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toy, Com. 502, 'a trifle.' Cf. Macbeth, II. 3. 99, "All is but toys." Cognate with Germ. zeug, 'stuff, trash,' as in spielzeug, 'playthings.'

trains, Com. 151, 'snares.' Cf. Samson Agonistes, 533, "venereal snares" snares of love (Venus). F. traîner, from Lat. trahere, 'to draw,' in Late Lat. 'to betray'-from the metaphor of drawing birds into snares.

turkis, Com. 894, 'the turquoise,' literally 'Turkish stone.' Cf. Tennyson, The Merman, III., "Turkis and agate and almondine."

unharboured, Com. 423, 'yielding no harbourage, i.e. shelter.' A harbinger was originally an officer who went in advance of an army or prince to make provision for the night's shelter. From Icelandic herbergi, an army shelter'; cf. the cognate Germ. words heer+bergen. F. auberge, 'an inn,' is also from this Icelandic word.

usher, Com. 279. The noun (F. huissier, Lat. ostiarius) meant properly 'a doorkeeper,' later 'someone who went in front of any great person in a procession': hence the idea to precede, introduce.'

virtue, Com. 165, 'efficacy, power'; a frequent Elizabethan use. Cf. Luke viii. 46, "Virtue is gone out of me. "" So virtuous='full of efficacy' (Com. 621). Lat. virtus, 'worth, manly excellence' (Lat. vir, 'man').

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wassailer, Com. 179, 'a reveller.' Wassail is the old northern English was hal, 'be whole' the imperative of wesan, 'to be' + hál, the same as whole and hale. Originally a salutation in drinking, like the Germ. prosit! ('may it benefit you'), used in drinking a man's health, wassail came to mean 'a drinking, carousing, revel.' Lady Macbeth promises to overcome the chamberlains "with wine and wassail" (1. 7. 64). The 'wassail‹ bowl' was a great feature of the old Christmas feasting.

weed, Com. 16, 84, 390, 'garments, dress'; A.S. wód, ‘a garment.' Commonly in the plural; cf. Coriolanus, II. 3. 161, "With a proud heart he wore his humble weeds." Now only in the phrase 'widow's weeds,' except in poetry; cf. Tennyson, "In words like weeds I'll wrap me o'er" (In Memoriam, v.).

welkin, Com. 1015, 'sky'; properly a plural word='clouds,' from A.S. wolcnu, the plural of wolcen, 'a cloud'; cf. Germ. wolke, 'a cloud.'

APPENDIX.

I.

THE ENGLISH MASQUE1.

IN the last years of the sixteenth century England owed much to Italian culture. For the age of Spenser Italy was what France a hundred years afterwards became for the age of Dryden, the great authority and model in everything pertaining to literature and art. It was from Italy that the Masque came. Hall tells us in the passage from his Chronicle quoted later on that the entertainment which struck people as so novel in 1512 was introduced "after the manner of Italie." Marlowe puts these lines into the mouth of Piers Gaveston, the favourite of Edward II. : I must have wanton poets, pleasant wits, Musicians, that with touching of a string

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May draw the pliant king which way I please:
Music and poetry is his delight;

Therefore I'll have Italian masks by night,

Sweet speeches, comedies, and pleasing shows."—
Edward II. 1. 1.

In his Chronicle History of the Stage, pp. 22, 26, Mr Fleay notes that Italians “made pastime” for the Queen in 1574; that the Records of the Revels mention an Italian interpreter; and that the speeches of a Masque played before Elizabeth in 1579 were translated from English into Italian, at the Lord Chamberlain's direction.

1 This sketch is mainly abridged from the longer account of the Masque prefixed to my first edition of Comus, where the various sources from which information is taken were mentioned. Anyone who desires to consult a fuller (and most interesting) account of the Masque should turn to Symonds' book, Shakspere's Predecessors.

There can be no question therefore as to the Italian origin of the Masque.

The earliest description of an English Masque occurs in Hall's Chronicle under the date 1512. He says:

"On the daie of the Epiphanie at night the King with xi other were disguised after the manner of Italie, called a maske, a thing not sene afore in England: thei were appareled in garments long and brode, wrought all with golde, with visers and cappes of gold; and after the banket doen these Maskers came in with the sixe gentlemen disguised in silke, beryng staffetorches, and desired the ladies to daunce: some were content, and some that knew the fashion of it refused, because it was not a thing commonly seen. And after thei daunced and communed together, as the fashion of the maskes is, thei toke their leave and departed; and so did the Queene and all the ladies."

