Chapter VII: Masques and General Influence (1)

I

The history of the English masque offers a very interesting study in what may be called literary morphology. Under the influence of the stage the early disguisings and spectacular dances developed into a semi-dramatic kind, intermediate between the literary drama and mere scenic displays, and recognized as possessing a definite nature and proper limitations of its own. To this highly individualized form of art the term masque may often with convenience and propriety be restricted, but all such rigid and exclusive definitions have this disadvantage, that they tend to make lines of division appear clearer and more logically convincing than they in fact usually are, and further that they tempt us to neglect the often numerous and closely allied specimens which cannot be brought to accommodate themselves to the abstract type. Those writers who deny that _Comus_ is a masque are entirely justified from their point of view; it is a question of classification, and the classification which it is convenient to adopt may vary according to the nature of the investigation in hand. It must not, therefore, be thought that I place myself in antagonism to critics such as Dr. Brotanek for example, if I give to the term masque its widest possible signification as including not only the regular and highly developed compositions of the Jonsonian type, but also mere pageants on the one hand, and what may be called miniature plays on the other; all dramatic or semi-dramatic pieces, in short, which it is undesirable or inconvenient to treat along with the regular productions. Approaching the question as we do, not from the point of view of the evolution of a particular literary form, but from that of a persistent ideal and quasi-philosophical tradition, which manifests itself in all manner of forms and fashions, we have a perfect right to adopt whatever classification suits our purpose best, provided always that we have a clear notion what it is we are discussing. I propose, therefore, to treat in chronological order all those pieces which, owing to their less fully developed dramatic form, were omitted from the previous chapter. Something no doubt has been sacrificed by thus separating the regular dramas from the slighter and more occasional compositions, for in the earlier times especially these latter serve to fill considerable gaps in the sequence, and must have had a powerful influence in fashioning that pastoral tradition to which the pieces we have already considered belong.

The connexion of the pastoral with the masque began very early, and may well have been more constant than we should be tempted to suppose from the isolated examples that remain. The union was a natural one, for the pastoral, whether in its Arcadian or chivalric guise, was well suited to supply the framework for graceful poetry and elaborate dances alike, while the rustic and burlesque elements were equally capable of furnishing matter for the antimasque, when the form had reached that stage of structural elaboration. The allusive and allegorical features which had long been traditional in the pastoral likewise suited the topical and occasional nature of the masque. The connexion, however, with the stricter forms at least, was never very close, the tendency on the part of the pastoral to confine itself to a mere external formalism being even more noticeable here than in the case of the regular drama.

The earliest instance of this connexion of which we have notice is one of interest in English history. It is none other than the masquerade in which Henry appeared disguised as a shepherd at Wolsey's feast, which, according to Shakespeare, was the occasion of his first meeting with Anne Boleyn. The disguising is attested by the authority of Cavendish and Hall, but it is clear that the pastoral element was confined to the garb, there being no indication of anything of the nature of a literary presentation.

The first literary specimen of the kind does not appear till near the middle of Elizabeth's reign, and even then there is barely an excuse for classing it as pastoral. The composition in question is the slight entertainment, to which the name of _The Lady of May_ has been given by modern critics, composed by Sidney for presentation before Elizabeth during her visit to Leicester at Wanstead, in May, 1578. It appears to have been his earliest work. Though not itself a masque in the strict sense of the word in which we have learnt to use it, the piece contains the undeveloped germs of most of the later characteristics of the kind. The Queen in her walks through the grounds came to a spot where the May-Lady was being courted by a shepherd and a 'foster,' hotly contending for the prize. The strife was stayed, and, the deserts of either party being duly set forth, the Lady referred the choice to the Queen, who decided in favour of the pastoral suitor. A song and music ended the show. A strongly rustic element is sustained by the Lady's mother and the old shepherd Dorcas, while a touch of broad burlesque is introduced in the character of the pedagogue Rombus, who speaks in a style really little more extravagant than that of Sidney's own _Arcadia_. As in the romance, at the end of which the piece was first printed in 1598, the occasional songs are of small merit.

The spring-like freshness that characterizes so much of Peele's best work breathes deliciously through the polite convention of the _Descensus Astraeae_, the 'Pageant, borne before M. William Web, Lord Maior of the Citie of London on the day he tooke his oath; beeing the 29. of October. 1591.' The conceit is graceful in itself, and significant of the sentiment of contemporary London. Astraea, bearing her sheep-hook as a sort of pastoral sceptre, typified the Queen, and passed on in her triumphal car with the words:

Feed on, my flock, among the gladsome green,
Where heavenly nectar flows above the banks;
Such pastures are not common to be seen:
Pay to immortal Jove immortal thanks,
For what is good fro heaven's high throne doth fall;
And heaven's great architect be praised for all[339].

In her praise the graces, the virtues, and a champion utter appropriate speeches, whilst Superstition, a friar, and Ignorance, a priest, together with other malcontents, shrink back abashed before her onward march.

The following year appeared the anonymous 'Speeches delivered to her Majestie this last progresse, at the Right Honorable the Lady Russels, at Bissam, the Right Honorable the Lorde Chandos, at Sudley, at the Right Honorable the Lord Norris, at Ricorte.' This piece being very characteristic of a certain sort of courtly shows, and itself possessing rather greater intrinsic interest than is to be found in most of the compositions we shall have to examine, may lay claim to a somewhat more detailed discussion. As the Queen approached through the woods towards Bisham, cornets were heard to sound, and presently there appeared a wild man who began his speech thus:

I followed this sounde, as enchanted; neither knowing the reason why,
nor how to bee ridde of it: unusuall to these Woods, and, I feare, to
our gods prodigious. Sylvanus whom I honour, is runne into a Cave: Pan,
whom I envye, courting of the Shepheardesse. Envie I thee Pan? No, pitty
thee; an eie-sore to chast Nymphes, yet still importunate. Honour thee
Sylvanus? No, contemne thee; fearefull of Musicke in the Woods, yet
counted the god of the Woods.

