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Still less is the figure called Les Masques. The gentlemen put on masques resembling "Bully Bottom" and other grotesque faces and heads of animals. They raise these heads above a screen, the ladies choosing partners without knowing them; the gentlemen remain en masque until the termination of the tour de valse.
The Whig who, during three Parliaments, had never given one vote against the court, and who was ready to sell his soul for the Comptroller's staff or for the Great Wardrobe, still professed to draw his political doctrines from Locke and Milton, still worshipped the memory of Pym and Hampden, and would still, on the thirtieth of January, take his glass, first to the man in the masque, and then to the man who would do it without a masque.
I have seen nothing so imaginative, so restful, so expressive, on the English stage as these simple and elaborately woven designs, in patterns of light and drapery and movement, which in "The Masque of Love" had a new quality of charm, a completeness of invention, for which I would have given all d'Annunzio's golden cups and Mr. Tree's boats on real Thames water.
So you have discovered it, too?" "No, madame, my eyes were not sharp enough, nor had I sufficient cleverness, even, for that. It was Hubert, the Earl of Rochester's page, who told me who he was." "Ah, the page!" said La Masque, quickly. "You have then been speaking to him? What do you think of his resemblance to Leoline?" "I think it is the most astonishing resemblance I ever saw.
I turned, almost with a start, and the masque, in the costume of Mademoiselle de la Valliere, stood there. "The Countess will be here presently," she said. The lady stood upon the open space, and the moonlight fell unbroken upon her. Nothing could be more becoming; her figure looked more graceful and elegant than ever. "In the meantime I shall tell you some peculiarities of her situation.
"You noisy old idiot!" cried Sir Norman, losing all patience, "I will throw you out of the window if you keep up such a clamor as this. I tell you La Masque is dead!" At this ominous announcement, the ghastly porter fell back, and became, if possible, a shade more ghastly than was his wont.
Thief-robber-housebreaker stop!" "My good old friend, you will do yourself a mischief if you bawl like that. Undoubtedly these things were La Masque's, but they are so no longer, since La Masque herself is among the things that were!" "You shall not go!" yelled the old man, trembling with rage and anger. "Help! help! help!"
"It is a masque of Summer-time and Spring," said he, "wherein both claim to be best-loved, and have their say of wit and humor, and each her part of songs and dances suited to her time, the sprightly galliard and the nimble jig for Spring, the slow pavone, the stately peacock dance, for Summer-time.
Such descriptions are better suited to the Masque, a species of drama founded on some wild and romantic adventure, and of which the interest does not depend on the manners or the passions. It is therefore more in its place in Argentile and Curan, which he calls a legendary drama, written on the old English model.
The dramatic poet and author, Ben Jonson, collaborated with Inigo Jones, the architect, in devising these Masque plays, Jonson supplying the words, and Jones the scenic effects, the latter being very gorgeous, consisting of "landscapes, mountains, and clouds, which opened to display heathen deities illuminated by variegated coloured lights."
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