rson chiefly concerned in the scenic, musical,
and histrionic preparations of the mask was Milton's esteemed friend, the
most accomplished musical composer of the day, Henry Lawes. Lawes
composed the music and arranged the stage business. He seems to have
taken upon himself the part of the Attendant Spirit. Lawes knew to whom
to apply for the all-important matter of the book, the words, or the
poetry, of the piece, for he had learned to know Milton's qualifications
as a mask-poet in the fragment which we have under the name _Arcades_.
With good music even for commonplace lyric verse, and with sprightly
declamation even of conventional dialogue, the thing, as we know from
modern instances, might have been carried off by gorgeous costumes and
shrewdly devised scenic effects. Most of the masks of the time fell at
once into oblivion. But Lawes had secured for his poet John Milton; and
the consequence thereof is that the Earl of Bridgewater is now chiefly
heard of because at Ludlow Castle there was enacted, in the form of a
mask written by Milton, a drama which is still read and reread by every
English-speaking person who reads any serious poetry, though Ludlow
Castle has long been a venerable ruin.

For his plot, the poet feigned that the young children of the earl, two
sons and a daughter, in coming to Ludlow, had to pass unattended through
a forest, in which the boys became separated from the girl and she fell
into the hands of the enchanter Comus. The Attendant Spirit appears to
the youths with his magic herb, and with the further assistance of the
water-nymph Sabrina, at last makes all right, and the children are
restored to their parents in the midst of festive rejoicing.

The poem is dramatic, because it is acted and spoken or sung in character
by its persons. It is allegorical, because it inculcates a moral, and
more is meant than meets the ear. In parts it is pastoral, both because
the chief personage appears in the guise of a shepherd, and because its
motive largely depends on the superstitions and traditions of simple,
ignorant folk. In the longer speeches, where events are narrated with
some fulness, it becomes epic. Lastly, in its songs, in the octosyllables
of the magician, and in the adjuration and the thanking of Sabrina, it is
lyric. With iambic pentameter as the basis of the dialogue, the poet
varies his measures as Shakespeare does his, and with very similar ends
in view.

The name _Comus_ Milton found r