He then proceeds to welcome the royal visitor. Further on 'At the middle of the Hill sate Pan, and two Virgins keeping sheepe, and sowing in their Samplers.' Pan courts the shepherdesses, who mock him, and finally all join in welcome of the Queen. 'At the bottome of the hill,' we read further, 'entring into the hous, Ceres with her Nymphes in an harvest Cart, meete her Majesty, having a Crowne of wheat-ears with a Jewell.' Ceres sings:

Swel Ceres now, for other Gods are shrinking;
Pomona pineth,
Fruitlesse her tree;
Fair Phoebus shineth
Onely on mee.
Conceit doth make me smile whilst I am thinking,...
All other Gods of power bereven,
Ceres only Queene of heaven.

With Robes and flowers let me be dressed;
Cynthia that shineth
Is not so cleare,
Cynthia declineth
When I appeere,
Yet in this Ile shee raignes as blessed, ...
And in my eares still fonde Fame whispers,
Cynthia shalbe Ceres Mistres.

She then proceeds to welcome the Queen as 'Greater then Ceres.' At Sudely Castle her Majesty was received by an old shepherd with a long speech; whereafter we read: 'Sunday, Apollo running after Daphne,' a show accompanied by a speech from another shepherd, at the end whereof, the metamorphosis safely accomplished, 'her Majesty sawe Apollo with the tree, having on one side one that sung, on the other one that plaide.'

Sing you, plaie you, but sing and play my truth,
This tree my Lute, these sighes my notes of ruth:
The Lawrell leafe for ever shall bee greene,
And chastety shalbe Apolloes Queene.
If gods maye dye, here shall my tombe be plaste,
And this engraven, 'Fonde Phoebus, Daphne chaste.'

'The song ended, the tree rived, and Daphne issued out, Apollo ranne after, with these words:'

Faire Daphne staye, too chaste because too faire,
Yet fairer in mine eies, because so chaste,
And yet because so chaste, must I despaire?
And to despaire, I yeelded have at last.

'Daphne running to her Majestie uttered this:'

I stay, for whether should chastety fly for succour, but to the Queene
of chastety, &c.

a speech which can without loss be left to the imagination of the reader. The third day's show was prevented by bad weather: it was designed thus. Summoned by one clad in sheep-skins, the Queen was to be led to where the shepherds of Cotswold were engaged in choosing a king and queen of the feast by the simple divination of a bean and a pea concealed in a cake. After a while spying her Majesty, the whole company should have joined in a welcome. The rest of the show is in no wise pastoral. The very marked Euphuism of the prose portions, combined with some lyrical merit, makes the composition worth notice, and has led to its ascription to the pen of Lyly himself. It was, of course, composed and presented for her Majesty's delectation at a time when Lyly's plays were the delight of the court; but however grateful we may feel to Mr. Bond for having made this and other similar pieces accessible in his edition of the poet, we need not necessarily accept his view of the authorship.[340]

To the end of the sixteenth century belong undoubtedly many of the pieces printed for the first time in 1637 in Thomas Heywood's volume of _Dialogues and Dramas_.[341] The only one of these that can really be styled pastoral is a slight composition entitled _Amphrissa, or the Forsaken Shepherdess_. Two shepherdesses, Pelopaea and Alope, meet and fall to discoursing of love and inconstancy, and cite incidentally the unhappy case of Amphrissa, who at that moment appears in person and joins in the conversation. The nymphs undertake her cure, and give her much wise counsel while they crown her with willow. Then there appears upon the scene the huntress queen of Arcadia herself, attended by her nymphs, virgin Diana, before whom the country maidens bow in awe. She graciously raises them, and the slight piece ends with dance and song.

In this drama or dialogue or masque, or whatever it may be most appropriately called, we see all plot disappear, and the interest concentrate itself in the dialogue, which, for all that it is written in blank verse of some rhythmical merit, reveals a strong inclination towards Euphuism. Thus we read of men how

like as the Chamelions change themselves
Into all perfect colours saving white;
So they can to all humors frame their speech,
Save only to prove honest;

or else how

light minds are catcht with little things,
And Phancie smels to Fennell.

Nor are other and more marked traces of Lyly's influence wanting: witness the following passage, which is a mere metrical paraphrase of a speech in the _Gallathea_ already quoted (p. 227):

You have an heate, on which a coldnesse waits,
A paine that is endur'd with pleasantnesse,
And makes those sweets you eat have bitter taste:
It puts eies in your thoughts, eares in your heart:
'Twas by desire first bred, by delight nurst,
And hath of late been wean'd by jelousie.

Certain speeches of a sententious nature, on the other hand, remind us rather of Daniel and the sonneteers:

To wish the best, to thinke upon the worst,
And all contingents brooke with patience,
Is a most soveraigne medicine.

