e read it, but he must also have
heard and have viewed it. The only witnesses in this case are those
letter-writers of the day, who were then accustomed to communicate such
domestic intelligence to their absent friends: from such ample
correspondence I have often drawn some curious and sometimes important
information. It is amusing to notice the opinions of some great critics,
how from an original mis-statement they have drawn an illegitimate
opinion, and how one inherits from the other the error which he
propagates. Warburton said on Masques, that "Shakspeare was an enemy to
these _fooleries_, as appears by his writing none." This opinion was
among the many which that singular critic threw out as they arose at the
moment; for Warburton forgot that Shakspeare characteristically
introduces one in the _Tempest's_ most fanciful scene.[3] Granger, who
had not much time to study the manners of the age whose personages he
was so well acquainted with, in a note on Milton's Masque, said that
"these compositions were trifling and perplexed allegories, the persons
of which are fantastical to the last degree. Ben Jonson, in his 'Masque
of Christmas,' has introduced 'Minced Pie,' and 'Baby Cake,' who act
their parts in the drama.[4] But the most _wretched performances_ of
this kind could please by the help of music, machinery, and dancing."
Granger blunders, describing by two farcical characters a species of
composition of which farce was not the characteristic. Such personages
as he notices would enter into the Anti-masque, which was a humorous
parody of the more solemn Masque, and sometimes relieved it. Malone,
whose fancy was not vivid, condemns Masques and the age of Masques, in
which, he says, echoing Granger's epithet, "the _wretched taste_ of the
times found amusement." And lastly comes Mr. Todd, whom the splendid
fragment of the "Arcades," and the entire Masque, which we have by
heart, could not warm; while his neutralising criticism fixes him at the
freezing point of the thermometer. "This dramatic entertainment,
performed not without prodigious expense in machinery and decoration, to
_which humour_ we certainly owe the entertainment of 'Arcades,' and the
inimitable Mask of 'Comus.'" _Comus_, however, is only a fine dramatic
poem, retaining scarcely any features of the Masque. The only modern
critic who had written with some research on this departed elegance of
the English drama was Warton, whose fancy responded to the fasc