They closed in their temple are,* "Twixt every dance, Let us interpret their prophetic trance. Here they fetched out the MASQUERS [i.e. the AUGURS]: and came before them with the TORCHBEARERS along the stage, singing this full SONG. After which the AUGURS laid by their Apol. The signs are lucky all, and right, t Lin. The bird that brings Orph. And to thy peace, Apol. Which way and whence the light- Do both proclaim thou shalt control Bran. Minerva's hernshaw, and her owl, ning flew, Or how it burned bright and blue, Then forth, and shew the several flights In this night's art. Here the TORCHBEARERS danced. dicebantur. Salius vμvwdòs, vet. gloss. et Pacuv. Pro imperio sic Salisubsulus vestro excubet Mars. et Virg. Æneid. lib. 8. Tum Salii ad cantus incensa altaria circum Populeis adsunt evincti tempora ramis. *Auguria captaturi cœlum eligebant purum et serenum, aëreque nitido. Lituum (qui erat baculus incurvus, augurale signum) manu tenebat augur. Eo cæli regiones designabat, et metas inter quas contineri debebant auguria: et ha vocabantur templa: unde contemplatio dicta est consideratio, et meditatio rerum sacrarum, ut dextrum sinistrumque latus observaret: in impetrato sibi ipse regiones definiebat; in oblato manum suam respexit lævam aut dextram. Regiones ab oriente in occasum terminabat limite decumano, et cardine ex transverso signo metato, quo oculi ferrent quam longissime. Antica in ortum vergebat; Postica regio à tergo ad occasum: dextra ad meridiem: sinistra ad septentrionem. Observationes fiebant augure sedente, capite velato, toga duplici augurali candida amicto, à media nocte ad mediam diem, crescente non deficiente die. Neque captabantur auguria post mensem Julium, propterea quod aves redderentur imbeciliores et morbida, pullique eorum essent imperfecti. Augurandi scientia opvibouavreía dicta; divinatio per aves. Aves aut oscines, aut The course of things. Idm. As now they be Apol. And live free From hatred, faction, or the fear Cho. More is behind, which these do And what the gods to so great virtue owe. Here the MAIN DANCE. Cho. Still, still the auspice is so good,¶ We wish it were but understood; It even puts Apollo To all his strengths of art, to follow What's meant by every sign.** præpetes; oscines, quæ ore, præpetes, quæ volatu augurium significant. Pulli tripudio. Aves auspicata, et præpetes, aquila, vultur, sanqualis seu ossifraga, triarches, sive buteo, immussulus, accipiter, cygnus, columba; oscines, cornix, corvus, anser, ciconia, ardea, noctua inauspicatæ, milvus, parra, nycticorax, striges, hirundo, picus, &c. Habebant dextra et læva omina; antica et postica; orientalia et occidentalia. Græci, cum se ad septentrionem obverterent, ortum ad dextram habuere. Romani meridiem in auspicando cum tuerentur, ortum ad lævam habuere. Itaque sinistra partes eadem sunt Romanis quæ Græcis dextræ ad ortum. nistra igitur illis meliora, dextra pejora: Græcis contrà. Sinistra, pertinentia ad ortum: salutaria, quia ortus lucis index et auctor. Dextra, quia spectant occasum, tristia. Si § Columbæ auguria non nisi regibus dant: quia nunquam singulæ volant: sicut rex nunquam solus incedit. Nuntiæ pacis. Ardea et ardeola, rerum arduarum auspiSegíw epwdiós. cium. Minervaæ sacra. Apud Homer. Iliad. K, Auspicium, ab ave specienda. Paul. Nam quod nos cum præpositione dicimus aspicio, apud veteres sine præpositione spicio dicebatur. ** Signa quæ sese offerent, erant multifaria: Thou canst not less be than the charge That thus art left here to enlarge, And shield their piety! Thy neighbours at thy fortune long have gazed; But at thy wisdom all do stand amazed, O'ercome, or governed by thee! Here the REVELS. After which, APOLLO went up to the KING, and SUNG. Apol. Do not expect to hear of all From us the gods, lest being revealed, It is enough your people learn The reverence of your peace, As well as strangers do discern The glories, by th' increase; And that the princely augur here,* your son, 1 Do by his father's lights his courses run. Cho. Him shall you see triumphing over all, Both foes and vices; and your young and tall Nephews, his sons, grow up in your embraces, 2 To give this island princes in long races. Here the heaven opened, and JOVE, with the Senate of the Gods, was discovered, while APOLLO returned to his seat, and ascending, SUNG. appears from p. 166 b that Charles led the Dance, at the head of the Augurs. nam si objiceretur avis aliqua, considerabatur quo volatu ferretur, an obliquo vel prono, vel supino motu corporis; quo flecteret, contor Your young and tall nephews, his sons.] queret, aut contraheret membra; qua in partei.e., Nepotes, grandchildren.