All these characteristics point to an early date, and Mr. Fleay, who regards the piece as forming part of the _Five Plays in One_, acted at the Rose in April, 1597, may very likely be right. Of the other pieces printed in the same volume, a few only show any trace of pastoral blending with the general mythological colouring. Perhaps the most that can be said is that the nymphs are already familiar to us from the pastoral tradition, and must have been scarcely less so to a contemporary audience, fresh from the work of Peele and Lyly. In _Jupiter and Io_, which perhaps made part of the same performance as _Amphrissa_, Mercury disguises himself as a shepherd, in order to cut off the head of Argus. This he did to such good purpose that record of the trunkless member remains unto this day in the inventories of the Lord Admiral's company. Another of these pieces, the character of which can be easily imagined from its title, _Apollo and Daphne_, ends with a song, which may owe something to the traditions of the mythological pastoral:

Howsoe're the Minutes go,
Run the heures or swift or slow:
Seem the Months or short or long,
Passe the seasons right or wrong:
All we sing that Phoebus follow,
_Semel in anno ridet Apollo_.

Early fall the Spring or not,
Prove the Summer cold or hot:
Autumne be it faire or foule,
Let the Winter smile or skowle:
Still we sing, that Phoebus follow,
_Semel in anno ridet Apollo_.

Passing on to the seventeenth century, the first piece that demands attention is the St. John's Twelfth Night entertainment, _Narcissus_, performed at Oxford in 1602. If its pastoral quality is somewhat evanescent, there is another point of view from which the piece has a good deal of interest. It is, namely, a burlesque production of the nature of the Pyramus and Thisbe interlude in the _Midsummer Night's Dream_, and flavoured with something of the comic rusticity of Greene's Carmela eclogue in _Menaphon_. It is needless here to summarize the plot of the 'merriment' which the ingenious author, no doubt a student of St. John's, evolved from Ovid's account in the third book of the _Metamorphoses_, and which runs to the respectable length of some eight hundred lines.[342] I may be allowed, however, to note that echo verses, suggested by Ovid, are introduced and handled with more than usual ingenuity; and further to quote two characteristic passages. In one of these the nymphs Florida and Clois court the affections of the loveless hero.

_Florida._ Shine thou on mee, sweet plannet, bee soe good
As with thy fiery beames to warme my bloud ...

_Narcissus._ To speak the truth, faire maid, if you will have us,
O Oedipus I am not, I am Davus.

_Clois._ Good Master Davis, bee not so discourteous
As not to heare a maidens plaint for vertuous.

_Nar._ Speake on a Gods name, so love bee not the theame.

_Flo._ O, whiter then a dish of clowted creame,
Speake not of love? How can I overskippe
To speake of love to such a cherrye lippe?

_Nar._ It would beseeme a maidens slender vastitye
Never to speake of any thinge but chastitye.

_Flo._ As true as Helen was to Menela
So true to thee will be thy Florida.

_Clo._ As was to trusty Pyramus truest Thisbee
So true to you will ever thy sweete Clois bee.

_Flo._ O doe not stay a moment nor a minute,
Love is a puddle, I am ore shooes in it.

_Clo._ Doe not delay us halfe a minutes mountenance
That ar in love, in love with thy sweet countenance.

_Nar._ Then take my dole although I deale my alms ill,
Narcissus cannot love with any damzell;
Although, for most part, men to love encline all,
I will not, I, this is your answere finall.

We are here, it is true, as far as ever from the delicate rusticity of Lorenzo de' Medici, and not particularly near to the humour of the Athenian rustics, but for burlesque it is passably amusing. The _Midsummer Night's Dream_ had appeared possibly a decade earlier, and the audience in the college hall at Oxford can hardly but have been reminded of Wall and Moonshine as they listened to the speech by one who enters carrying 'a buckett and boughes and grasse.'

A well there was withouten mudd,
Of silver hue, with waters cleare,
Whome neither sheep that chawe the cudd,
Shepheards nor goates came ever neare;
Whome, truth to say, nor beast nor bird,
Nor windfalls yet from trees had stirrde.
[_He strawes the grasse about the buckett._
And round about it there was grasse,
As learned lines of poets showe,
Which next by water nourisht was; [_Sprinkle water._
Neere to it too a wood did growe, _[Sets down the bowes._
To keep the place, as well I wott,
With too much sunne from being hott.
And thus least you should have mistooke it,
The truth of all I to you tell:
Suppose you the well had a buckett,
And so the buckett stands for the well;
And 'tis, least you should counte mee for a sot O,
A very pretty figure cald _pars pro toto_.

The first strict masque of a pastoral character that we meet with is that of Juno and Iris, with the dance of nymphs and the 'sunburnt sicklemen, of August weary,' introduced by Shakespeare into the _Tempest_; but this must not be taken as altogether typical of the independent productions of the time. The masques introduced into plays were necessarily, for the most part, of a slighter and less elaborate character than those performed at court, or for the entertainment of persons of rank. This is more particularly the case with the serions portions of the masques, since the actors, who were engaged for the performance of the antimasques in court revels, frequently transferred their parts bodily on to the public boards. Thus, in the entertainment in the _Winters Tale_, in which shepherds also appear, the main feature was a dance of satyrs, which was no doubt borrowed from Jonson's _Masque of Oberon_.[343] The _Tempest_ masque, however, is of the simpler type, without antimasque. At Juno's command Iris summons Ceres, and the goddesses together bestow their blessing on the young lovers. Then at Iris' call come the naiads and the reapers for the dance. The date of the play may be taken as late in 1610, or early the next year, a time at which the popularity of the masque was reaching its height.

