of the appearance, attire, and “sprightly movements of the masquers:”  Oceanus, Oceaniae, Niger and his daughters, with Tritons, mermaids, mermen, and sea-horses, “as big as the life.”  “These thus presented,” he continues, “the scene behind seemed a vast sea, and united with this that flowed forth, from the termination or horizon of which (being the head of the stage, which was placed in the upper end of the hall) was drawn by the lines of perspective, the whole work shooting downwards from the eye, which decorum made it more conspicuous, and caught the eye afar off with a wondering beauty, to which was added an obscure and cloudy night piece, that made the whole set off.  So much for the bodily part, which was of Master Inigo Jones’s design and art.”  Indeed, Inigo was not simply the scene-painter; he also devised the costumes, and contrived the necessary machinery.  In regard to many of these entertainments, he was responsible for “the invention, ornaments, scenes, and apparitions, with their descriptions;” for everything, in fact, but the music or the words to be spoken or sung.

These masques and court pageants gradually brought movable scenery upon the stage, in place of the tapestries, “arras cloths,” “traverses,” or curtains drawn upon rods, which had previously furnished the theatre.  Still the masques were to be distinguished from the ordinary entertainments of the public playhouses.  The court performances knew little of regular plot or story; ordinarily avoided all reference to nature and real life; and were remarkable for the luxurious fancifulness and costly eccentricity they displayed.  They were provided by the best writers of the time, and in many cases were rich in poetic merit.  Still they were expressly designed to afford valuable opportunities to the musical composer, to the ballet-dancers, mummers, posture-makers, and costumiers.  The regular dramas, such as the Elizabethan public supported, could boast few attractions of this kind.  It was altogether without movable scenery, although possessed of a balcony or upper stage, used to represent, now the walls of a city, as in “King John,” now the top of a tower, as in “Henry VI.”, or “Antony and Cleopatra,” and now the window to an upper chamber.  Mr. Payne Collier notes that in one of the oldest historical plays extant, “Selimus, Emperor of the Turks,” published in 1594, there is a remarkable stage direction demonstrating the complete absence of scenery, by the appeal made to the simple good faith of the audience.  The hero is represented conveying the body of his father in a solemn funeral procession to the Temple of Mahomet.  The stage direction runs:  “Suppose the Temple of Mahomet”—­a needless injunction, as Mr. Collier remarks, if there had existed the means of exhibiting the edifice in question to the eyes of the spectators.  But the demands upon the audience to abet the work of theatrical illusion, and with their thoughts to piece out the imperfections of the dramatists,