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Mercury Vindicated from the Alchemists. 6 Jan. 1615
1616. Mercury Vindicated from the Alchemists at Court by Gentlemen the Kings Seruants. W. Stansby, sold by Richard Meighen. [Part of F_{1}.]
The maskers were twelve Sons of Nature; the first antimaskers Alchemists, the second Imperfect Creatures, in helms of limbecs; the presenters Vulcan, Cyclops, Mercury, Nature, and Prometheus, with a chorus of musicians.
The locality was doubtless Whitehall. The scene first discovered was a laboratory. After the antimasks it changed to a bower, whence the maskers descended for 'the first dance', 'the main dance', and, after dancing with the ladies, 'their last dance'. Donne (Letters, ii. 65) wrote to Sir Henry Goodyere on 13 Dec. [1614], 'They are preparing for a masque of gentlemen, in which M^r. Villiers is and M^r. Karre whom I told you before my Lord Chamberlain had brought into the bedchamber'. On 18 Dec. [1614] (ii. 66) he adds, 'M^r. Villiers . . . is here, practising for the masque'. The year-dates can be supplied by comparison with Chamberlain's letters to Carleton. On 1 Dec. 1614 (S. P. D. Jac. I, lxxviii. 65) Chamberlain wrote, 'And yet for all this penurious world we speake of a maske this Christmas toward which the King gives 1500£ the principall motiue wherof is thought to be the gracing of younge Villers and to bring him on the stage'. It should be borne in mind that there was at this time an intrigue amongst the Court party opposed to Somerset and the Howards, including Donne's patroness Lady Bedford, to put forward George Villiers, afterwards Duke of Buckingham, as a rival to the Earl of Somerset in the good graces of James I. On 5 Jan. Chamberlain wrote again (S. P. D. Jac. I, lxxx. 1; Birch, i. 290, but there misdated), 'Tomorrow night there is a mask at court, but the common voice and preparations promise so little, that it breeds no great expectation'; and on 12 Jan. (S. P. D. lxxx. 4; Birch, i. 356), 'The only matter I can advertise . . . is the success of the mask on Twelfth-night, which was so well liked and applauded, that the King had it represented again the Sunday night after [8 Jan.] in the very same manner, though neither in device nor show was there anything extraordinary, but only excellent dancing; the choice being made of the best, both English and Scots'. He then describes an ambassadorial incident, which is also detailed in a report by Foscarini (V. P. xiii. 317) and by Finett, 19 (cf. Sullivan, 95). The Spanish ambassador refused to appear in public with the Dutch ambassador, although it was shown that his predecessor had already done so, and in the end both withdrew. The Venetian ambassador and Tuscan agent were alone present. An invitation to the French ambassador does not appear to have been in question.
Financial documents (Reyher, 523; S. P. D. lxxx, Mar.) show that one Walter James received Exchequer funds for the mask.
I am not quite sure that Brotanek, 351, is right in identifying Mercury Vindicated with the mask of January 1615 and The Golden Age Restored with that of January 1616, but the evidence is so
