¹ D. J. Gordon, “The Imagery of Ben Jonson's ‘The Masque of Blackness’ and ‘The Masque of Beautie’,” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, vi (1943), 122-141. The author demonstrates that at the basis of Jonson's inventions is the neo-Platonic doctrine of Beauty and Love as elucidated by Pico, Ficino, and others. Notice, however, that he dismisses reference to the court and the king as usual and conventional “compliment.” P. 129.

² Allan H. Gilbert, “The Function of the Masques in Cynthia's Revels,” PQ, xxii (1943), 213-214: “It is dangerous to set down as flattery any Renaissance address to a monarch which smacks of the theory of kingship … . ”

³ A serious purpose certainly underlies their inclusion in his Works and is shown even before the printing of the folio by the explanations with which Jonson occasionally prefaced his masques; also see below, near the end.

⁴ See his introduction to The Masque of Blacknesse as well as his reference to the “outward celebration, or shew” in his introduction to Hymenæi. Ben Jonson, ed. C. H. Herford, Percy and Evelyn Simpson, vii (Oxford, 1941), 169, 209.

⁵ Notice Jonson's insistence upon this; see not only the passage quoted below but also the prefaces to The Masque of Blacknesse, 9-12, and to The Haddington Masque, 1-10; see The Masque of Queens, 3-5, and also its first dedication, 1-3.

⁶ See, e.g., Francis A. Yates, “The Emblematic Conceit in Giordano Bruno's De Gli Eroici Furori and in the Elizabethan Sonnet Sequences,” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, vi (1943), 101-121.

⁷ “And, though bodies oft-times haue the ill luck to be sensually preferr'd, they find afterwards, the good fortune (when soules liue) to be vtterly forgotten. This it is hath made the most royall Princes, and greatest persons (who are commonly the personators of these actions) not onely studious of riches, and magnificence in the outward celebration, or shew; (which rightly becomes them) but curious after the most high, and heartie inuentions, to furnish the inward parts: (and those grounded vpon antiquitie, and solide learnings) which, though their voyce be taught to sound to present occasions, their sense, or doth, or should alwayes lay hold on more remou'd mysteries.” (Hymenæi, 7-19)

That Jonson is here speaking for himself is obvious not only from the final turn of the last sentence but also from the different attitude toward the masque that such popular royal entertainers as Daniel had (see below, n. 59). James and Henry were undoubtedly interested in the lines of the masques (see the introduction to The Masque of Qveens) and Anne sometimes knew what she wished in the way of spectacle, but it is doubtful that they or any other “prince” had formulated such a theory as Jonson here presents. Even James, at times, seems to have been primarily interested in the dancing. When the tired performers of Pleasure Reconciled to Virtue “began to lag,” he is reported to have shouted, “Why don't they dance? What did they make me come here for? Devil take you all, dance.” Calendar of State Papers. Venetian. 1617-1619 (London, 1909), pp. 113-114.

⁸ Love's Triumph through Callipolis, 1-3.

⁹ See, for example, Neptune's Triumph, which celebrated Charles' return from Spain; The Masque of Blacknesse, wherein “it was her Maiesties will to haue them [the principal masquers] Black-mores at first,” 21-22; and notice the lines on the entrance of Henry as Oberon in the masque of that name and the speeches to the audience in The Gypsies Metamorphos'd.

¹⁰ See, for example, the description of the performance of Pleasure Reconciled to Virtue in Cal. State Papers. Venetian. 1617-1619, p. 113.

¹¹ The following explicit statement of the purpose of the pageant “against Soper-lanes' ende,” for example, shows that it was conceived in the spirit of advice to the ruler:“ … the People therby put her Grace in mind, that as her good doinges before had geven just occasion why that these blessinges might fall upon her; that so, if her Grace did continue in her goodnes as she had entered, she shoulde hope for the fruit of these promises due unto them that doe exercise themselves in the blessinges.” The Progresses and Public Processions of Queen Elizabeth, ed. J. Nichols, i (London, 1823), 47. See also the description of the pageant at the further end of Cornhill, wherein was represented “a seate of Governement, supported by certayne vertues, which suppressed their contrarie vyces under their feete” as well as a portion of the pageant near the little conduit in the upper end of Cheapside wherein a ruined and a flourishing commonweal were represented, with the causes thereof. Ibid., i, 44, 49-51.