-WHAL. se occultaret; an ad dextram vel sinistram canerent oscines, &c. * Romulus augur fuit, et Numa, et reliqui reges Romani, sicut ante eos Turnus, Rhamnetes, et alii. Lacedæmonii suis regibus augurem assessorem dabant. Cilices, Lycii, Cares, Arabes, in summa veneratione habuerunt auguria. It appears a little singular that the learned Prideaux should be unacquainted with this acceptation of the word, which is common to all our old writers. He apologizes for reading "son and grandson" (Isaiah xiv. 22), instead of son and nephew," with the translators of the Bible; who, as he afterwards shews, elsewhere translate the same word (neked) "grandson.' There is no doubt of it: the only difficulty lay in the commentator's not observing that with them nephew and grandson were perfectly sy. nonymous; though the former term was used also for a brother or sister's son. Connec, vol. i. It p. 125. + Vide Orpheum in hym. de omnip. Fovis. Mos Jovis, annuendo votis et firmandis ominibus. Apud Homer, &c. And that the princely augur here.] Time Vindicated to Himself and to his Honours: IN THE PRESENTATION AT COURT ON TWELFTH-NIGHT, 1623–24. Qui se mirantur, in illos Virus habe: nos hæc novimus esse nihil. TIME VINDICATED, &c.] This Entertainment, which forms a kind of retort courteous to the scurrilous satires now dispersed with mischievous activity, appears only in the second folio. The light parts of it are composed with great gaiety and humour; and the singing and dancing must have been given with great effect among the rich and beautiful concomitants of scenery, &c. that surrounded them. In the Dulwich College MS. this is called the Prince's Masque; its unusual splendour seems to have induced the Master of the Revels (Sir John Astley) to enter into a more particular mention of it than is common with these costive gentlemen. "Upon New Year's-day at night, the Alchemist was acted by the King's players. Upon Sonday, being the 19th of January (1623), the Prince's Masque, appointed for Twelfedaye, was performed. The speeches and songs composed by Mr. Ben Johnson, and the scene made by Mr. Inigo Jones, which was three times changed during the tyme of the Masque, wherein the first that was discovered was a prospective of Whitehall, with the Banqueting House; the second was the Masquers in a cloud; and the third a forest. The French embassador was present. Antemasques were of tumblers and jugglers. The Prince did lead the measures with the French embassadors wife. "The measures, braules, corrantos, and galliards being ended, the Masquers with the ladies did daunce two contrey daunces, where the French embassadors wife and Mademoysal St. Luke did daunce."—Malone's Hist. of the Eng. Stage. Indeed he's Time itself, and his name CHRONOS. Nose. How! Saturn! Chronos! and the You are found: enough. A notable old Ears. One of their gods, and eats up his own children. Nose. A fencer, and does travel with a scythe, Instead of a long sword, Eyes. Hath been oft called from it, To be their lord of Misrule,1 Ears. As Cincinnatus Was from the plough, to be dictator. We need no interpreter: on, what of Time? All sorts of persons worthy to the view Nose. O, we shall have his Saturnalia. Eyes. Slaves of their lords. Nose. The servants of their masters.. Ears. It was a brave time that! I spy it coming, peace! All the impostures, Ears. And hear the passages, and seve- Of men, as they are swayed by their affections: Some grumbling, and some mutining, some scoffing, Some pleased, some pining; at all these we Nose t And the confusion, which I love I nose it; Eyes. My four eyes itch for it. would come forth: 'see, Do lash the time, and am myself lash free. Ears. 'Tis Chronomastix, the brave Nose. The gentlemanlike satyr, cares for nobody, His forehead tipt with bays, do you not know him? Eyes. Yes, Fame must know him, all the town admires him. Chro. If you would see Time quake and shake, but name us, It is for that we are both beloved and famous. Eyes. We know, sir: but the Time's now come about. Ears. And promiseth all liberty. Nose. Nay, licence. Eyes. We shall do what we list. Nose. And censure whom we list, and Chro. Then I will look on Time, and love the same, And drop my whip: who's this? my mis- The lady whom I honour and adore! That did not spy your ladyship at first; Of her to whom all ladies else are flirts. Dear mistress, not for hope I have the Ears. And my ears tingle; would it Will grow the better by it: to serve Fame This room will not receive it. Nose. That's the fear. 1 To be their Lord of Misrule.] "In the feast of Christmass, there was in the king's house, wheresoever he was lodged, a lord of misrule, or master of merry disports; and the like had ye in the house of every noble man of honour, or good worship were be spiritual or temporal."