treated to little dramas interspersed with, or followed by, dances and music, usually written in the flowery and eulogistic style befitting such occurrences: "A Masque. Enter Iris. . . . Enter Ceres. . . . Enter Juno. . . . Enter certain Nymphs. . . . Enter certain reapers properly habited they join with the Nymphs in a graceful dance," and, with the only difference that in Shakespeare's play they all melt at the end "into thin air," they enliven the betrothal of Ferdinand and Miranda just as if these had been a real couple in real London. Such wonders, thinks Ferdinand, "make this place Paradise."-"The banquets were set forth," writes Cavendish in his "Life of Wolsey," "with masks and mummeries, in so gorgeous a sort, and costly manner that it was a heaven to behold."—Needless to say that, at court, allusions to the manifold virtues of the sovereign (whether called Elizabeth or James did not matter), were never spared. Under the various names of "mommeries" and "momons," of "ballets héroïques," "comédies-ballets," and "tragédies-ballets," the French court long enjoyed the equivalent of the "mummeries " and "masques" of the English nobility.1 Marot had written the verses of a "Mommerie de quatre jeunes demoiselles"; the "Psyché" of Corneille, Molière, and Quinault was a "tragédie-ballet "; Molière introduces a "momon" into "l'Etourdi":

Trufaldin, ouvrez leur pour jouer un momon.

Bacon did not disdain to take "Masques and Triumphs as the subject of one of his latest essays; he recommends the use of subdued colours for costumes, "white, carnation, and a kinde of sea-water-greene"; there should be perfect concord between words and acting; "dancing in song'

On ancient ballets at the French court, see P. Lacroix, "Ballets et Mascarades de cour," Geneva and Turin, 1868 ft. 6 vols. 12mo.

must be excluded, " for that is a meane and vulgar thing"; in the anti-masque must be centred all the fun and merriment. Angels are not to be included in this part of the performance, for the indisputable reason that they are "not comicall enough." Perfumes must be used, "some sweet odours suddenly comming forth . . . are, in such a company as there is steame and heate, things of great pleasure and refreshment." I

To the category of courtly amusements belong, taken as a whole, the dramatic works written, from 1580, by John Lyly, the Euphuist. Most of his plays, though they are not called so, are scarcely anything else than masques. They were composed to fit circumstances, and they were remarkable for the wit, elegance, and vivacity of their dialogue, unparalleled at that date. The subjects were mostly mythological, and the performers were children. To please a refined audience, the novelist avails himself of the resources of his over-ingenious mind; he mingles with contemporary men the gods and heroes of the past, intersperses the loving words of beautiful Campaspe with the clever speeches of Aristotle and Plato and the sneers of Diogenes, and transfers to Lincolnshire the goddesses of mythology and the shepherds of Virgil's eclogs. He cuts up into dialogues the "Metamorphoses" of Ovid, dresses his maidens as boys, and Cupid as a nymph, and strews his plays with allusions, such as could be confessed or denied at will, to the Queen, to Leicester, to Philip of Spain: Diana, Endymion, Midas. He has sparkling

'First published, 1625.

2 66

Campaspe," written ab. 1580, printed 1584; "Sapho and Phao," printed 1584 (Phao is supposed to be the Duke of Alençon); "Gallathea," registered 1585, printed 1592; "Endimion," performed 1586 (?), printed 1591 (by Endimion is meant Leicester; by Cynthia, Elizabeth); “Midas," written 1589, printed 1592 (Philip II. with his treasure fleets is Midas); "Mother Bombie," written and performed 1590 (?), printed 1594 (a sort of comedy of errors, quite apart in the theatre of Lyly, localised at Rochester;

repartees, and sharp witty ones. Alexander adds a few touches to the portrait of Campaspe, and asks Apelles: How have I done here?

-Apelles. Like a king." 1

If long after Jean de Meun Lyly lends speech to Nature and Discord, long before Marivaux he knows how to use marivaudage" Cupid being caught by Diana and her nymphs, his wings are clipped, his bow burnt, and he must submit to hard penances :

- Telusa. Come, Cupid, to your taske. First you must andoe all those lovers' knots, because you tyed them.

- Cupid. If they be true love knots, 'tis impossible to unknit them; if false, I never tied them.

- Cupid Love-knots are tyed with eyes, and cannot be undone with hands.

Venus. Alas, poore boy! thy winges clipt? thy brandes quencht? thy bowe burnt? and thy arrowes broke?