¹² In this instance, peace was obviously the primary objective. See J. Payne Collier, The History of English Dramatic Poetry to the Time of Shakespeare, i (London, 1831), 182-188; Collections, i (Malone Soc., 1911), 144-148.

¹³ The New Chronicles of England and France by Robert Fabyan, ed. Henry Ellis (London, 1811), pp. 604-607.

¹⁴ Nichols, Progresses, i, 311.

¹⁵ Ibid., i, 315-316.

¹⁶ “Of Praise,” Essays by Francis Bacon, ed. G. Grigson (The World Classics, Oxford, 1937), p. 214.

For pertinent passages and citations in the works of Erasmus and Guazzo, see PQ, xxii, 211-216. See also Aristotle's remark: “Yet the deeds themselves do but indicate the moral habit, and we should praise a man even if he had not done a thing, if we were sure he was capable of doing it.” Epideictic Rhetoric, i, 9, trans. by Lane Cooper, The Rhetoric of Aristotle (N. Y., 1932), p. 52. Cf. Quintillian, Institutio Oratio, iii, vii, 24-27.

¹⁸ “There is a specific interrelation between praise and advice; for anything you might suggest in a speech of advice can, by a shift in the expression, be turned into encomium.” Lane Cooper, op. cit., p. 52. Notice particularly the last two lines in the passage from The Gypsies Metamorphos'd which is quoted immediately below.

¹⁹ Throughout the spectacle Jonson had developed the analogy made in the gloss on the first masque: “First, as in naturall bodies, so likewise in minds, there is no disease, or distemperature, but is caused either by some abounding humor, or peruerse affection; after the same maner, in politick bodies (where Order, Ceremony, State, Reverence, Deuotion, are parts of the Mind) by the difference, or predominant will of what we (metaphorically) call Humors, and Affections, all things are troubled and confused. These, therefore, were tropically brought in, before Marriage, as disturbers of that mysticall bodie, and the rites, which were soule vnto it; that afterward, in Marriage, being dutifully tempered by her power, they might more fully celebrate the happiness of such as liue in that sweet vnion, to the harmonious lawes of Nature and Reason.” Gloss to line 112.

²⁰ Cf. the sententious tag that ends the brief Entertainment of the King and Queen at Theobalds:

²¹ Note the following passage from An Entertainment at Blackfriars:

Compare with it the following passages, one from Jonson's commonplace book:

There was not that variety of beasts in the Arke; as is of beastly natures in the multitude; especially when they come to that iniquity, to censure their Soveraign's actions. Then all the Counsels are made good, or bad by the events; And it falleth out, that the same facts receive from them the names; now of diligence; now of vanity; now of Majesty; now of fury: where they ought wholy to hang on his mouth; as hee to consist of himselfe; and not others counsels. Discoveries, ed. M. Castelian. Paris, 1906, p. 51.

²² Cf. A. H. Gilbert, “Seneca and the Criticism of Elizabethan Tragedy,” PQ, xiii (1934), 370-381; H. W. Wells, “Senecan Influence in Elizabethan Tragedy,” SAB, xix (1944), 71-84.

²³ It seems hardly necessary to point out the conventional sentiment of this speech; it can be paralleled in Gilbert of Tourvais, Coluccio Salutati, Leon Batista Alberti, and in many passages elsewhere on the differences between king and tyrant. See A. H. Gilbert, Machiavelli's Prince and Its Forerunners (Durham, N. C., 1938), pp. 226-228 and passim. Cf. also The Masque of Beautie, 36-38.

²⁶ See The Haddington Masque in particular; e.g., the speech glossed by the passage quoted above, p. 457.

²⁷ See, for example, how James reshaped for Henry in Basilikron Doron the advice he had been given by Buchanan in the latter's Rervm Scoticarum Historia. T. W. Baldwin, William Skakspere's Small Latine and Lesse Greeke (Urbana, 1944), i, 554-555).

