unexpected haste of the printer, which he never let me know, and never sending me a proofe till he had past their speeches, I had no reason to imagine hee could have been so forward'.]
N.D. F. K. for George Norton.
Edition in Nichols, James (1828), ii. 566.
The maskers, in cloth of silver embroidered with gold, olive-coloured vizards, and feathers on their heads, were Princes of Virginia; the torchbearers also Virginians; the musicians Phoebades or Priests of Virginia; the antimaskers a 'mocke-maske' of Baboons; the presenters Plutus, Capriccio a Man of Wit, Honour, Eunomia her Priest, and Phemis her Herald.
The locality was the Hall at Whitehall, whither the maskers rode from the house of the Master of the Rolls, with their musicians and presenters in chariots, Moors to attend their horses, and a large escort of gentlemen and halberdiers. They dismounted in the tiltyard, where the King and lords beheld them from a gallery. The scene represented a high rock, which cracked to emit Capriccio, and had the Temple of Honour on one side, and a hollow tree, 'the bare receptacle of the baboonerie', on the other. After 'the presentment' and the 'anticke' dance of the 'ante-maske', the top of the rock opened to disclose the maskers and torchbearers in a mine of gold under the setting sun. They descended by steps within the rock. First the torchbearers 'performed another ante-maske, dancing with torches lighted at both ends'. Then the maskers danced two dances, followed by others with the ladies, and finally a 'dance, that brought them off' to the Temple of Honour.
For general notices of the wedding masks, see ch. xxiv and the account of Campion's Lords' mask. The German Beschreibung (1613) gives a long abstract of Chapman's (extract in Sh.-Jahrbuch, xxix. 172), but this is clearly paraphrased from the author's own description. It was perhaps natural for Sir Edward Philips to write to Carleton on 25 Feb. (S. P. D. Jac. I, lxxii. 46) that this particular mask was 'praised above all others'. But Chamberlain is no less laudatory (Birch, i. 226):
'On Monday night, was the Middle Temple and Lincoln's Inn mask
prepared in the hall at court, whereas the Lords' was in the banqueting
room. It went from the Rolls, all up Fleet Street and the Strand, and made
such a gallant and glorious show, that it is highly commended. They had
forty gentlemen of best choice out of both houses, and the twelve maskers,
with their torchbearers and pages, rode likewise upon horses exceedingly
well trapped and furnished, besides a dozen little boys, dressed like baboons,
that served for an antimask, and, they say, performed it exceedingly well
when they came to it; and three open chariots, drawn with four horses
apiece, that carried their musicians and other personages that had parts
to speak. All which, together with their trumpeters and other
attendants, were so well set out, that it is generally held for the best
show that hath been seen many a day. The King stood in the gallery to
behold them, and made them ride about the Tilt-yard, and then they were
received into St. James' Park, and so out, all along the galleries, into the
hall, where themselves and their devices, which they say were excellent,
made such a glittering show, that the King and all the company were
