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1609. Ben Jonson’s “Masque of Queens” at Whitehall on Twelfth Night.

All these were elaborate productions; those of Jonson being indeed beautiful. Their literary value has long been realised, and one sees in them some of his finest work. The introductory descriptions and the stage-directions are singularly minute and careful, and, in their way, are quite as well worth study as the beauties of his strong and noble verse.

He writes of scenes and costumes as if he loved them: as when, in “The Masque of Blackness,” he describes the Moon, “triumphant in a silver throne.... Her garments white and silver, the dressing of her head antique, and crowned with a luminary or sphere of light; which, striking on the clouds, and brightened with silver, reflected, as natural clouds do, the splendour of the moon. The heaven about her was vaulted with blue silk, and set with stars of silver, which had in them their several lights burning.”

And again: “The attire of the masquers was alike in all, without difference: the colours azure and silver; but returned on the top with a scroll and antique dressings of feathers, and jewels interlaced with ropes of pearl. And for the front, ear, neck, and wrists the ornament was of the most choice and Orient pearl: best setting off from the Black.”