Of strange Marocco's dumb arithmetick,
Of the young elephant, or two-tayl'd steere,
Or the rigg'd camel, or fiddling frere."[187:A]
The catalogue of wonders, monsters, and tricks, may be augmented by a reference to Ben Jonson, who, in his Bartholomew Fair, among other spectacles, speaks of a Bull with five legs and two pizzles, Dogs dancing the morrice, and a Hare beating the Tabor.[187:B]
But of all the amusements which distinguish the age of Shakspeare, none could vie in richness, splendour, or invention, with the costly spectacles, called Masques, and Pageants. The frequency of these exhibitions during the reigns of Elizabeth and James is astonishing, if we consider the immense expense which was lavished on their production; the most celebrated poets and the most skilful artists often assisted in their formation; nor was it uncommon to behold nobility,
or even royalty itself, assuming the part of actors in these romantic entertainments.
What a gorgeous and voluptuous court could effect, in seconding the efforts of consummate skill, through the medium of machinery, decoration, and dress, may be collected from the numerous Masques of Ben Jonson, who seems to feel the inadequacy of language to express the beauty, grandeur, and sumptuousness of the devices employed on these occasions. Thus, in his Hymenæi, or the Solemnities of Masque and Barriers at a Marriage, he manifestly labours to paint the scene, and, at length, professes himself unequal to the task of conveying the impressions which it had made upon him. "Hitherto," says he, "extended the first night's solemnity, whose grace in the execution left, not where to add to it, with wishing: I mean (nor do I court them) in those, that sustained the nobler parts. Such was the exquisite performance, as (beside the pomp, splendor, or what we may call apparelling of such presentments), that alone (had all else been absent) was of power to surprise with delight, and steal away the spectators from themselves. Nor was there wanting whatsoever might give to the furniture or complement; either in riches, or strangeness of the habits, delicacy of dances, magnificence of the scene, or divine rapture of musick. Only the envy was, that it lasted not still; or, (now it is past) cannot by imagination, much less description, be recovered to a part of that spirit it had in the gliding by."[188:A]
Nothing, indeed, shows the romantic disposition of Elizabeth, and, indeed, of her times, more evidently than the Triumph, as it was called, devised and performed with great solemnity, in honour of the French commissioners for the Queen's marriage with the Duke of Anjou, in 1581. The contrivance was for four of her principal courtiers, under the quaint appellation of "four foster-children of Desire," to besiege and carry, by dint of arms, "The Fortress of Beauty;" intending, by this courtly ænigma, nothing less than the Queen's Majesty's own person. The actors in this famous triumph were, the Earl of Arundel, the Lord Windsor, Master Philip Sidney, and Master Fulk Grevil. And the whole was conducted so entirely in the spirit and language of knight-errantry, that nothing in the Arcadia itself is more romantic.[189:A]
The example of the court was followed with equal profusion by the citizens, and various corporate bodies of the capital, who contended with each other in the cost bestowed on these performances. In 1604, when King James and his Queen passed triumphantly from the Tower to Westminster, the citizens erected seven gates or arches, in different parts of the space through which the procession had to proceed. Over the first arch "was represented the true likeness of all the notable houses, towers, and steeples, within the citie of London.—The sixt arche or gate of triumph was erected above the Conduit in Fleete-Streete, whereon the Globe of the world was seen to move, &c. At Temple-bar a seaventh arche or gate was erected, the forefront whereof was proportioned in every respect like a Temple, being dedicated to Janus, &c.—The citie of Westminster, and dutchy of
Lancaster, at the Strand, had erected the invention of a rainbow, the moone, sunne, and starres, advanced between two Pyramids."[190:A]