Although the mythological element is everywhere prominent, the pastoral is comparatively of rare occurrence in the regular masque literature of the seventeenth century. This, considering the adaptability and natural suitability of the form, is rather surprising. Probably the masque as it evolved itself at the court of James needed a subject possessing a traditional story, or at least fixed and known conditions of a kind which the pastoral was unable to supply. Be this as it may, on one occasion only did Jonson make extended use of the kind, namely, in the masque which in the folio of 1640 appears with the heading 'Pans Anniversarie; or, The Shepherds Holy-day. The Scene Arcadia. As it was presented at Court before King James. 1625. The Inventors, Inigo Jones, Ben. Johnson[344].' Even here, however, we learn little concerning the condition of pastoralism in general, from the highly specialized form employed to a specific purpose. As in all the regular masques of the Jonsonian type the characters and situations exist solely for the opportunities they afford for dance and song. Shepherds and nymphs constitute the personae of the masque proper, while those of the antimasque are supplied by a band of Bocotian clowns, who come to challenge the Arcadians to the dance. Some of the songs are very graceful, suggesting at times reminiscences of Spenser, at others parallels to Ben's own _Sad Shepherd_, but the piece does not possess either sufficient importance or interest to justify our lingering over it. Outside this piece the nearest approach to pastoral characters to be found in Jonson's masques are, perhaps, the satyr and Queen Mab in the fairy entertainment at Althorp in 1603, Silenus and the satyrs in _Oberon_ in 1611, and Zephyrus, Spring, and the Fountains and Rivers in _Chloridia_ in 1631.

During James I's reign pastoral shows of a sort no doubt became frequent. While in some cases which remain to be noticed they reached the elaboration of small plays, in others they probably remained simple affairs enough. We get an interesting glimpse of the conditions of production in a note of John Aubrey's.[345] 'In tempore Jacobi,' he writes, 'one Mr. George Ferraby was parson of Bishops Cannings in Wilts: an excellent musitian, and no ill poet. When queen Anne came to Bathe, her way lay to traverse the famous Wensdyke, which runnes through his parish. He made severall of his neighbours, good musitians, to play with him in consort, and to sing. Against her majestie's comeing, he made a pleasant pastorall, and gave her an entertaynment with his fellow songsters in shepherds' weeds and bagpipes, he himself like an old bard. After that wind musique was over, they sang their pastorall eglogues.' This was in 1613; Ferraby or Ferebe later became chaplain to the king.

The more elaborate pieces were usually written for performance at schools or colleges. Such a piece is Tatham's _Love Crowns the End_, composed for the scholars of Bingham in Nottinghamshire in 1633, and printed in his _Fancy's Theatre_ in 1640. Small literary interest attaches to the play, which is equally slight and ill constructed, but is perhaps not unrepresentative of its class. In spite of its very modest dimensions it possesses a full romantic-pastoral plot, with the resuit that it is at times almost unintelligible, owing to the want of space in which to develop in an adequate and dramatic manner the motives and situations. The bewildering rapidity with which character succeeds character upon the stage must have made the representation almost impossible to follow, while the reading of the piece is not a little complicated by the confusion in which the stage directions remain in the only modern edition.[346] Some notion of the complexity of the plot may be gathered from the following account. Cliton, having in a fit of jealousy sought to kill his love Florida, is found wandering in the woods by Alexis, who receives his confession and shows him the way to repentance. Florida, moreover, has been found and healed by the wise shepherdess Claudia, and is living in retirement. Meanwhile Cloe (a name which it appears from the rimes that the author pronounced Cloi) is saved by Lysander from the pursuit of a Lustful Shepherd, in consequence of which she transfers to him the affection she previously bore to her lover Daphnes. Next Leon and his daughter Gloriana appear, together with the swain Francisco, to whom against her will the maiden is apparently betrothed. They all go off to view the games in which Lysander, whose heart is also fixed on Gloriana, proves victor. His refusal to entertain the affection of Cloe drives her to a state of distraction, in which the nymphs of the woods take pity on her and bring her to Claudia to be cured. Gloriana in the meantime returns the affections of Lysander, but the meeting of the lovers is interrupted by the jealous Francisco and a gang who wound Lysander and carry off Gloriana. She escapes from her captors, but only after she has lost her reason, and wanders about until she meets with Cliton, who has turned hermit and who now undertakes her cure. Throughout the play we find comic interludes by Scrub, a page or attendant in search of his master, who also has some farcical business with the Lustful Shepherd, who after being disappointed of Cloe disguises himself as a satyr, apparently deeming that rôle suited to his taste. In the end all the characters are brought together. Francisco, found contrite, is forgiven by Lysander and Gloriana; Cliton and Florida love once more; so do Daphnes and Cloe, appropriately enough. Scrub announces the death of the usurping duke, 'who banished good old Leon;' Francisco and Lysander reveal themselves as princes who left the court to win his daughter's love, when he was driven from his land, and so--love crowns the end.

Through this medley it is not hard to see the various debts the author has incurred towards his predecessors. The verse, in rimed couplets, whether deca- or octo-syllabic, ultimately depends on Fletcher; of the comic prose scenes I have already spoken in dealing with Goffe's _Careless Shepherdess_, a play the influence of which may perhaps be specifically traced in the satyr-disguise, the gang who carry off Gloriana, her unexplained escape, and the songs of the 'Destinies' and a 'Heavenly Messenger,' who in their inconsequence recall the 'Bonus Genius' of Goffe's play. Scrub may owe his origin to the same source, though he is rather more like the page in the _Maid's Metamorphosis_. The usurping duke recalls _As You Like It_; the princes seeking their love-fortunes among the shepherd folk suggest the _Arcadia_; while the influence of the _Faithful Shepherdess_ is not only traceable in the character of the Lustful Shepherd, but also in certain specific parallels, as where the wounded Lysander, seeing his love carried off, exclaims:

Stay, stay! let me but breathe my last
Upon her lips, and I'll forgive what's past; (p. 24)

a reminiscence of the lines spoken by Alexis in a similar situation:

Oh, yet forbear
To take her from me! give me leave to die
By her! (_Faithful Shepherdess_, III. i. 165[347].)