²⁸ See G. F. Warner, “The Library of James IV,” Miscellany of the Scottish History Society, i (Edinburgh, 1893), xi-lxxv. Notice, for example, Pierre Lorich's De Institutione Principis Loci Communes (lxv). Of institutiones and similar works I note those by the following authors: Daniel d'Ange or Jean du Tillet (xxxiii), Budé (xli, liv). Heresbach (xlviii), Chelidonius (1, lvi), Castiglione (lii, lvii), Osorius (lvi), Guevara (lvi), Maugin (lvii), Synasius (lvii), Joannes Ferrarius (lviii), Agapetus (lxi), Elyot (lxvi), and Sebastian Fox Morzillo (lxix). Note also the inclusion of Xenophon's Cyropædia and works by Isocrates, Plato, etc.

²⁹ See above, n. 21, and below, p. 468 on Jonson's ars poetica.

³⁰ The Workes of the Most High and Mighty Prince, lames … Published by James, Bishop of Winton … (London, 1616), p. 148.

³¹ Cf. the lines on the opening of the hill (218-235).

³² Franciscus Patricius Senensis, De Regno et Regis Institutione. 9.19, trans. by A. H. Gilbert, op. cit., p. 230. Cf. the concluding lines of The Masque of Augurs:

³³ See A. H. Gilbert, Machiavelli's Prince, pp. 228-230.

³⁴ The Book of the Courtier from the Italian of Count Baldassare Castiglione: Done into English by Sir Thomas Hoby, ed. Walter Raleigh (London, 1900), pp. 313-314.

³⁵ See particularly Gypsies Metamorphos'd, 1413-1442 (only virtue is “aboue yo^r blood”; it will be allied to Fame, but “that Contemn'd, both are neglected things”); the description of the scene at Fenchurch (“At Fen-Church,” 18-23), and The Entertainment at Highgate, 206-208.

³⁶ Gilbert, Machiavelli's Prince, p. 226 and passim. Cf. below, n. 41, and Jonson's frequent linking of James and the Golden Age; e.g., A Part of the King's Entertainment, “In the Strand,” 744-763; “At Fen-Church,” 309-318; A Panegyre on the King's Opening of Parliament, 155-163; the central device of The Golden Age Restored, of The Vision of Delight; or the unanimity and affection expressed throughout, e.g., The Irish Masque at Court.

³⁷ Prince Henries Barriers, 212. The pertinence of this advice is obvious when one remembers Henry's fondness for the exercise of arms. See also such sententiæ as

³⁸ Nichols, Progresses, I, 47; see above, n. 11 and 12; also Nichols, i, 397-398, 400-406.

³⁹ Robert Withington, English Pageantry, i (Cambridge, 1918), 212-213; Withington's source is Documents Relative to the Receptions at Edinburgh of the Kings and Queens of Scotland (Bannatyne Club, Edinburgh, 1822), pp. 30 ff.

⁴⁰ Machiavelli The Prince and Other Works, trans. and ed. A. H. Gilbert (Chicago, 1941), p. 278. See also Machiavelli's Prince and its Forerunners, pp. 222-230.

Compare The Masque of Oberon, 344-357; The Masque of Queens, 432-445; Part of the King's Entertainment, 589-600, 724-735; News from the New World, 303-317; The Gypsies Metamorphos'd, 322-328; Time Vindicated, 275-286; Part of the King's Entertainment, 760-763; The Entertainment at Highgate, 12, 165-167, 270-275; Hymenæi, 91-94. Note particularly that in Hymenæl, after the vices Contention, Envy, Grief, Deceit, Fear, and Jealousy have gone and the virtues Peace, Love, Faith, and Bliss appear, the principle of the “mystical body” is applied to James and his peace:

Cf. The Entertainment of the Two Kings at Theobalds, wherein the kings are greeted by Law, Justice, and Peace, and the ending of Pans Aninversarie. Note, too, that praise of peace and the good king's triumph over vices or passions rather than foes, as expressed in The Haddington Masque, appears frequently; e.g., Time Vindicated, 527-535; and the last remark that Jonson makes through his courtly entertainments, Love's Welcome at Bolsover, 177-187. For other related passages, see, above and below.

