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Following the entrance of Vulturnus, bringing—in reference to the former “Masque of Blackness”—the good news of his discovery of a lost isle whereon the black but lovely daughters of Niger had been languishing in obscurity, there came a fine pageant.

“Here,” as Jonson’s stage directions describe it, “a curtain was drawn in which the night was painted, and the scene was discovered which (because the former was marine, and these, yet of necessity, to come from the sea) I devised should be an island floating on a calm water. In the midst thereof was a Seat of State, called the Throne of Beauty, erected; divided into eight squares, and distinguished by so many Ionic pilasters. In these squares, the sixteen masquers were placed by couples; behind them in the centre of the throne was a tralucent pillar, shining with several coloured lights, that reflected on their backs. From the top of which pillar went several arches to the pilasters, in front, little Cupids in flying posture, waving of wreaths and lights, bore up the cornice; over which were eight figures, representing the elements of Beauty, which advanced upon the Ionic, and, being females, had the Corinthian order.”


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