The general level of the verse is not high, but we now and again light on some pleasing lines such as the following:

My dearest love, fair as the eastern morn
As it breaks o'er the plains when summer's born,
Hanging bright liquid pearls on every tree,
New life and hope imparting, as to me
Thy presence brings delight, so fresh and rare
As May's first breath, dispensing such sweet air
The Phoenix does expire in; sit, while I play
The cunning thief, and steal thy heart away,
And thou shalt stand as judge to censure me. (p. 18.)

So again there is some grace in a song which catches perhaps a distant echo of Peele's gem:

_Gloriana._ Sit, while I do gather flowers
And depopulate the bowers.
Here's a kiss will come to thee!

_Lysander._ Give me one, I'll give thee three!

_Both._ Thus in harmless sport we may
Pass the idle hours away.

_Gloriana._ Hark! hark, how fine
The birds do chime!
And pretty Philomel
Her moan doth tell. (p. 22.)

Another of these miniature pastorals is preserved in a British Museum manuscript, where it bears the title of _The Converted Robber_.[348] No author's name appears, but a plausible conjecture may be advanced. The scene of the piece, namely, is Stonehenge, and it is evident that the occasion on which it was first performed had some connexion with Salisbury, for there is obviously a topical allusion in the final words:

Lett us that do noe envy beare um
Wish all felicity to Sarum.

Now in 1636,[349] according to Anthony à Wood, there was acted at St. John's College, Oxford, a play by John Speed, entitled _Stonehenge_, the occasion being the return of Dr. Richard Baylie after his installation as Dean of Salisbury. We can hardly be far wrong in identifying the two pieces. The only difficulty is that in the manuscript the play is dated 1637. This, however, may either be a mere slip of the scribe, or may possibly imply that the piece was produced in 1636-7, the scribe adopting the popular and modern, whereas Wood always adhered to the old or legal reckoning.

The piece possesses a certain interest from the fact of its forming, in a stricter sense than any of the other pieces we have examined, a link between the drama and the masque. In this it somewhat resembles _Comus_, employing a more or less dramatic plot as the setting for the formai dances of the masque.[350]

The story is simple enough. A band of robbers and a company of shepherds and shepherdesses keep on Salisbury Plain in the neighbourhood of Stonehenge--'stoy[=n]age y^{e} wonder y^{t} is vpon that Playne of Sarum'--which forms the background of the scene. It chanced that the shepherdess Clarinda, falling into the hands of the robbers, was saved from dishonour by their chief Alcinous, an action which won for him her love, and having escaped, she returned dressed as a boy in order to serve him. Meanwhile the robbers have decided to make a raid upon the shepherd folk, and Alcinous, disguising himself as a stranger shepherd, mixes among them, while his companions Autolicus and Conto lie in wait hard by. During a festival Alcinous seeks the love of Castina, Clarinda's sister, and finding her unmoved by entreaty threatens force. At this she attempts to stab herself, and the robber chief is so struck that he vows to reform and is converted to the pastoral life. His companions, left in the lurch, fall upon the shepherds of their own accord, but are soon brought to see reason by the hand and tongue of their chief, and are content to follow him in his conversion. Clarinda now discovers herself and marries Alcinous, while Castina and her fellow shepherdess Avonia consent to reward their faithful swains, Palaemon and Dorus.

In this piece there is a rather conspicuous absence of motive and dramatic construction, the author claiming apparently the freedom of the masque. The verse is mainly octosyllabic, sometimes blank, but the rough accentual 'rime' is also used. Decasyllabics are rare. There is also some prose in the comic part sustained by Autolicus and Conto and the aged clown Jarbus, as well as a certain amount of Spenserian archaism, and a good deal of dialect. Whether comic or romantic, the characters are singularly out of keeping with their surroundings, while the conceit of paganizing the Christian worship appears to be carried to ludicrous lengths, until one recollects that it depends almost entirely upon the substitution of the name of Pan for that of the Deity--a process no doubt facilitated by false etymology. Thus Christ, who is spoken of by name, is called 'Pannes blest babe.' After describing the foundation of Salisbury Cathedral, the old shepherd proceeds:

But sturdy shepherds brought all the other stones,
And reard up that great Munster all at once,
Wher shepherds each one, both woman and man,
Do come to worship theyr great God Pann.

A rustic show formed the first part of an entertainment witnessed by Charles and Henrietta Maria at Richmond, after their return from a visit to Oxford in 1636. A clown named Tom comes in bearing a present for the queen, and is on the point of being unceremoniously removed by the usher, when he espies Mr. Edward Sackville, to whom he appeals, and a dialogue ensues between the two. After he has offered his present, Madge, Doll, and Richard come in, and the four perform a country dance. They are all plain Wiltshire rustics who talk a broad vernacular, but at the end a shepherd and shepherdess enter and sing a duet in a more courtly strain. The author of this slight production is not known, but it is regarded by the latest authority on masques as an imitation, in the looseness of its construction, of Davenant's _Prince d'Amour_.[351]

Little poetic ability was displayed by Heywood on the only occasion on which he introduced pastoral tradition into a Lord Mayor's pageant. The 'first show by land' of the _Porta Pietatis_, presented by the drapers in 1638 on the occasion of Sir Maurice Abbot's mayoralty, consisted of a speech by a shepherd, which is preceded in the printed copy by a short account of the properties, natural history, and general usefulness of sheep, as well as of their peculiar importance in relation to the craft honoured in the person of the newly appointed Lieutenant of the city of London. Heywood was famous for his wide, miscellaneous, and often startling information.

