. Old and new London : a narrative of its history, its people, and its places. four chariots, carrying in as many com-panies the masquers from the four inns. On theirarrival at Whitehall The Triumph of Peace wasacted at the Banqueting House. It was a comicallegory of the social pleasures of peace, endingwith a gorgeous tableau, in which the other deitiesappeared, all grouped round the peaceful goddessIrene. The performance itself, which cost about^^21,000, caused a perfect furore, and is oftenmentioned by writers of the time. A fortnight laterCarews masque, The British Hea^en, was acted onthe
. Old and new London : a narrative of its history, its people, and its places. four chariots, carrying in as many com-panies the masquers from the four inns. On theirarrival at Whitehall The Triumph of Peace wasacted at the Banqueting House. It was a comicallegory of the social pleasures of peace, endingwith a gorgeous tableau, in which the other deitiesappeared, all grouped round the peaceful goddessIrene. The performance itself, which cost about^^21,000, caused a perfect furore, and is oftenmentioned by writers of the time. A fortnight laterCarews masque, The British Hea^en, was acted onthe same boards at Whitehall—Lawes and InigoJones helping as before—by Charles I. himself,assisted by a dozen or so of his courtiers. In fact,the masque—as an intermediate step between thepastoral idyll, which is purely ideal, and the realityof the drama proper—at this time had become thefavourite form which private theatricals assumedin the time of our last Tudor and our first Stuartsovereigns, and its home was the Palace of White- Whitehall.] MASQUES AT WHITEHALL. 343. 3 jj 1. V ^ si ** ?; S if -^ si ^?-t $ I I ^•^^ — A ^ in? a S 5 •< - I 3 IS ij- 544 OLD AND NEW LONDON. [Whit«hall. hall. The masque, as such, is styled by pleasantand witty Leigh Hunt the only glory of KingJames reign, and the greatest glory of Whitehall. In the palace was a private theatre, with a littlestage, the contrivance of Inigo Jones, whom EphraimHardcastle, in the Somerset House Gazette, does nothesitate to call the father of scene-painting inEngland. Elegant masques were performed hereby his Majestys servants, in the reign of James L These pieces, says Horace Walpole, were some-times composed at the command of the king incompliment to the nuptials of certain lords andladies of the Court; and he grows positively elo-fjuent in their praise, as a custom productive ofmuch good, by encouraging marriage among theyoung nobility. Ben Jonson was the poet, InigoJones the inventor of the decoratio
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1870, bookpublisherlondoncassellpette
