[2] Sir Philip Sidney, in his "Defence of Poesy," 1595, alludes to
the custom of writing the supposed locality of each scene over the
stage, and asks, "What child is there that coming to a play, and
seeing _Thebes_ written in great letters on an old door, doth
believe that it is Thebes." As late as the production of Davenant's
_Siege of Rhodes_ (_circa_ 1656), this custom was continued, and is
thus described in the printed edition of the play:--"In the middle
of the frieze was a compartment wherein was written _Rhodes_." In
many instances the spectator was left to infer the locality of the
scene from the dialogue.--"Now," says Sidney, "you shall have three
ladies walke to gather flowers, and then we must believe the stage
to be a garden. By and by we heare newes of shipwracke in the same
place; then we are to blame if we accept it not for a rock." In
Middleton's _Chaste Maid_, 1630, when the scene changes to a
bed-room, "a bed is thrust out upon the stage, Alwit's wife in it;"
which simple process was effected by pushing it through the curtains
that hung across the entrance to the stage, which at that time
projected into the pit.
[3] The play of _Pyramus and Thisbe_, performed by the clowns in
Shakspeare's _Midsummer Night's Dream_, is certainly constructed in
burlesque of characters in court Masques, which sometimes were as
difficult to be made comprehensible to an audience as "the clowns of
Athens" found _Wall_ and _Moonshine_ to be.
[4] It is due to a great poet like Ben Jonson, that, without
troubling the reader to turn to his works, we should give his own
description of these characters, to show that they were not the
"perplexed allegories" they are asserted to be by Granger; nor
inappropriate to the _Masque of Christmas_, for which they were
designed. MINCED-PIE was habited "like a fine cook's wife, drest
neat, her man carrying a pie, dish, and spoon." BABY-CAKE was "drest
like a boy, in a fine long coat, biggin-bib, muckender (or
handkerchief), and a little dagger; his usher bearing a great cake,
with a bean and a pease;" the latter being indicative of those
generally inserted in a Christmas cake, which, when cut into slices
and distributed, indicated by the presence of the bean the person
who should be king; the slice with the pea doing the same for the
queen. Neither of these characters speak, but make part of the show
to be described by Father Christmas. Jonson's inventive talent was
never more conspicuous than in the concoction of court Masques.
[5] The first employment of these two great men was upon _The Masque
of Blackness_, performed at Whitehall on Twelfth-Night, 1603; and
which cost nearly 10,000_l._, of our present money.
[6] The music of Whitelocke's _Coranto_ is preserved in Hawkins's
"History of Music." Might it be restored for the ladies as a waltz?
[7] This was _Chloridia_, a Masque performed by the queen and her
ladies at court, on Shrovetide, 1630; upon the title-page of which
is printed "the inventors--Ben Jonson, Inigo Jones." Jonson was, by
reason of the influence of Inigo, deprived of employ at court ever
after, supplanted by other poets named by the architect, and among
them Heywood, Shirley, and Davenant.
[8] George Chapman's _Memorable Maske_, performed at Whitehall,
1630, by the gentlemen of the Middle Temple and Lincoln's Inn, cost
the latter society nearly 2000_l._ for their share of the expenses.
[9] Ben Jonson records the names of the noble ladies and gentlemen
who enacted his inventions at court.
[10] The figures and actions of dancers in Masques were called motions.
[11] Memoirs of Jonson, p. 88.
[12] See Gifford's Jonson, vol. vii. p. 78. This performance was in
the _Masque of Hymen_, enacted at court in 1605, on the occasion of
the marriage of the Earl of Essex to the daughter of the Earl of
Suffolk.
[13] Splendour ultimately ruined these works; they ended in gaudy
dresses and expensive machinery, but poetry was not associated with
them. The youthful days of Louis XIV. raised them to a height of
costly luxuriance to sink them ever after in oblivion.