⁴² Cf. The Entertainment of the King and Queen at Theobalds, 59-72.

⁴³ These are the concluding lines to both Neptune's Triumph and The Fortunate Isles. ⁴⁴ See also The Gypsies Metamorphos'd, 390-392.

⁴⁵ Cf. Part of the King's Entertainment, 86-100; Prince Henries Barriers, 82-107, 407-408; Neptune's Triumph, 508-513.

⁴⁶ The Masque of Augurs is used as an example because of the fact that it has been considered “une peu de baume sur les blesseurs du malheureaux monarque”:

Le ballet n'es, d'un bout à l'autre, qu'une apologie de la politique pacifique, et les Augures aveuglés par la flatterie ou éblouis par les doublons de Gondomar, ne recueillent que des présages heureux.

Paul Rey her, Les Masque Anglais (Paris, 1909), p. 295; cf. Mary Sullivan, Court Masques of James I (N. Y., 1913), 128-130, 167.

⁴⁷ See Gilbert, Machiavelli's Prince and Its Forerunners, pp. 70-76, 222-230; cf. “Therfore ought Princis to make their people warlyk, not for a greedie desire to rule, but to defende themselves the better and their owne people, from whoso woulde attempt to bringe them in bondage, or to do them wrong in any point. Or els to drive out Tirans, and to govern the people well, that were yll handled.” The Courtier, pp. 318-319.

⁴⁸ This doctrine appears so frequently in Jonson's writings that it seems almost needless to document it here. See my “The Purpose and the Technique of Jonson's Poetaster,” Stud. Phil., xlii (1945), 225-252. Note, too, how the conception underlying gloss c of Love Freed is applied to the court; i.e., the Muses' priests aid Love, without whom all would be Chaos, in unraveling the riddle of Ignorance, the riddle being a repetition of the maxim stated in the line quoted from Cynthia's Revels:

See also Heroic Virtue's description of the House of Fame (The Masque of Qveens, 384-389); Prince Henries Barriers, 101-106; The Golden Age Restored, 113 ff.; The Masque of Beautie, 137-148. Cf. The Vision of Delight, 9-12.

⁴⁹ This doctrine without the emphasis on poetry Jonson had inculcated in his first two masques; see Gordon, op. cit., 131-132, where similar passages about Love's rise from Chaos are pointed out in Ficino, Boccaccio, Conti, and Giraldi. As Gordon points out, the idea can be paralleled in Latin and vernacular literature throughout the Renaissance. See, however, the note immediately preceding, as well as the discussion on the central device of The Masque of Augurs.

⁵⁰ Herford, Ben Jonson, ii, 317-319; and for a somewhat harsher judgment, see Maurice Castelain, Ben Jonson. L'Homme et l'Œuvre (Paris, 1907), p. 726. Cf. above n. 46, for Reyher's comment.

⁵¹ Notice, for example, portions of the treatment of Apollo in Charles Stephanus' popular compendium of knowledge, the Dictionarium Historicum, Geographicum, Poeticum (1553, 1561, 1567, etc.):

The ending of this interpretation of the Apollo myth, which is taken almost verbatim from Conti's Mythologiæ, another very popular compilation, agrees with Jonson's conception of the sun as being the “most formall cause of all dames beautie” (The Masque of Blacknesse, 141-142), a statement in turn paralleled by, for example, Ficino's discussion of Sensible Beauty; “Lo essere suo formale & essentiale è in essi colori dalla luce del sole visible illuminati, cosi come sono illuminate le Idee dalla luce di quel primo inuisibile sole.” Gordon, op. cit., 140.

