with a loud crack'? On Saturday evening no such explosion disturbed the Royal nerves; His Majesty was pleased, and encored two of the dances; unhappily the performers were unable to obey the command, for one of the statuas' had undressed.

Jonson's poetry of the masque is found at its best in his folio volume which was published in the year of Shakespeare's death (1616). After that date prose occupies a larger place, and the humorous dialogue, which sometimes becomes satirical of contemporary follies, expands to almost undue dimensions. The masque occasionally loses something of its special character and approximates to a miniature comedy. From the first, indeed, Jonson could be gay as well as grave; but in the earlier masques the gaiety partakes more of grace, of sprightly fantasy, of grotesque invention in which there is no sting; in the later he appears as a humorous critic of society.

For an example of the earlier manner we may turn to Oberon, the Fairy Prince, a masque written in honour of Prince Henry, who in 1610, the year of Jonson's masque, was created Earl of Chester and Prince of Wales, and who died two years later amid the genuine and universal lamentations of the people. In a wild landscape, seen by moonlight, appears a satyr, who summons with the notes of the cornet his companions of the rocks and woods. At first echo alone answers to the call. But at the third sounding a troop of his young and lusty fellows gathers, each from his lurking-place behind the rocks, and, with antic gestures full of mirth and wantonness, they begin their chatter of eager inquiry after the fairy prince. What gifts, what pleasures will young Oberon bring? Will he build us larger caves, or gild our cloven feet, or strew our heads with odorous powders?

1st Satyr. Bind our crooked legs in hoops
Made of shells with silver loops?

2nd Satyr. Tie about our tawny wrists

Bracelets of the fairy twists?

4th Satyr. And, to spight the coy nymphs' scorns,
Hang upon our stubbed horns

Garlands, ribbands, and fine posies,

3rd Satyr. Fresh as when the flower uncloses ?

And so with ever-varying imagery the babble of the satyr youngsters proceeds. Suddenly the scene opens, a glorious palace is discovered, before the gates of which lie two sylvans dressed with leaves and armed with clubs, but sleeping soundly at their posts. The boysatyrs endeavour to tease into their senses these negligent guards; but they are more like 'caves of sleep' than sentinels. At length the satyrs try the virtue of a catch:

Buz, quoth the blue fly,
Hum, quoth the bee;
Buz and hum they cry,
And so do we-

accompanying the buzzing song with ticklings in the nose and ear. The sleepers are roused, and, after added sport and song, the interior of the palace is disclosed, with the nation of fays, some bearing lights, some instruments of music, some chanting, while the masquersknights of the fairy prince-appear, and young Oberon himself advances to triumphant music in a chariot drawn by white bears and guarded by sylvans. The little ladies [the fays],' says Sir John Finet, 'performed their dance to the amazement of all beholders, considering the tenderness of their years and the many intricate changes of the dance, which was so disposed that which way soever the changes went the little duke [Charles] was still found to be in the midst of these little dancers.' The dances of the masquers, the measures, corantoes and galliards follow, with choral songs between, until Phosphorus, the day-star, appears summoning the revellers to rest:

To rest! to rest! the herald of the day,

Bright Phosphorus, commands you hence; obey.
The moon is pale and spent, and winged night
Makes headlong haste to fly the morning's sight.

Such is the gaiety of Jonson's earlier masques.

If we place by the side of the masque of Oberon a device of tea years later, News from the New World Discovered in the Moon, we shall perceive the nature of the change which had given the masque an unexpected development. With the exception of songs introduced in the breathing-time between the dances the piece is written in prose. It is indeed a comedy in little, containing the germ of a very interesting regular comedy, The Staple of News, which was subsequently evolved from the idea of this masque. Two heralds enter with the delightful announcement, News, news, news!" What happier tidings can there be for the printer, the chronicler, and the factor who stand by? The printer would gladly buy good copy' for his press, whether it be true or false. The chronicler requires matter to fill ten quires of his great volume, the size of which has already been arranged with the publisher; since seven in the morning he has sought in vain material for a single page, and, like a faithful chronicler, has even counted twice over the number of candles in the hall. The factor has made it his business to supply the provinces with news. He despatches to the shires his one thousand or twelve hundred manuscript letters each week, with such intelligence as will suit his several classes of customers: 'I have my Puritan news, my Protestant news, and my Pontificial news;' and his present project is to establish such a news agency as Jonson afterwards described in his comedy.

The tidings which the heralds bring are, however, not metropolitan but lunar news. The poet has been to the moon and made discovery of a new world, containing sea and land, navigable rivers, nations,

6

polities, laws, hundreds, and wapentakes. Not as Endymion removed thither, 'in rapture of sleep,' nor in that odd way of Empedocles, who when he leapt into Ætna, being sear and dry of flesh, was whiffed by the volcanic smoke to the moon, where he lives yet, 'waving up and down like a feather, all soot and embers,' nor yet on foot, as one of our greatest poets' (old Ben himself) journeyed to Edinburgh, has the poet reached the moon, but in flight upon the wings of his Muse. And what have been his discoveries? The lunar inhabitants are a silent race, uttering themselves by certain motions to music; even the lawyers there are dumb as fishes. They live, like grasshoppers, on dew; yet these worthy lunatic people are not so very different from the lunatics of earth. Anabaptists are there, and Rosicrucians, zealous women who out-groan the groaning wives of Edinburgh, lovers who sigh or whistle themselves away, and moon-calves very like our fools, and with these the ladies play instead of with little dogs. For there are fine ladies in the moon, who ride in cloudcoaches driven by the wind, and have covert places of assignation in the clouds more secret than the retreats of Hyde Park. Their Tunbridge Wells and Spas lie in certain Islands of Delight, to which they sail in cloud-canoes, of which islands one is inhabited by a race. uniting in each individual the male and female sexes. They lay eggs which produce a species of half-feathered fowls, named volatees, that hop from island to island. The whole dialogue here is a piece of Aristophanic humour, a fantastic satire on society, little adapted to invite spectacular display. But presently a covey of volatees enter for the antimasque, and as soon as their hopping dance is ended the masquers descend from the moon, shaking off their icicles. Subjects they are of the wisest and most learned of English kings, who by contemplation of his virtues have been rapt above the lunar sphere. The satire of Jonson's masque is essentially that of the comedies, but, as becomes an entertainment, is lighter, more fantastic, and less laboured.

