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I have said thus much merely to shew the fallacy of Mr. Malone's argument, and the readiness with which all improbabilities are swallowed when they conduce to the grateful purpose of maligning Jonson. For, in truth, it signifies nothing to the question, at which period either piece was produced, or which of them had the priority in point of date; since the characters are totally and radically distinct, and do not bear either in conduct or language the slightest token of affinity. What is decisive on the subject is, the remarkable care which Jonson himself takes to disclaim all idea of copying any preceding dramatist. He tells prince Henry that he described his witches "out of fullness and memory of his former readings, which he has retrieved and set down at his desire ;" and he informs the queen that "he was CAREFUL TO DECLINE, not only from others, but from his own steps, in this kind." Not one syllable of this has ever been noticed before; the commentators prefer darkness to light, and so they can rail at " old Ben," make their wantonness their ignorance.

But when spleen and malice have done their worst, the magical part of the Masque of Queens will still remain a proof of high poetic powers, of a vigorous and fertile imagination, and of deep and extensive learning, managed with surprising ease, and applied to the purposes of the scene with equal grace and dexterity.

THE MASQUE OF QUEENS.

T increasing now to the third time of my being used in these services to her majesty's personal presentations, with the ladies whom she pleaseth to honour; it was my first and special regard, to see that the nobility of the invention should be answerable to the dignity of their persons. For which reason I chose the argument to be, A celebration of honourable and true Fame, bred out of Virtue: observing that rule of the best artist, to suffer no object of delight to pass without his mixture of profit and example. And because her majesty (best knowing that a principal part of life, in these spectacles, lay in their variety) had commanded me to think on some dance, or shew, that might precede hers, and have the place of a foil, or false masque ; I was careful to decline, not only from others, but mine own steps in that kind, since the last year," I had an anti-masque of boys; and therefore now devised, that twelve women, in the habit of hags, or witches, sustaining the persons of Ignorance, Suspicion, Credulity, &c., the opposites to good Fame, should fill that part; not as a masque, but a spectacle of strangeness, producing multiplicity of gesture, and not unaptly sorting with the current, and whole fall of the device.

a Hor. in Art. Poetic.

In the masque at my lord Haddington's wedding.

His majesty, then, being set, and the whole company in full expectation, the part of the scene which first presented itself was an ugly Hell; which flaming beneath, smoked unto the top of the roof. And in respect all evils are morally said to come from hell; as also from that observation of Torrentius upon Horace's Canidia, quæ tot instructa venenis, ex Orci faucibus profecta videri possit: these witches, with a kind of hollow and infernal music, came forth from thence. First one, then two, and three, and more, till their number encreased to eleven; all differently attired some with rats on their heads, some on their shoulders; others with ointment-pots at their girdles; all with spindles, timbrels, rattles, or other venefical instruments, making a confused noise, with strange gestures. The device of their attire was master Jones's, with the invention, and architecture of the whole scene, and machine. Only I prescribed them their properties of vipers, snakes, bones, herbs, roots, and other ensigns of their magic, out of the authority of ancient and late writers, wherein the faults are mine, if there be any found; and for that cause I confess them.

d

These eleven WITCHES beginning to dance, (which is an usual ceremony at their convents or meetings, where sometimes also they are vizarded and masked,) on the sudden one of them missed their chief, and interrupted the rest with this speech.

Hag. Sisters, stay, we want our Dame;e
Call upon her by her name,

c Vide Lævin. Tor. comment. in Hor. Epod. lib. ode 5.

See the king's majesty's book (our sovereign) of Demonology, Bodin. Remig. Delrio. Mal. Malefi. and a world of others in the general: but let us follow particulars.

e Amongst our vulgar witches, the honour of dame (for so I translate it) is given with a kind of pre-eminence to some special one at their meetings: which Delrio insinuates, Disquis. Mag. lib. ii.

And the charm we use to say;

That she quickly anoint, and come away.

I Charm. Dame, dame! the watch is set :
Quickly come, we all are met:

From the lakes, and from the fens,
From the rocks, and from the dens,
From the woods, and from the caves,
From the church-yards, from the graves,
From the dungeon, from the tree

That they die on, here are we!

Comes she not yet?