-Cupid [Aye), but it skilleth not! . . . I can wounde with looking, flye with thinking, burne with hearing, shoote with speaking." 2

Lyly did not neglect that infallible means of pleasing Elizabeth: the tricks of impudent varlets and the silly deeds of ridiculous constables; he multiplied songs and dances in his plays, and made of all this an ensemble which had great success at court. He would try also his luck in the city; one or two of his comedies were performed in

by exception, was not performed at court): "The Woman in the Moone," registered 1505, printed 1597 in blank verse, the only one of Lyly's plays which was not in prose: the scene is laid in Utopia, among gods and shepberds: character of the clowni; "Love's Metamorphosis." pr. 1001 (seems a remodelling of a former version acted ab 158- "Complete Works,” ed. R. W. Bend, Oxford, 1002, 3 vois, the only good edition : Lyly's influence on Shakespeare, verestimated. Cf. J. D. Wilson, “Lyly," Cambridge, 1905. *** Gallathea." v. 2; v. 3

Alexander and Campaspe." . 4

a real London theatre, but, when removed from their appropriate surroundings, they pleased less; they were really society plays and drawing-room "féeries.".

At court, the demand for dramas of this sort was considerable and the honour of having a play chosen for performance was a much envied one. The Master of the Revels, whose power had been continuously increasing and who was supposed to be professionally endowed with "skill of devise, understandinge of historyes, judgement of comedies, tragedyes, and showes, sight of perspective and architecture, some smacke of geometrye, and other thynges," had to keep safely, free from dust, moths, and dampness, the mass of dresses, masks, cloths of gold, silver, and silk, belonging to the Crown, to select the plays and to see that they were properly remodelled in order to suit the court. The selection was a difficult matter on account of the number of works proposed: "All whiche vj playes," writes the Master of the Revels in 1571," being chosen owte of many, and ffownde to be the best that were to be had." 2 Forty shillings are paid to a play-mender in 1575 for his reformyng of playes sundry tymes as neede required for her Majestie's lyking." 3

66

The chosen and the disdained, those that never emerged from darkness and those that in the vast stretch of

1 Memorandum written ab. 1573 for the information of Burghley. The earliest document in which the Master of the Revels appears as such is the patent of March 16, 1544, granted to Thomas Cawarden, "Magister Jocorum, Revelorum et Mascorum omnium et singularium nostrorum vulgariter nuncupatorum Revells and Masks."—E. K. Chambers, "Notes on the History of the Revels Office under the Tudors," London, 1906, pp. 9, 37.

2 "Documents relating to the Office of the Revels in the time of Q. Elizabeth," ed. Feuillerat, Louvain, 1908, 4to, p. 145 (Bang's "Materialen,” xxi). 3 E. K. Chambers, "Notes," ibid. p. 54. From 1579, and for nearly thirty years, the functions of Master of the Revels were filled by Edmund Tilney, a man of parts and reading, to whose duties was added later the licensing of plays and theatres; before being performed the innumerable dramas of the period were shown him in MS., those of Shakespeare among the rest; he licensed the performance, not the printing of plays.—Ibid. 56 ff.; below, p. 269.

centuries had their minute of glory, are nearly all lost, and the same night now envelops them all. A few, however, remain besides Lyly's, for instance, the " Araygnement of Paris," a mythologico-pastoral compliment to the Queen, in five acts and in verse, the work of George Peele.1 The plot is a pretext for showing fine costumes, the heroes being nearly all gods and goddesses, for writing graceful poetry, and above all for singing the praises of peerless Elizabeth. Given the title of the play and the place of the performance, we scarcely need explain that the event rehearsed by the author is the reversal of the Trojan shepherd's award, on an appeal by the two goddesses who had not received the apple. The court on Olympus (as irreverently handled at times as in the latter-day plays of Meilhac and Halévy) accepts at last the verdict of Diana : Paris had decided wrongly; the majesty of Juno, the wisdom of Minerva, the beauty of Venus are united in Elizabeth. Venus herself acquiesces, and acknowledges that her son has become blind for having dared to gaze at the Queen. All these compliments had done duty before, but they were none the less compliments, and the eyes of the no longer young ruler sparkled with pleasure.

These courtly amusements were to have later a decisive influence, of a special kind, on public performances: they taught what scenery was. At court, the consideration of expense was quite secondary; the best craftsmen were resorted to in order to have painted forests, temples, and mountains. The accounts of the Revels show that large

1 First printed 1584, played some years earlier. "Works," ed. Bullen, 1888, vol. i. Born ab. 1558, an Oxford student, M.A. in 1579, George Peele early attracted attention by his poetical gifts and his merry disposition. Verses praising his lost translation of one of Euripides's tragedies mention:

Et tua cum lepidis seria mista jocis.

"Works," i. p. xvii. He led in London a notoriously dissipated life, was well known to Greene, Marlowe, and Nash, seems to have been a player as well as a dramatist, and died before 1598. On his principal plays, see pp. 123, 126 ff.