We have already seen how, in the first blush and budding of the Elizabethan spring, George Peele treated the tale of the judgement of Paris; on the same legend Heywood based one of his semi-dramatic dialogues; it remains to be seen how, in the late autumn of the great age of our dramatic literature, Shirley returned to the same theme in his _Triumph of Beauty_, privately produced about 1640. It is a regular masque, for which the familiar story serves as a thread; the goddesses and their symbolical attendants, or else the Graces and the Hours with Hymen and Delight, performing the dances, while a company of rustic swains of Ida, who come to relieve the melancholy of the princely shepherd, form a comic antimasque. It has, however, grown to the proportions of a small play. The comic characters also study a piece on the subject of the golden fleece, reminiscent, like _Narcissus_, of the _Midsummer Night's Dream_. This, as Mr. Fleay supposes, may well be satirical of some of the city pageants, though it is best to be cautious in discovering definite allusions. But the success of such a piece as the present, in so far as it was dependent on the _libretto_, demanded a power of light and graceful lyric versification which was not conspicuous among the many gifts of the author. The comic business is frankly amusing, but the long speeches of the goddesses can hardly have appeared less tedious to a contemporary audience than they do to the reader to-day.

I may also notice here a regular short pastoral in three acts, inserted by Robert Baron in his romance Ἐροτοπαίγνιον, _or the Cyprian Academy_, printed in 1647. It is entitled _Gripus and Hegio, or the Passionate Lovers_, and relates the loves of these characters for Mira and Daris; while we also find the familiar roguish boy, less amusing and of stricter propriety than usual; a chorus of fairies who discourse classical myth; Venus, Cupid, Hymen, and Echo; and the habitual concomitants of pastoral commonplace. The romance also contains a masque entitled _Deorum Dona_, in which figure allegorical abstractions such as Fame, Fortune, and the like. It is in no wise pastoral.

Another pastoral show of some elaboration, and of a higher order of poetry than most of those we have been considering, is Sir William Denny's _Shepherds' Holiday_, printed from manuscript in the _Inedited Poetical Miscellany_ of 1870. The piece appears to date from 1653, and is only slightly dramatic so far as plot is concerned. It is of an allegorical cast, the various characters typifying certain virtues, or rather temperaments--virginity, love and so forth--as is elaborately expounded in the preface.

A few slight pieces by the quondam actor Robert Cox, partaking more or less of the character of masques, possess a certain pastoral colouring. This is the case, for instance, in the _Acteon and Diana_, published in 1656.[352] The piece opens with the humours of the would-be lover Bumpkin, a huntsman, and the dance of the country lasses round the May-pole. Then enters Acteon with his huntsmen, who is followed by Diana and her nymphs. Upon the dance of these last Acteon, returning, breaks in unawares, and is rebuked by the goddess, who then retires with her nymphs to a glade in the forest. They are in the act of despoiling themselves for the bath when they are again surprised by Acteon. Incensed, the goddess turns upon him, and he flees before her anger, only to return once more upon the dance of the bathers in the shape of a hart, and fall at their feet a prey to his own hounds. The verse, whether lyric or dramatic, is of a mediocre description, and the piece, if it was ever actually performed, no doubt depended for success upon the music, dancing, and scenery. It is a curious fact, to which Davenant's work among others is witness, that the nominally private representation of this kind of musical ballet was permitted, while the regular drama was under strict inhibition. At any time, however, it must have been difficult to represent such a piece as the present without sacrificing either propriety or tradition.

Another similar composition, headed 'The Rural Sports on the Birthday of the Nymph Oenone,' is printed together with the above. In it the strains of the polished pastoral are varied by the humours of the clown Hobbinall, the whole ending with a speech by Pan and a dance of satyrs.

One obvions omission from the above catalogue will have been noticed. The reason thereof is sufficiently obvious; and the following section will endeavour to repair it.

II

In Milton's contribution to the fashionable masque literature of his day we approach work the poetic supremacy of which has never been called in question, and whose other qualities, lying properly beyond the strict application of that term, critics have habitually vied with one another to extol. No one, indeed, for whom poetry has any meaning whatever, can turn from the work of Peele, Heywood, and Shirley, of Ben Jonson even, to the early works of Milton, to such comparatively immature works as _Arcades_ and _Comus_, without being conscious that they belong to an altogether different level of poetical production. It was no mere conventional commendation, such as we may find prefixed to the works of any poetaster of the time, that Sir Henry Wotton addressed to the author of the Ludlow masque: 'I should much commend the Tragical [i.e. dramatic] part, if the Lyrical did not ravish me with a certain Dorique delicacy in your Songs and Odes, wherunto I must plainly confess to have seen yet nothing parallel in our Language[353].'

