boys for the antimask and for the speaking parts, which of course required a trained elocution.[1] Sometimes, however, a part might be taken by one of the numerous persons employed as devisers or trainers. I do not know that the statement that 'Ben Jonson turned the globe of the earth standing behind the altar' in Hymenaei necessarily implies Jonson's personal presence on the stage, actor though he had been, for in fact the globe seems to have been moved by unseen machinery, without even the apparent assistance of a presenter. But the dance-masters Thomas Giles and Jerome Heron certainly played the Cyclopes in the Haddington Mask, and Giles also played Thamesis in the Mask of Beauty. The musicians again, some or all of whom were generally disguised, were a professional body, of which the nucleus was probably formed by members of the various bands of the royal households. Thus John Allen, who sang in the Mask of Queens and the Mask of Squires, was 'her majesty's servant', and Nicholas Lanier, who also sang in the Mask of Squires, was one of the King's flutes. Both musicians and dancing-masters had other important functions in connexion with the masks, outside the actual performances. The former had to compose the airs and set them for the musical instruments and the dances; the latter had to arrange the dances and to drill the dancers.[2] Campion, being a composer as well as a poet, was naturally responsible for his own music, and the musical element in his masks tended to be predominant. Jonson seems generally to have obtained the co-operation of Alfonso Ferrabosco, probably a son of the Ferrabosco who was devising masks for Elizabeth about 1572.[3] He was originally a lutenist, but at the time of hisdeath in 1627 'enjoyed four places, viz. a musician's place in general, a composer's place, a violl's place, and an instructor's place to the prince in the art of musique'.[4] Amongst the musicians who gave minor assistance, either as composers or
- ↑ Dekker His Dream (1620, Works, iii. 7), 'I herein imitate the most courtly revellings; for if Lords be in the grand masque, in the antimasque are players'; Jonson, Love Restored (Works, iii. 83). 'The rogue play-boy, that acts Cupid, is got so hoarse, your majesty cannot hear him half the breadth of your chair'. The accounts for Oberon include £10 to 'xiijn Holt boyes' and £15 to 'players imployed in the maske'; those for Love Freed £10 to '5 boyes, that is 3 Graces Sphynx and Cupid', and £12 to 'the 12 fooles that danced', and those for the Lords' Mask £1 each to '12 madfolkes' and '5 speakers' (Reyher, 508).
- ↑ The rehearsals were a serious business, lasting in 1616 no less than fifty days; cf. Reyher, 35. There were dress rehearsals; cf. Osborne in note to p. 206, infra.
- ↑ Cf. p. 163, and D. N. B., s.v. Ferrabosco.
- ↑ Lafontaine, 63.
