sed; an element of artificial fire played
about the house of Prometheus--a bright and transparent cloud reaching
from the heavens to the earth, whence the eight maskers descended with
the music of a full song; and at the end of their descent the cloud
broke in twain, and one part of it, as with a wind, was blown athwart
the scene. While this cloud was vanishing, the wood, being the under
part of the scene, was insensibly changing: a perspective view opened,
with porticoes on each side, and female statues of silver, accompanied
with ornaments of architecture, filled the end of the house of
Prometheus, and seemed all of goldsmith's work. The women of
Prometheus descended from their niches till the anger of Jupiter
turned them again into statues. It is evident, too, that the size of
the procenium accorded with the magnificence of the scene; for I find
choruses described, 'and changeable conveyances of the song,' in
manner of an echo, performed by more than forty different voices and
instruments in various parts of the scene."

The masque, as Lord Bacon says, was composed for princes, and by
princes it was played. The King and Queen, Prince Henry, and Prince
Charles (afterwards Charles the First) all appeared in Court masques,
as did also the nobility and gentry of the Court, foreign ambassadors,
and other eminent personages.

In his notes to "The Masque of Queens," Ben Jonson refers several
times to "the King's Majesty's book (our sovereign) of Demonology."
The goat ridden was said to be often the devil himself, but "of the
green cock, we have no other ground (to confess ingenuously) than a
vulgar fable of a witch, that with a cock of that colour, and a bottom
of blue thread, would transport herself through the air; and so
escaped (at the time of her being brought to execution) from the hand
of justice. It was a tale when I went to school."

That there was no lack of ability for carrying out the Court commands
in regard to the Christmas entertainments of this period is evident
from the company of eminent men who used to meet at the "Mermaid."
"Sir Walter Raleigh," says Gifford,[59] "previously to his unfortunate
engagement with the wretched Cobham and others, had instituted a
meeting of _beaux esprits_ at the Mermaid, a celebrated tavern in
Friday Street. Of this club, which combined more talent and genius,
perhaps, than ever met together before or since, Jonson was a member;
and here, for many years, he regularly repai