Vindicated;' what shall be said of him? The Prince's Masque of 1623 was followed by a very different pageant at Whitehall in 1649. And what had passed between those dates-what death-throes of a dynasty, divisions of a nation!

He nothing common did or mean
Upon that memorable scene,

But with his keener eye

The axe's edge did try;

Nor called the gods, with vulgar spite,
To vindicate his helpless right;

But bowed his comely head

Down as upon a bed.

Pass, once again, to the Masque of Hymen. Through those epithalamial hymns which sounded in the ears of Essex and his bride in 1616, who does not hear the mutterings of destiny and dire disgrace? The Lady Frances Howard was in her fourteenth year. The heir of Elizabeth's and the nation's darling, the young Earl of Essex, was hardly fifteen. Jonson, in his marriage chorus for these children, sang:

And wildest Cupid waking hovers

With adoration 'twixt the lovers.

The girl-wife lived to seek a dishonourable divorce, and to wed the Earl of Somerset, that Carr who made his fortunate début in James's favour on the morning of 'Prince Henry's Barriers.' Tried and condemned for the murder of Sir Thomas Overbury, the lives of this guilty couple were spared by the King's terror of detection. They ended their days in separation, the objects of universal horror. The boy-husband of Jonson's hymeneal pageant was destined to lead the armies of the Parliament against his sovereign, and to sink at last before the power and popularity of Cromwell.

With the advance of years, the tragic irony of these Masques at Court deepens. The last great entertainment of this kind, of which we have any detailed information, was a Masque presented by Charles and Henrietta Maria at Shrovetide 1640. The usual sum of 1,400l. had been granted

TRAGIC IRONY OF WHITEHALL MASQUES

285

additional sum of 1201. What the subject was, But we may believe

for the mounting of the piece; and an was expended on the King's costume. or who wrote the libretto, is not known. that Whitehall presented to the outer eye on this, as on so many previous occasions, a pageant of undimmed magnificence, a scene of undisturbed security. The Monarchy of England, indeed, was tottering already to its fall; the foundations of society were crumbling. Yet, as usual, the hall was crowded with noble men and noble women, exchanging compliments beneath the torches, dancing brawls or galliards as though there were no Pym and Hampden in existence. Those brilliant and bejewelled cavaliers, innocent as yet of civil strife, unstained with fratricidal slaughter, were soon to part, with anger in their breasts and everlasting farewell on their lips, for adverse camps. Gazing in fancy on the women at their side, that voice which De Quincey heard in vision thrills our ears: These are English ladies from the unhappy times of Charles I. These are the wives and daughters of those who met in peace, and sat at the same tables, and were allied by marriage or by blood; and yet, after a certain day in August 1642, never smiled upon each other again, nor met but on the field of battle; and at Marston Moor, at Newbury, or at Naseby, cut asunder all ties of love by the cruel sabre, and washed away in blood the memory of ancient friendship.'

XIV

It remains to note the effects of Masques at Court upon the Drama. Like everything which formed a prominent part of the national life, the Masque was adopted and incorporated into the popular art of the theatres. Shakspere in The Tempest' has left us an example of its most judicious introduction, as a brief interlude, in the conduct of a serious play. A similarly successful instance might be cited from Fletcher's 'False One,' where the Masque of Nilus forms a splendid and agreeable episode. The Bridal Masque in his 'Maid's Tragedy' is not less beautiful and rightly placed. Cupid's

Masque in 'A Wife for a Month' presents the mere silhouette or sketch in outline of a courtly pageant. On the public stage, it was of course necessary that the Masque, exhibited within a play, should be simple in its theme and capable of quick despatch. Webster used a Masque of Madmen with terrible effect at the climax of his Duchess' tragedy. Marston, Tourneur, and other playwrights of the melodrama, as they abused Ghosts for purposes of stage-effect, so did they stretch this motive of the Masque within the Drama beyond just limits. It became the customary device in their hands for disposing of a tyrant.

From the dramatists themselves we learn how City folk and petty gentry crowded to Whitehall on masquing nights.1 Men forgave their debts, and women sold their honour, to obtain a seat. To have a friend at Court among the Ushers or the Porters was the heart's wish of those aspiring citizens who panted to gaze on royalty and aristocracy performing actors' parts upon the stage of a palace. The ante-rooms and galleries of Whitehall became on those occasions a scene of indescribable debauchery and riot. The masques and plays

at Whitehall,' writes Sir Edward Peyton in his 'Divine Catastrophe of the Stuarts,' 'were used only for incentives to lust; therefore the courtiers invited the citizens' wives to those shows on purpose to defile them in such sort.

There is not a lobby nor chamber (if it could speak) but would verify it.' The passages cited from Fletcher and Jonson in a note appended by Dyce to this paragraph, fully corroborate the Puritan's assertion.