The entertainment thus described was what we should call a 'masquerade': an entertainment, that is, in which 'masks' or vizards were worn and dances were the chief element. Often the dances were supposed to illustrate some story, as it were in 'dumb show,' and gradually allegorical characters, e.g. Love, were brought in to explain the story to the audience, and songs were introduced. Hence from being merely a series of dances performed by masked characters, the Masque came to be a kind of play which was accompanied by a good deal of music and therefore resembled an opera. Scenery was then required, and wealthy patrons of the Masque vied with each other in the splendour of their representations. Here the Masque was influenced by the Pageant. The latter was of even older origin. Mention is made as early as 1236 of the City-pageants celebrated in London by members of the trade guilds. Of these spectacular processions, representing symbolically the various trades, which passed through the London streets at great festivities, the Lord Mayor's Show is a survival. Sometimes, e.g. in Shirley's great Masque The Triumph of Peace, a procession formed the introduction to a Masque; and the general influence of the Pageant was to foster a taste for spectacular display. This taste was not gratified in the public theatres simply because the theatrical managers could not afford the expense. But it was gratified in the Masque-performances given by the Court, great nobles, and the four legal societies

(Inner Temple, Middle Temple, Gray's Inn and Lincoln's Inn), whose Christmas-tide festivities or 'Revels1' were of a costly description.

Gradually therefore the Masque developed from its simple origin as a masquerade into a complex form of entertainment scarcely distinguishable from an opera.

The Masque reached its zenith in the reign of James I. Ben Jonson was the great master of the art, and his Masques may be taken as specimens of the finest type. They present these features:

The characters are deities of classical mythology, nymphs and personified qualities such as 'Love,'' Harmony,' 'Delight,' 'Laughter' (for throughout its history the Masque preserved a marked strain of allegory). The number of characters seldom exceeds six, and there are generally two bands to whom the title 'Masquers' is specially assigned and who serve as choruses, now separately and in contrast, now in union. Thus in the Masque

of Hymen there are eight maidens personifying the powers exercised by Juno in her capacity of patroness of women in wedlock, and eight knights personifying the 'Humours' and 'Affections' of man. In the Masque of Queens there are twelve witches embodying evil qualities, such as 'Ignorance,' 'Suspicion,' and against them are set twelve queens representing the highest fame. The scenes are laid in ideal regions-Olympus, Arcadia, the Fortunate Isles, the Palace of Oceanus, and similar realms of fancy. The length of the pieces, of course, varies, but the average Masque is about equal to the first Act of The Tempest. They are written in various metres of rhymed verse, which is sometimes spoken, sometimes declaimed in recitative, and contain solos for the chief characters and part-songs and choruses.

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Dances, executed by the Masquers,' are a very important element: stately 'measures,' 'corantos,' 'galliards,' and the like, of Italian or French origin, and all new to England. Most elaborate scenery is employed, giving the representations a highly spectacular character, and the dresses of the performers are of the costliest description and symbolical. It is interesting, in passing, to remember the contrast between the bare simplicity

1 Twelfth Night was acted at the Candleinas feast (Jan. 6) of the Middle Temple in 1602.

V. C.

9

which characterised the representation of Shakespeare's pieces at the Globe Theatre1 and the rich display of the Masque.

Generally there is a comic part called the Anti-masque. This serves as a contrast to the idealism of the Masque itself. It is a foil, an opposite: hence its name. Sometimes the Anti-masque consists of a scene or two of humorous dialogue and action, which have a satirical relation to the main subject and almost parody it; the characters being drawn from contemporary Elizabethan life. Sometimes the Anti-masque is merely a grotesque interlude. One moment personifications of Delight, and Harmony, and Love move across the scene, chanting some rhythmic choral strain to a slow recitative: the next all is confusion: the Antimasquers rush forward, grotesque in dress and movement, execute fantastic dances and movements, and retire.

Milton does not attempt to work out an Anti-masque in Comus; very wisely, as he had little humour in his nature. But it may be conjectured that had Ben Jonson been the author of Comus at least two episodes in the poem would have been treated as burlesque interludes. These would have occurred at line 93, where Comus first appears, and at line 957: the Anti-masquers being in the one case the "rout of monsters," and in the other the "Country Dancers," with their clumsy "ducks and nods." We have nothing in our own day that corresponds precisely with the Masque of the reign of James I. It was like an opera, because so much music was introduced; like a ballet, because there was so much dancing; like a pageant, because the scenery, setting and costumes were devised on so splendid a scale. It was certainly the forerunner of the opera, and composers like Lawes and Lock, to whom we owe our earliest operas, had in their youth written the incidental music of the latest Masques.

The Masque was a private form of entertainment, much patronised by the Court of James I. The Laureate Ben Jonson would write the libretto; the Court-composer Alfonso Ferrabosco often furnished the music, which would be rendered by the Court-orchestra and the choirs of the Chapels Royal; and the Court-architect, Inigo Jones, designed the scenery. Great nobles too, as we have said, and the legal societies gave Masqueperformances. The Masque was peculiarly suited to be a form

1 Cf. the first Prologue to Henry V.

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