the often copying of it hath tir'd my pen to give my severall friends satisfaction." This Lawes was one of the most famous composers of music of the time in England, and it was under his direction and to his music that the "Maske" was produced at Ludlow Castle. The occasion was the celebration of the entry of the Earl of Bridgewater upon the Welsh Presidency, and the place was the Great Hall of Ludlow Castle, in which, according to tradition, the elder of the two Princes murdered in the Tower had been proclaimed King, with the title of Edward V, before commencing his fatal journey to London.
The play contains six speaking parts only. Of these, the most important, "The Attendant Spirit," was taken by Lawes, the director of the play and author of the music. The part of "The Lady" was taken by Lady Alice Egerton, youngest daughter of the Earl, then about fifteen years of age. The parts of the "Elder Brother" and the "Second Brother" were played by the two younger brothers of Lady Alice, Viscount Brackley, to whom this printed edition is dedicated, and Mr. Thomas Egerton. These two young noblemen had already had a taste of stage acting, having taken juvenile parts in Carew's Coelum Britannicum, which had been performed the previous February in the royal Banqueting-house at Whitehall, in which the King himself, Charles I, took part.
The stage-copy, or one of them, perhaps in Lawes' own autograph, is still preserved in the library at Bridgewater House, and the music of five of the six songs, in Lawes' own autograph, is in the British Museum.
An earlier draft of the poem in Milton's own handwriting is preserved in the Library of Trinity College, Cambridge, in that precious thin folio of forty-six pages (besides eight blank pages), mostly in Milton's own hand, and containing all but a few of the minor English Poems.
The first edition is, needless to say, very rare, only one copy having been offered at auction in America. That, a fine one, bound by Matthews, brought $425.00 in the Ives
[vi]
