and was printed by Howes as an appendix to the 1615 edition of Stowe's Annales. Chapter 47 is Of the Art of Revels, and is worth quoting:
'I might add herunto for a corollary of this discourse the Art of
Revels which requireth knowledge in Grammar, Rhetoric, Logic,
Philosophy, History, Music, Mathematics, and in other Arts (and all
more than I understand I confess) and hath a settled place within
this City. But because I have described it and discoursed thereof
at large in a particular commentary, according to my talent, I will
surcease to speak any more thereof: blazing only the Arms belonging
to it; which are Gules, a cross argent, and in the first corner of the
scutcheon, a Mercury's petasus argent, and a lion gules in chief or.'[1]
It is matter for deep regret that Buck's 'particular commentary'
is lost. He made other contributions to letters,
writing commendatory verses to Thomas Watson's [Greek: EKATOMPATHIA]
(c. 1582) and to Camden's Britannia (1607), and
a poem called [Greek: DAPHNIS POLYSTEPHANOS] (1605).[2] His
History of the Life and Reigne of Richard III was published
posthumously in 1607.[3]
Reversions of the Mastership were granted during Buck's lifetime to Edward Glasscock in 1603, to John, afterwards Sir John, Astley or Ashley on 3 April 1612, to Benjamin Jonson on 5 October 1621, and to William Painter on 29 July 1622.[4] His actual successor was Sir John Astley. On 30 March 1622 John Chamberlain wrote to Dudley Carleton, 'Old Sir George Buck, master of the revels, has gone mad'.[5] On 29 March 1622 a warrant was issued by the Lord Chamberlain to swear Astley in as Master, followed on 16 May by
- [Footnote: *tion (Dramatic Records, 39; Herbert, 108) that the Office had been 'time
out of minde' in the parish of St. Mary Bowe, in the ward of Cheap. St. Peter's Hill is divided between Queen Hithe and Castle Baynard wards.]Sp[ectaculorum] C[uratoris] Heptastichon'.]
- ↑ Chalmers, Apology, 531, 628, has an engraving from a block of the Revels Office seal or stamp, as used by Thomas Killigrew under Charles II. It has Killigrew's arms with the legend 'Sigill: Offic: Iocor: Mascar: Et Revell: Dni: Reg.'
- ↑ Cf. p. 98. The verses to the Britannia are headed 'Georgij Buc Equitis aurati Reg[iorum
- ↑ This is sometimes ascribed to a younger Buck, but the manuscript copy in Cott. MS. Tiberius, E. x, is dated from the Revels Office on St. Peter's Hill in 1619.
- ↑ Feuillerat, Lyly, 237; Dramatic Records, 11, 39; Herbert, 7, 102; S. P. D. Jac. I (cxxxii, p. 432). Chalmers, 492, says, 'Yet, this was not old Ben, as it seemeth, who died in 1637, but young Ben, who died in 1635'. This seems rather improbable. Was Jonson already a suitor for the post in 1601, when Dekker wrote Satiromastix, iv. i. 244, 'Master Horace . . . I have some cossens Garman at Court, shall beget you the reuersion of the Master of the Kings Reuels, or else be his Lord of Misrule now at Christmas'?
- ↑ S. P. D. Jac. I, cxxviii. 96.