The two poems we have now to consider were, in all probability, written within a short while of one another, and the second anticipated by more than three years the composition of _Lycidas_. But the connexion between the two is not one of date only, nor even of the spectacular demand it was the end of either to meet. It may, namely, in the absence of any definite evidence, be with much plausibility presumed that the impulse to the entertainment, of which as we are told _Arcades_ formed a part, originated with that very Lady Alice Egerton and her two young brothers who, the following year probably, bore the chief parts in _Comus_. The entertainment was presented at Harefield in honour of their grandmother, the Countess Dowager of Derby. This lady, probably somewhat over seventy at the time, was the honoured head of a large family. The daughter of Sir John Spencer of Althorpe, born about 1560, she married first Ferdinando Stanley, Lord Strange, afterwards Earl of Derby, patron of the company of actors with whom Shakespeare's name is associated; and secondly, after his early death in 1594, the Lord Keeper, Sir Thomas Egerton, who rose by rapid steps to be Viscount Brackley shortly before his death in 1617. The span of a human life appears strange when measured by the rapidly moving events of the English renaissance. The wife of Shakespeare's patron, who may have witnessed the early ventures of the Stratford lad at the time of his first appearance on the London stage--the 'Amarillis' of _Colin Clout_, with whom, and with her sisters 'Phillis' and 'Charillis,' Spenser claimed kinship, and to whom he dedicated his _Tears of the Muses_ in 1591--lived to see her grandchildren perform for her amusement in the reign of the first Charles an entertainment for which their music-master Lawes had requisitioned the pen of the future author of _Paradise Lost_.

_Arcades_, or 'the Arcadians,' can hardly be dignified by the name of a masque; it is the mere embryo of the elaborate compositions which were at the time fashionable under that name, and of which Milton was to rival the constructional elaboration in his pastoral entertainment of the following year. It rather resembles such amoebean productions as we find introduced into the stage plays of the time; and was, no doubt, as the superscription explicitly informs us, but 'Part of an entertainment presented to the Countess Dowager of Darby.' Nevertheless it is complete and self-contained, and to speak of it, as Professer Masson does, as 'part, and part only, of a masque,' is to give a wholly false impression; for, whatever the rest of the entertainment may have been, there is not the least reason to suppose that it had any connexion or relation with the portion that has survived. This runs to a little over one hundred lines. A group of nymphs and shepherds, coming from among the trees of the garden, approach the 'seat of State' where sits the venerable Countess, whom they address in a song. As this ends their progress is barred by the Genius of the Wood, who delivers a long speech.[354] This is followed by a song introducing the dance, after which a third song brings the performance to a close. It cannot be honestly said that the bulk of this slender poem is of any very transcendent merit; but the final song stands apart from the rest, and deserves notice both on its own account and for the sake of that to which it served as herald:

Nymphs and Shepherds dance no more
By sandy Ladons Lillied banks;
On old Lycaeus or Cyllene hoar
Trip no more in twilight ranks;
Though Erymanth your loss deplore
A better soyl shall give ye thanks.
From the stony Maenalus
Bring your Flocks, and live with us;
Here ye shall have greater grace
To serve the Lady of this place,
Though Syrinx your Pans Mistres were,
Yet Syrinx well might wait on her.
Such a rural Queen
All Arcadia hath not seen.

Here we have, if nothing else, promise at least of the melodies to be, as also of that harmonious interweaving of classical names which long years after was to lend weight and dignity to the 'full and heightened style' of the epic. One other point in connexion with the poem is noteworthy, the quality, namely, in virtue of which it claims our attention here. It is, indeed, not a little curious that on the only two occasions on which Milton was called upon to produce something of the order of the masque, he cast his work into a more or less pastoral form; and this in spite of the fact that, as we have seen, the form was by no means a prevalent one among the more popular and experienced writers. It would appear as though his mind turned, through some natural bent or early association, to the employment of this form; an idea which suggests itself all the more forcibly when we find him, a few years later, setting about the composition of a conventional lament in this mode on a young college acquaintance, and producing, through his power of alchemical transmutation, one of the greatest works of art in the English language.

It was, no doubt, in the earlier months of 1634, while his friend Lawes was engaged on the gorgeous and complicated staging and orchestration of the _Triumph of Peace_ and the _Coelum Britannicum_, that Milton composed the poem which perhaps more than any other has made readers of to-day familiar with the term 'masque.' In the second of the elaborate productions just named--a poem, be it incidentally remarked, which does no particular credit to the pen of its sometimes unsurpassed author, Tom Carew, but in the presentation of which the king and many of his chief nobles deigned to bear a part--minor rôles had been assigned to the two sons of the Earl of Bridgewater, namely, the Viscount Brackley and Master Thomas Egerton. When the earl shortly afterwards went to assume the Presidency of the Welsh Marches, it was these two who, together with their sister the Lady Alice, bore the central parts in the masque performed before the assembled worthies of the West in the great hall of Ludlow Castle. The ages of the three performers ranged from eleven to thirteen, the girl, who was the eighth daughter of the marriage, being the eldest.

It must have been a gay and imposing sight that greeted the spectators in the grim old border fortress, the gaunt ruins of which may yet be seen, but which had at that date already rubbed off some of its medieval ruggedness as a place of defence. Though necessarily less elaborate and costly than the performances in London, no pains were spared to make the spectacle worthy of the occasion, and it must have appeared all the more splendid in contrast to its surroundings, presented as it was in the great hall in which met the Council of the Western Marches in the distant town upon the Welsh border. Nor did the occasion lack the heightening glamour and dramatic contrast of historical association, for in this very hall just a century and a half before, if tradition is to be credited, the unfortunate Prince Edward, son of Edward IV, was crowned before setting out with his young brother on the fatal journey which was to terminate under a forgotten flagstone in the Tower of London.