-Stow. In the following verses the poet alludes to that liberty which reigned amongst the Romans during the Saturnalia, or feasts of Saturn. These were appointed to remind them of the general equality between all men in the first age.-WHAL. Creature of glory, mountebank of wit, Self-loving braggart, Fame doth sound no trumpet To such vain empty fools: 'tis Infamy Go revel with thine ignorant admirers, Chro. O, you, the Curious, tumour 'Gainst me, that am so much the friend of rumour? I would say, Fame? whose muse hath rid in rapture On a soft ambling verse, to every capture, From the strong guard to the weak child that reads me, And wonder both of him that loves or dreads me; Who with the lash of my immortal pen Have scourged all sorts of vices, and of men. Am I rewarded thus? have I, I say, From Envy's self torn praise and bays away, With which my glorious front and word at large Triumphs in print at my admirers' charge? Ears. Rare! how he talks in verse, just as he writes !1 Chro. When have I walked the streets, but happy he 1 Rare! how he talks in verse, just as he writes.] From the particular description given us of Chronomastix, it appears that the character was personal; and there is reason for thinking that the author intended was John Marston, who, besides his dramatic writings, was the author of three books of satires, called The Scourge of Villainy.-WHAL. Whalley writes very carelessly. Had he ever looked into Marston, he could not have formed so strange a conjecture. The Scourge of Villainy was written nearly thirty years before this Masque appeared, to which, in fact, it has not the slightest reference. Chronomastix is undoubtedly a generic name for the herd of libellists which infested those times; but the lines noticed by Whalley bear a particular reference to George Wither the puritan, the author of Abuses Stript and Whipt, and other satirical poems on the Times, the style and manner of which Jonson has imitated with equal spirit and humour. The allusion to his "Picture in the front, With bays and wicked rhyme upon't," and which was in great request with "the godly," was probably not a little grateful to the courtiers. That had the finger first to point at me, Prentice, or journeyman! The shop doth know it, The unlettered clerk, major and minor poet! The sempster hath sat still as I passed by, And dropt her needle ! fishwives stayed their cry! The boy with buttons, and the basketwench, To vent their wares into my works do trench! A pudding-wife that would despise the times, Hath uttered frequent penn'orths, through my rhymes, And, with them, dived into the chambermaid, And she unto her lady hath conveyed The seasoned morsels, who hath sent me pensions, To cherish and to heighten my inventions. Well, Fame shall know it yet, I have my faction, And friends about me, though it please detraction, To do me this affront. Come forth that love me, And now or never, spight of Fame, approve me. Enter the Mutes for the ANTIMASQUE. In some editions of Abuses Stript and Whipt, there is a print of a Satyr with a scourge, such as Chronomastix enters with: but Wither had displayed his "glorious front and word at large" (nec habeo, nec careo, nec curo) in the title-page of another poem not long before the appearance of this Masque, in which he refers, with sufficient confidence, to his former works: "Had I been now disposed to satyrize, Would I have tamed my numbers in this wise? Who fearlesse dare on any monster flye To play againe the sharp-fanged Satyrist." This man, whom nature meant for better things, and who did not always write doggrel verses, once thought more modestly of himself; but popularity gave him assurance. In the introduction to his Abuses Whipt, he tells his readers 'not to looke for Spencer's or Daniel's well composed numbers, or the deep conceits of the now flourishing Jonson; but to say 'tis honest plain matter, and there's as much as he expects." |