire go from the ship to the castle as ambassadors
from the knights of the mount of Love; but the ladies in the
castle will have nothing to say to the knights. 'Incontinent came
in the third Pageant,' a mountain, with eight knights upon it, to
whom the ambassadors recounted their ill-success with the ladies.
Thereupon, the knights make a great show of assaulting the castle,
and the ladies surrender. The cars are wheeled back, and the
knights and ladies daunced together divers and many goodly
· The Masque of Augures.
2 The royal seat.


## p. 333 (#351) ############################################

Masque under Henry VII and VIII 333
dances. ' The cars then came back for the masquers and took
them away; after which, prince Arthur and his bride and other
distinguished people in the audience danced, including young
prince Henry and his sister Margaret. This 'disguising' was
succeeded on the following evenings by three others, nearly as
elaborate as the first. The whole display makes it quite clear
that the early sixteenth century had not much to learn from the
early seventeenth. The splendour of these shows reached a high
water mark in the reign of Henry VIII, and then, again, in the
reign of James I, when the mechanical and artistic genius of Inigo
Jones introduced new contrivances and a more elaborate arrange-
ment of scenery, suppressing almost entirely the processional
character of the masque and the early car.
Our second example of a masque has added to the first the
important item of the pageant or car. This, of course, suggests
a connection between the 'disguising' and the medieval miracle-
plays, which were performed on the movable waggon called a
pageant. It is easy to see how the grandeur of the cavalcade
would be increased if the emperor and pope were put in cars.
In the British Museum, there is a design by Albert Dürer, dated
1522, of a triumphal car for Maximilian, which may serve as an
illustration of the way in which a car would become a 'pageant'-
an elaborate structure to hold masquers. This pageant, as the
above example shows, is capable of very varied developments.
But, as the car becomes more elaborate, it cannot easily form
part of a long procession; to draw it the length of the hall taxes
the ingenuity of the carpenters; and, finally, it becomes stationary,
suggesting something approximating to the modern stage at one
end of the hall. The car, moreover, when it is a ship or a
lanthorn or a 'herbour,' requires some explanation; and an
exposition of the device of the car is added to the original
dance of the masquers. This is the masque in its simplest
outline
certain men or women disguised, who arrive in some
setting which corresponds to their dress, and which has to be
explained before they dance their measures ; they retire as they
came.
The disguisings had an extraordinary vogue under Henry VIII,
and they found a historian whose prose descriptions have hardly
received the attention which their great merit deserves. Edward
Hall was a lawyer and a politician. His parents were in sympathy
with advanced reformers. He affords, therefore, a remarkable
instance of the passion for pageant displaying itself in a hard-
1


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334
Masque and Pastoral
headed political trimmer, bred up in a sober and serious middle-
class family. Pageant was Hall's one passion. His English style
takes on a new distinction when he begins to describe the splendid
succession of festivities which distinguished the reign of Henry VIII.
His masterpiece is, perhaps, his account of the Field of the Cloth
of Gold; but, everywhere, thanks to his enthusiasm, his accounts
of masques and entertainments are gorgeously coloured and won-
derfully full of movement.
He is the writer who notes the coming of the word 'masque. '
On the evening of Epiphany, 1512,
the kyng with a XI other wer disguised, after the maner of Italie, called a
maske, a thyng not seen afore in Englande; thei were appareled in garmentes
long and brode, wrought all with gold, with visers and cappes of gold, and
after the banket doen, these Maskers came in, with sixe gentlemen disguised
in silke, bearing staffe torches, and desired the ladies to daunce, some were
content, and some that knewe the fashion of it refused, because it was not a
thyng commonly seen. And after thei daunced, and commoned together as
the fashion of the Maske 1 is, thei toke their leave and departed, and so did
the Quene and all the ladies2.
This passage raises problems which are still under discussion.
What was the 'thyng not seen afore in Englande? ' What was
the 'thyng not commonly seen,' which made some of the ladies
refuse to dance? In short, what was the difference between the
disguising,' familiar in England for centuries, and this innovation
after the maner of Italie, called a maske'? The probable answer
is that there was a difference in dress which was connected with
a difference in procedure. The masquers not only danced with
one another, but, after their own dance, they chose partners
among the spectators. This introduced into the masque a new
element of courtship and intrigue. For this device to maintain its
proper piquancy, the disguise of the masquer must be complete ;
his costume must, like a domino, conceal any peculiarities of
mien and shape which might betray him if he wore a more
closely-fitting disguise. Whether this sufficiently explains Hall's
language must be considered a question still under discussion ;
but two points are clear. There is a common conviction, both in
France and England, that, in some of its characteristic aspects, the
masque was Italian. Ronsard says that 'masquerade' came from
the Italians, and mentions 'ses vestemens, ses moeurs et ses façons,'
as the things which were copied. Reyher, after quoting Ronsard,
6
1 The edition of 1550 reads · Masques. '
Hall (1548), f. 16rº. For the views that have been expressed on the passage,
consult Reyher's first appendix, in Les Masques Anglais.


## p. 335 (#353) ############################################

Masque in Spenser
335
suggests that this borrowing from Italy took place au moment
des expéditions françaises de la fin du XV. et du début du XVI.
siècle. In our own literature, Marlowe's 'I'll have Italian maskes
by night? ' is familiar. But, secondly, the motive of intrigue,
whatever its derivation, was a most important addition to the
masque's attractiveness. Clearly, it was much appreciated by
Henry VIII. It is a breath of natural drama introduced into
what is essentially undramatic. Because it is natural drama, it
is often the means by which the masque gets a place in dramatic
literature. The masque in Love's Labour's Lost? is delightfully
dramatic, and it is an excellent comment, so far as it applies, on
the passage in Hall. It is in a masque that Romeo loses his heart
to Juliets; and, more interesting still, Henry VIII conceives his
passion for Anne Boleyn, in the same way, in the masque of the
first act of the play. Many other instances* occur in the
dramatists, where this dramatic moment in the masque is utilised.
But, in the masque itself, this item remains an episode upon which
the deviser of the masque never lays his hands ; in Henry VIII's
reign, the undramatic character of the masque shows no sign of
changing.
When we reach the reign of Elizabeth, Spenser's poetry, even
more adequately than Hall's prose, reflects and revives the glory
of the medieval masque and pageant. His genius, in some of
its most characteristic aspects, was exactly fitted to describe and
appreciate the world just beyond the real world with which the
masque dealt. The masque of the Seven Deadly Sins5 and the
masque of Cupido are magnificent examples of the processional
masque. The former shows that the antimasque is implicit in the
masque from the beginning. The house of Temperance and the
attack upon it? recall the knights' onslaught on the castle of
the ladies described above. Such famous descriptions as the cave
of Mammon8 and the bower of Bliss are like the set pieces which
Inigo Jones tried to make real to the eye when the masque
became a fixture at the end of the great hall. There are cantos
in The Faerie Queene in which we seem in spirit to follow the
procession until it reaches the hall, where the full device is
displayed before us in all its intricacy. Spenser's abstractions,
Coelia, Fidelia, Speranza, Charissa, the porter Humiltá of the
i Edward II, act i, sc. 1. ? Act v, 8c. 2. 8 Act I, 80. 5.
• 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


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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.
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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


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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.