⁵² For the appearance of these various functions of Apollo in interpretations of classic myth current during the Renaissance, see the passage from Charles Stephanus quoted in the preceding note as well as the following passage from the Dictionarium:

⁵³ See Enid Welsford, The Court Masque (Cambridge, 1927), Chap. iii, “The Later Middle Ages: the Literary and Aesthetic Development of the Momerie,” pp. 50, 52-64, 70, 74. Cf. The Masque of Qveens, wherein the Hags, “faythfull Opposites To Fame and Glory” are bound and led captive before the wheels of Fame's chariot; also Love Freed, Love Restored, Mercury Vindicated, The Golden Age Restored, The Vision of Delight, Pleasure Reconciled to Virtue, Time Vindicated, and Chloridia. Cf. Hymenæi, 109-160.

⁵⁴ See, e.g., Justice Clement's defense of poetry, the epilogue to The New Inn, and the passage in Discoveries, p. 123, where occurs the sentence “solus Rex, aut Poeta, non quotannis nascitur, which is also quoted at the end of ”A Panegyre on the Happie Entrance of lames … to … Parliament.“

⁵⁵ Underlying Jonson's censures is his fundamental tenet that the true poet must be distinguished from the “rimer” (preface to Volpone, 1-43; Poetaster, I, ii, 231-256; Discoveries, pp. 33, 35, and particularly 17; The Fortunate Isles, 292-299; above, n. 54). Consequently an attack might seem to be concerned almost solely with personalities, as in Time Vindicated, wherein Jonson was thought to be attacking Wither. State Papers. Domestic. James I, 1619-1623 (London, 1858), p. 483. But Jonson's attack was much more comprehensive; indeed, it illustrates well the social and political implications of his ars poetica, for he was attacking not an individual, primarily, but all satirists and readers who fail to understand or to preserve the distinction between liberty and license. Notice, for example, Jonson's attacks on the foolishly curious in Neptune's Triumph, 245-255, 292-297, in News from the New World, and throughout The Staple of News. For an amusing enumeration of the ridiculously undisciplined, see the long song on the devil's banquet in The Gypsies Metamorphos'd, 1062-1137. But notice, too, the precepts, for example, on true gentility in The Gypsies Metamorphos'd, 621-627. Cf. the attack on imposters, from whom the true king provides protection in Mercury Vindicated; the attack on witless lovers in Lovers Made Men, with which should be considered Jonson's neo-Platonic concepts of Love and Beauty, and, for that matter, a great deal of the material in his The New Inn; the attack on the Rosicrucians in The Fortunate Isles; on covetousness masquerading as virtue in Love Restored, wherein Mammon is sent packing with precepts on liberality; his ridicule of the superstitions of midwives and nurses in An Entertainment at the Blackfriars; etc. And note the sententiæ with which the masques are sprinkled. The Masque of Blacknesse, 129-130; Hymenæi, 920-921; Prince Henries Barriers, 407-408; Love Freed, 63-64; The Golden Age Restored, 102-103; The Gypsies Metamorphos'd, 1469-1470.

⁵⁶ This he does through the Groom, passim, e.g., 34-40.

⁵⁷ Notice that in Time Vindicated, which likewise has an antimasque concerned primarily with Jonson's ars poetica, the sense also passes over to a general social and political one (e.g., 136-291). Cf. Jonson's statement in Pleasure Reconciled to Virtue:

⁵⁸ Above, p. 467.

⁵⁹ The Masque of Qveens, gloss p on line 132. Cf. Daedalus' precepts in Pleasure Reconciled to Virtue. The passage explains very well Jonson's belief that “Samuel Daniel was a good honest Man … bot no poet” (“Conversations with Drummond,” 23-24; see also The Forest, xii, 68-69); for Daniel wrote about the masque in his preface to Tethys Festival: “And for these figures of mine, if they come not drawn in all proportions to the life of antiquity (from whose Tyrannie, I see no reason why we may not emancipate our inventions …) yet I know them such as were proper to the busines, and discharged those parts for which they serued, with as good correspondencie, as our appointed limitations would permit.

“But in these things wherein the onely life consists in shew; the arts and inuention of the Architect giues the greatest grace, and is of most importance: ours, the least part and of least note in the time of the performance thereof; and therfeore haue I interserted the description of the artificiall part, which only speaks M. Inago Jones.” Complete Works of Samuel Daniel, ed. A. B. Grosart, iii (1885), 307.