Jonson told Drummond at Hawthornden, that 'next himself, only Fletcher and Chapman could make a Masque.' Jonson did not live to welcome Milton's Muse, or he might have added that a fourth Masque-maker had arisen, who combined the art of Fletcher with his own in a new style of incomparably higher poetry. It is clear from indications

1 See, in particular, the Induction to Fletcher's Four Plays in One, the opening of his Humorous Lieutenant, the Maid's Tragedy (acti. sc. 2), A Wife for a Month (act ii. sc. 4), and the introduction to Jonson's Love Restored.

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287

scattered through Milton's works, that the Masques which in his boyhood reached their height of splendour, had powerfully affected his imagination. Both the songs and the discourse of his 'Arcades' reveal, to my mind at least, a careful study on the youthful poet's part of Jonson's work; and I find the influence of Fletcher no less manifest in the lyrics of ' Comus.' The meditative music of the Genius' speech, the incomparable touches of nature-painting scattered through the Arcades,' and the heightened dignity of language which raises this little piece into the region of classical art, place Milton aiready above his masters. But his immeasurable superiority becomes only unmistakable in Comus.' This exquisite composition, in which poetry of the loftiest is blent with philosophy of the purest and the sweetest, bears upon its title-page the name of Masque. But except in the antithetical treatment of the Spirit and the Genius of sensual pleasure; except in the lyrics scattered with a hand not over-liberal through its scenes; 'Comus' challenges no comparison in any ponderable qualities of craftsmanship with those sturdy works of art in which James's Laureate strove with James's architect for fashionable laurels. In the history of English literature, Comus 'remains to show how the scenic elements of the Masque, touching the fancy of a great poet, became converted into flawless poetry beneath his hand. Nominally a Masque, it has really nothing in common with entertainments which demanded bodily presentment' and apparelling' upon the stage. Yet it would probably have never issued from the poet's brain but for shows at Court. Masque and Antimasque, sweeping before his sense, had left their impress upon Milton's fancy. The memories of those fair scenes, whether actually witnessed, or studied in a printed page, dwelt in his mind, emerging later to evoke that fairy fabric of romantic allegory which he called the Masque of Comus. Had the Midsummer's Night's Dream' been composed by Shakspere for courtly theatricals, or the Faithful Shepherdess' by Fletcher for like purpose, this name might with equal propriety have been given to those two pieces.

CHAPTER X

ENGLISH HISTORY

I. The Chronicle Play is a peculiarly English Form-Its Difference from other Historical Dramas-Supplies the Place of the Epic-Treatment of National Annals by the Playwrights.-II. Shakspere's Chronicles -Four Groups of non-Shaksperian Plays on English History.III. Legendary Subjects-Locrine 'The History of King Leir.'IV. Shakspere's Doubtful Plays -Principles of Criticism- The Birth of Merlin.-V. Chronicle-Plays Proper-Troublesome Reign of King John'' True Tragedy of Richard III.'-'Famous Victories of Henry V.' Contention of the Two Famous Houses.'-VI. Edward III.'-The Problem of its Authorship-Based on a Novella and on History-The Superior Development of Situations.-VII. Marlowe's 'Edward II.'-Peele's 'Edward I.'-Heywood's ' Edward IV.'Rowley's Play on Henry VIII.-VIII. The Ground covered by the Chronicle Plays-Their Utility-Heywood's 'Apology' quoted.-IX. Biographies of Political Persons and Popular Heroes-Sir Thomas MoreLord Cromwell '—' Sir John Oldcastle - Schlegel's Opinion criticised-Sir Thomas Wyatt'-Ford's 'Perkin Warbeck'-Last Plays of this Species.-X. English Adventurers- Fair Maid of the West''The Shirley Brothers '-'Sir Thomas Stukeley '- His Life -Dramatised in 'The Famous History' &c.- Battle of Alcazar.'XI. Apocryphal Heroes- Fair Em-Blind Beggar of Bethnal Green-Two Plays on the Robin Hood Legend-English Partiality for Outlaws-Life in Sherwood-' George a Greene'-Jonson's' Sad Shepherd Popularity in England of Princes who have shared the People's Sports and Pastimes.

·

N.B. The Historical Plays discussed in this chapter will be found as follows: Locrine,' The Birth of Merlin,' 'Lord Cromwell,' in the Tauchnitz edition of Shakespeare's 'Doubtful Plays;King Leir,' Troublesome Reign of King John,' 'True Tragedy of Richard III.,' 'Famous Victories of Henry V.,'' Contention of the Two Houses,' in W. C. Hazlitt's' Shakespeare's Library;' 'Edward III.' in Delius'' PseudoShakspere'sche Dramen;' Marlowe's, Peele's, Heywood's Chronicles in Dyce's editions of Marlowe and Peele and Pearson's reprint of Heywood; Rowley's When You See Me, You know Me,' in Karl Elze's reprint; 'Sir Thomas More,' in the Old Shakespeare Society's Publications; 'Sir Thomas Wyatt,' in Dyce's Webster,' and 'Perkin Warbeck' in Gifford's Ford;'The Famous History of Sir Thomas Stukeley' in