Strike another heat.

quæst. 9, quoting that of Apuleius, lib. de Asin. aureo. de quadam caupona, regina Sagarum. And adds, ut scias etiam tum quasdam ab iis hoc titulo honoratas. Which title M. Philipp. Ludwigus Elich. Dæmonomagia quæst. 10, doth also remember.

f When they are to be transported from place to place, they use to anoint themselves, and sometimes the things they ride on. Beside Apul. testimony, see these later, Remig. Dæmonolatria lib. i. cap. 14. Delrio, Disquis. Mag. lib. ii. quæst. 16. Bodin Damonoman. lib. ii. cap. 14. Barthol. de Spina. quæst. de Strigib. Philippo Ludwigus Elich. quæst. 10. Paracelsus in magn. et occul. Philosophia, teacheth the confection. Unguentum ex carne recens natorum infantium, in pulmenti forma coctum, et cum herbis somniferis, quales sunt Papaver, Solanum, Cicuta, &c. And Giov. Bapti. Porta, lib. ii. Mag. Natur. cap. 16.

These places, in their own nature dire and dismal, are reckoned up as the fittest from whence such persons should come, and were notably observed by that excellent Lucan in the description of his Erichtho, lib. vi. To which we may add this corollary out of Agrip. de occult. philosop. lib. i. cap. 48. Saturno correspondent loca quævis fætida, tenebrosa, subterranea, religiosa et funesta, ut cœmeteria, busta, et hominibus deserta habitacula, et vetustate caduca, loca obscura, et horrenda, et solitaria antra, caverna, putei: præterea piscina, stagna, paludes, et ejusmodi. And in lib. iii. cap. 42, speaking of the like, and in lib. iv. about the end, Aptissima sunt loca plurimum experientia visionum, nocturnarumque incursionum et consimilium phantasmatum, ut cœmeteria, et in quibus fieri solent executiones criminalis judicii, in quibus recentibus annis publica strages facta sunt, vel ubi occisorum cadavera, necdum expiata, nec ritè sepulta, recentioribus annis subhumata sunt.

2 Charm. The weather is fair, the wind is good, Up, dame, on your horse of wood:

Or else tuck up your gray frock,

And saddle your goat, or your green cock,*
And make his bridle a bottom of thread,
To roll up how many miles you have rid.
Quickly come away;

For we all stay.

Nor yet! nay, then,

We'll try her agen.

h Delrio, Disq. Mag. lib. ii. quæst. vi. has a story out of Triezius of this horse of wood: but that which our witches call so, is sometimes a broom-staff, sometimes a reed, sometimes a distaff. See Remig. Dæmonol. lib. i. cap. 14. Bodin, lib. ii. cap. 4, &c.

i The goat is the Devil himself, upon whom they ride often to their solemnity, as appears by their confessions in Rem. and Bodin. ibid. His majesty also remembers the story of the devil's appearto those of Calicut, in that form, Dæmonol. lib. ii. cap. 3.

ance

*

* Of the green cock we have no other ground (to confess ingenuously) than a vulgar fable of a witch, that with a cock of that colour, and a bottom of blue thread, would transport herself through the air; and so escaped (at the time of her being brought to execution) from the hand of justice. It was a tale when I went to school; and somewhat there is like it in Mart. Delr. Disqu. Mag. lib. ii. quæst. 6, of one Zyti, a Bohemian, that, among other his dexterities, aliquoties equis rhedariis vectum, gallis gallinaceis ad epirrhedium suum alligatis, subsequebatur.

* His majesty also remembers the story, &c.] Jonson cannot escape the commentators, and his name serves them as a foil upon all occasions. Warburton having incidentally observed that a passage in Macbeth was "intended as a compliment to James," Steevens subjoins that the truth of history was also perverted for the same purpose; yet, continues he, "the flattery of Shakspeare is not more gross than that of Ben Jonson, who has"-done what, does the reader think?" condescended to quote his majesty's ridiculous book on Demonology"! The reader has here the whole of the poet's offence: with respect to "his majesty," his book was not more "ridiculous" than any of the others quoted on the subject; and as Jonson collected his authorities merely in obedience to the commands of the prince, there seems no violent strain of flattery in barely citing the book of his father for a popular story.