MILTON'S "COMUS," AND CAMPION'S MEMORA BLE MASK." THE mask of "Comus" was composed to celebrate the creation of Charles I. as Prince of Wales. A scene in this mask presented both the castle and town of Ludlow; which proves, that although our small public theatres had not exhibited any of the scenical illusions which, long afterwards, Sir William D'Avenant introduced, these scenical effects existed, in great perfection, in the masks. The minute description introduced by Thomas Campion in his "Memorable Mask," as it is called, will convince us, that the scenery must have been exquisite and fanciful; and that the poet was always a watchful and anxious partner with the mechanist, with whom he sometimes, however, quarelled. The subject of this very rare mask was "The Night and the Hours." It would be tedious to describe the first scene with the fondness with which the poet has dwelt on it. It was a double valley; one side was shadowed with dark clouds; the other, a green vale, with trees, and nine golden ones of fifteen feet high; from which grove, towards the state or seat of the King, was a broad descent to the dancing place. The bower of Flora was on their right, the house of Night on the left; between them a hill, hanging, like a cliff, over the grove. The bower of Flora was spacious, garnished with flowers and flowery branches, with lights among them; the house of Night, ample and stately, with black columns studded with golden stars; while about it were placed, on wires, artificial bats and owls, continually moving, As soon as the King entered the great hall, the hautboys were heard from the top of the hill and from the wood, till Flora and Zephyrus were seen busily gathering flowers from the bower, throwing them into baskets which two Silvans held, attired in "changeable taffety." The burthen of their song is charming. "Now hath Flora robb'd her bowers To befriend this place with flowers: Strew about! strew about! Divers, divers flowers affect For some private dear respect: Strew about! strew about!" : We cannot quit this mask, of which collectors know the rarity, without preserving one of those Doric delicacies, of which, perhaps, we have outlived the taste. It is a playful dialogue between a Silvan and an Hour, while Night appears in her house, with her long black hair spangled with gold, amidst her Hours. Silvan. Tell me, gentle Hour of Night, Wherein dost thou most delight? Hour. Not in sleep! Silvan. Joy you in fairies, or in elves? Hour. We are of that sort ourselves. But, Silvan, say, why do you love Silvan. Life is fullest of content When delight is innocent. Hour. Pleasure must vary, not be long : THOMAS JORDAN, THE CITY-POET. THIS obscure writer, whose name is, probably, new to the greater number of readers, was, according to Ritson and others, the pro fessed pageant-writer and poet-laureat for the City; and seems to have possessed a greater share of poetical merit than usually fell to the lot of his profession. The business of the City-poet, as we are informed by Malone, was to compose an annual panegyric on the Lord Mayor, and to write verses for the pageants. Happily, this office has been discontinued since the death of poor Elkanah Settle, in 1722; since which time, the duty of decorating each succeeding Lord Mayor with all the virtues under heaven, has devolved upon the Recorder, whose annual oration, delivered in the Court of Exchequer, in no very measured prose, appears to have taken the place of the ancient poetical panegyric. According to Langbaine, Jordan was not only a writer, but also an actor of plays, having performed the part of Lepida, in 66 Messalina," a play acted in 1640. Before that time, however, he had commenced poet; as one of his many miscellaneous volumes, of which Sir Egerton Brydges has enumerated no less than thirty-four, appeared in 1637. He succeeded Tatham in the office of City-laureat, between 1665 and 1671; and is supposed to have died in 1671, being himself succeeded by Taubman. The contemporaries of this busy writer appear to have entertained but a mean opinion of his talents. Winstanley, himself the most vulgar of critics, speaks of him as "indulging his Muse more to vulgar fancies, than to the highflying wits of those times." Wesley, the progenitor of the founder of the sect of Methodists which bears his name, in his 66 Maggots," a very singular poetical work, published in 1685, invokes the Muse of Jordan as an inspirer of dullness, in the same way, and with almost as little justice, as Butler invokes that of honest George Wither. He has, also, a fling at him at the close of the following stanza of a "Pindarique on the grunting of a hog," which is whimsically characteristic of its author's style. "Like the confounding lute's innumerable strings, One of them sings; Thy easier musick's ten times more divine, More like the one-string'd, deep, majestic trumpmarine : Pr'ythee, strike-up, and cheer this drooping heart of mine! |