The date of one of Jonson's masques-Pleasure Reconciled to Virtue-which Gifford was unable to assign, has fortunately been fixed as Twelfth Night 1617-18 by the Papers of the Venetian Embassy, translated by Mr. Rawdon Brown. The chaplain to the Embassy, old Orazio Busino, relates how he waited in the Venetian box, afflicted by the overcrowding and vexed by the free and easy insolence of a Spanish gentleman who, begging humbly for a modest space, secured for himself the most comfortable seat. After an age of endurance, shortened only by the beauty of English faces and the splendour of novel dresses, the masque began. Comus, the god of the belly, entered in a triumph; men disguised as bottles and tuns formed the antimasque, which was followed by an antimasque of pigmies. Presently the herald Mercury announced that all grosser forms of pleasure must pass away, and that, under the influence of

a wise and learned monarch, Pleasure shall be reconciled to Virtue. Twelve princes led by Prince Charles formed the troop of masquers; and Busino records that, though Charles excelled all his companions in keeping perfect time and making graceful bows, his wind was not good. The dance began to flag, whereupon the King, 'who is naturally choleric,' became impatient and shouted aloud: 'Why don't you dance? What did you come here for? Devil take you all! dance!' On hearing this, the Marquis of Buckingham, His Majesty's most favoured minion, immediately sprang forward, cutting a score of lofty and very minute capers with so much grace and agility that he not only appeased the ire of his angry sovereign, but, moreover, rendered himself the admiration and delight of everybody. Thus encouraged, the other masquers proceeded to exhibit their prowess with various ladies, ending in like manner with capers, and by lifting, says Busino, their goddesses from the ground. Possibly it was to make amends for his outbreak of temper that King James commanded a second presentation of the masque, on which occasion Jonson added an introductory antimasque-'For the honour of Wales.' The loyal but somewhat vainglorious and quarrelsome Griffith, Jenkin, and Evan-Evan, a Welsh attorney, very litigious in the terms, and out of the terms a poet-are indignant that the scene of the masque should be Mount Atlas, when it might better have been placed in Carnarvonshire. They promise His Majesty a true Welsh reception should he visit the Principality, with plenty of toasted cheese, and the possible distinction added to royalty of a justiceship of the peace. There follows a seventeenth-century Celtic renaissance, for harpers are introduced, and there is a dance of Welsh goats, who are 'excellent dancers by birth.'

'But enough of these toys.' And yet the toys had a grace which was lost in Restoration days. As a motto for what is best in the English masque we might take a stanza of Jonson's own, which is sung with other verses by the great inventor Dædalus in that device which the old Venetian chaplain has described:

Grace, laughter, and discourse may meet,

And yet the beauty not go less;

For what is noble should be sweet,
But not dissolved in wantonness.

The times were at hand when courtiers had to doff their silks and

buckle on their armour. The masque perished in the Civil Wars, and, as has been noticed by Mr. Herbert Evans in his excellent volume devoted to this subject,2 upon the Restoration the attractions of the masque had been transferred to the theatre, at which the King was now a constant attendant.

EDWARD DOWDEN.

2 English Masques, Introduction, p. lv.

IS THERE REALLY A CRISIS' IN THE

CHURCH?

If we are to judge from the prominence given to the crisis in the Church' in the columns of the daily papers and the Reviews, and also in speeches in both Houses of Parliament, the Church of England, and the English nation, are passing through a very grave crisis. The allegation is that, whilst both the Church and the nation are essentially Protestant, a large section of the clergy of the Church are endeavouring, strenuously and openly, to destroy Protestantism, and to establish in its stead a sacerdotal system which differs little, if at all, from that of Rome. We are called on, in terms varying from a sober statement of the Protestant view in a magazine article to passionate appeals at public meetings, and even disturbances in churches, to resist this attempt, and are warned that if we fail to do so we shall lose, if not our civil liberty, at least the National Church. At the same time the Bishops are censured with more or less severity for not taking strong measures to stop the evil.

Is it true that we are really in this critical condition? and if we are, can the Bishops or any one else do anything to save us? It is, no doubt, true that some of the extreme Ritualists have introduced into their services vestments and ceremonies which give the greatest offence to some members of their congregation and to Protestants generally. It is, however, recognised on both sides that these matters are in themselves mere trivialities; vestments, ornaments, processions, if they stood alone, would be mere questions of taste; they are of importance only as evidence of an attempt to assimilate the services of the Church of England to the services of the Church of Rome, and this again is of importance only so far as it implies an identity of doctrine. Between the Roman, or, as we may call it, without intending to raise petty controversies, the Catholic and the Protestant religious idea there is a fundamental difference, a difference to be found in other religions besides the Christian, e.g. Hinduism and Muhammadanism. The essence of the Catholic idea, so far as its outward form is concerned, is the existence of a special priesthood, invested with supernatural powers by virtue of a spiritual descent from the Founder of the religion, who alone can perform certain acts and ceremonies, which are regarded as essential to the salvation or