I do not propose to enter into any detailed account of the manner in which we may suppose the masque to have been performed, nor into the literary history of the poem itself; to do so would be a work of supererogation in view of the able discussion of the whole subject from the pen of Professor Masson. The debts Milton owed to the _Somnium_ of Puteanus, to Peele's _Old Wives' Tale_ and to Fletcher's _Faithful Shepherdess_, are now all more or less recognized. From the first he probably borrowed the name and character of Comus himself, as well as a few incidental expressions. The second contains a remarkable parallel to the search of the two brothers for their lost sister, which it is difficult to suppose fortuitous; while many passages might be cited to prove Milton's close acquaintance with Fletcher's poem[355].

The masque as performed at Ludlow Castle probably differed in one important particular from the form in which we know it, and which is that in which it left Milton's hand. This form is attested by the original quarto edition, by the texts of the Poems of 1645 and 1673, and by Milton's manuscript draft in the volume preserved at Trinity College, Cambridge. The variant form is found in the manuscript at Bridgewater House, reputed to be in Lawes' handwriting, which seemingly represents the acting version. In Milton's text the scene discovered is a wild wood; the attendant Spirit descends, or enters, and at once launches out into a long speech in blank verse. Lawes seems to have thought that it would be more appropriate for the Spirit--that is, for himself, for it appears that he took the part--to open the performance with a song, and consequently transferred to this place the first thirty-six lines of the final lyrical speech of the Spirit, substituting the words 'From the heavens' for Milton's 'To the ocean.' The change was doubtless effective, and was skilfully made; yet one cannot help feeling that some of the magic of the poem has evaporated in the process. However, Lawes was loyal to his friend, and whatever alterations his wider knowledge of the requirements of stage production may have led him to introduce into the masque as performed at Ludlow, he never sought to foist any changes of his own into the published poem, when, having tired himself with making copies for his friends, he at length decided, with Milton's consent, to send it forth into the world in its slender quarto garb.

A brief analysis will serve to reveal the lines upon which the piece is constructed, and to show how far it follows the traditions respectively of the drama and the masque. The introductory speech puts the audience in possession of the situation, and informs them how the wood is haunted by Comus and his crew, himself the son of Bacchus and Circe, and how they seek to trick unwary passengers into drinking of the fateful cup which shall transform them to the likeness of beasts and, driving all remembrance of home and friends from their imaginations, leave them content 'to roll with pleasure in a sensual sty.' Wherefore the Spirit is sent to guide the steps of those 'favoured of high Jove,' and save them from the wiles of the fleshly god. Announcing that he goes to assume 'the weeds and likeness of a swain,' so as to perform his charge unknown, the Spirit leaves the stage, which is at once invaded by Comus and his rout. A brilliant speech by the god, preceding the first measure, illustrates the strange but yet not infrequent irony of fate by which it has happened that the most puritanical of poets have thrown the full weight of their best work into the opposing scale, and clothed vice in magic colours to outdo the richest fancies of the libertine. No doubt this reckless adorning of sin was intentional on Milton's part; he painted the pleasures of κῶμος in their most seductive colours, that the triumph of virtue might appear by so much the greater, fancying that it was enough to assert that final victory, and failing, like most preachers, to perceive that unless it was made psychologically and artistically convincing the total effect would be the very reverse of that which he intended. If we compare the speech of Comus with that of the Lady on her first appearance, we shall hardly escape the conclusion that then, as indeed always, Milton had a mere schoolboy's idea of 'plot,' as of some combination of events to be infused with the breath of life at his own will, and from without, not such as should spring from the fundamental elements of the characters themselves. In the midst of dance and revel Comus interrupts his followers:

Break off, break off, I feel the different pace
Of some chast footing neer about this ground;

and the crew vanishes among the trees as the Lady enters alone and narrates how she lost her brothers at nightfall in the wood, and attracted by the sounds of mirth has bent hither her steps in the hope of finding some one to direct her. She then sings a song by way of attracting her brothers' attention, should they chance to be near. As she ends Comus re-enters in guise of a shepherd, and offers to escort her to his hut where she may rest until her companions are found. She has no sooner left the stage than these enter in search of her, and while away the time with a long discussion on the dangers of the wood and the protective power of virtue. To them at length enters the attendant Spirit, who has certainly been so far very remiss in his duties, in the habit of their father's shepherd Thirsis; and on hearing how they have parted company with their sister, tells of Comus and his enchantments, and arming his hearers with hemony, powerful against all spells, guides them to the hall of the sorcerer. The scene now changes to the interior of the palace of Comus, 'set out with all manner of deliciousness,' where the god and his rabble are feasting. On one side we may imagine an open arcade giving on to the banks of the Severn, silvery in the moonlight, the cool purity of its waters contrasting with the rich jewelled light and perfumed air within. We see the Lady seated in an enchanted chair, while before her stands the magician, wand in hand, offering her wine in a crystal goblet. Then follows the dialogue in which the Lady defends her virtue against the blandishments of Comus, till at last her brothers, followed by the spirit-shepherd, rush in and disperse the revellers. The Lady is now found to be fixed like marble in the chair of enchantment, but the attendant Spirit shows his resource by calling to their help the virgin goddess of the stream:

Sabrina fair
Listen where thou art sitting
Under the glassie, cool, translucent wave,
In twisted braids of Lillies knitting
The loose train of thy amber-dropping hair,
Listen for dear honour's sake,
Goddess of the silver lake,
Listen and save.