THE WATER GATE, NEW PALACE YARD.

knee, is afflicted, like the meanest of his servants, with human infirmities, and with weaknesses physical and mental. There are, however, two kings; the one as he appears to the outer world, which only sees him at Court functions; the other as he appears to his servants and those about his person. If one of these servants reveals to the world that the sovereign in hours of privacy was wont to relax from the cares of state in the company of persons little better than buffoons, we may acknowledge that the dignity maintained by the King in public and before the eyes of the world was greater than James could always sustain. He relaxed, therefore, too much in the opposite direction. Why parade the fact? When one of his servants describes a drunken orgy at the Palace, we remark that James was king for more than twenty years, that there is no mention of any other drunken orgy, and that this deplorable evening was in honor of the Queen’s brother, King of Denmark, who probably thought that general excess of wine was part of the honor paid to him. When we are told that James was afraid of a drawn sword, and turned his eyes away when he knighted a certain person, we remark that this outward and visible sign of fear is only recorded of him once and by one writer, that no one else speaks of it, and that there is no proof whatever that on this occasion he turned his head in sign of fear. That he loved hunting excessively is only saying that he joined in the sports of his time, and that he was always pleased to escape the cares and fatigues of his place. That saint whom English Catholics still revere, Edward the Confessor, was also excessively fond of hunting. When all this is said we may add that this King, who loved buffoonery so much, was a good scholar and a diligent student, a lover of literature and of scholars, a writer of considerable power, a disputant of no mean order. King James wrote the Doron Basilikon; he wrote a book on Dæmonology (who can expect a king to be in advance of his age?); he wrote against the use of tobacco; he translated many of the Psalms; he was constantly saying things witty, unexpected, shrewd, and epigrammatic; he was as tolerant as could be expected in matters of religion.

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1. Lodgings belonging to his Majesty.
2. To his Royal Highness.
3. His Highness Prince Rupert.
4. The Duke of Richmond.
5. The Duke of Monmouth.
6. The Duke of Ormond.
7. The Duke of Albemarle.
8. The Earl of Bath.
9. The Earl of Lauderdale.
10. The Lord Peterborough.
11. The Lord Gerard.
12. The Lord Crofts.
13. The Lord Belassis.
14. The Lord Chamberlain.
15. The Lord Keeper.
16. The Council Officer.
17. Sir Edward Walker.
18. The Treasury Chambers.
19. The King’s Laboratory and Bath.
20. The Lord Arlington’s Office.
21. Sir Robert Murrey.
22. The Wardrobe.
23. Her Majesty’s Apartments.
24. The Maids of Honor.
25. The Countess of Suffolk.
26. The Queen’s Wardrobe.
27. Madam Charlotte Killegrew.
28. The Lady Arlington.
29. The Lady Silvis.
30. The Countess of Falmouth.
31. Mrs. Kirks.
32. Countess of Castlemaine’s Kitchen.
33. Colonel Darcy’s.
34. Sir Philip Killegrew.
35. Captain Cook.
36. Mrs. Kirke.
37. Mr. Hyde.
38. Mr. Povey.
39. Mr. Chiffinch.
40. Sir William Killegrew.
41. Sir Francis Clinton.
42. Dr. Frazier.
43. Father Patricks.
44. To Mr. Bryan.
45. Sir Henry Wood.
46. Sir George Carteret.
47. The Officers of ye Jewel Office.
48. The Quarter Waiters.
49. Sir John Trevors.
50. To Mr. Lightfoot.
51. To Mr. Vasse.
52. To Mr. Lisle.
53. Sir Paul Neale.
54. The King’s Musick House.
55. To Mr. Early.
56. To Sir Stephen Fox.
57. To Mrs. Churchill.
58. To Mr. Dupper.
* On this spot King Charles I. was beheaded.

Lastly, James made the Court of Whitehall magnificent during the whole of his reign, by the splendor of the Masques.

When we think of this vanished Palace our thoughts turn to the Masques, which belong especially to Whitehall—there were none at Westminster and none at St. James’s. The Masque is of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. It was a play performed on one night only; not by professional actors, but by lords and ladies of the Court. The jewels worn were real jewels; the dresses were of velvet and silk, embroidered with gold and pearls; the scenery was costly and elaborate; the music was new and composed for the occasion; the dances were newly invented for that night only; the scene-painter and stage manager was the greatest architect of the day; the words were written by the poet who, in his lifetime, was esteemed by many the first of living poets. The Masque was a costly, splendid thing,—a thing of courtly pomp,—a fit plaything for queen and princess; a form of drama perfected by Ben Jonson, not disdained by Milton, put upon the stage by Inigo Jones. As for the play itself, the motif was always simple, sometimes allegorical, generally grave; the treatment was classical. The Masques of Ben Jonson would be wearisome for the length of the speeches and the slowness of the movement, did we not keep before our eyes the scenery and the grouping of the figures. Their tedium in the reading is also retrieved by the lovely verses and songs scattered freely over the piece; the acting, the music, the scenes, the singing, the dancing kept up the life and action and interest of the piece. There was an immense amount of stage management, stage machinery, and decorations. Shakespeare and his actors at the Globe and Fortune could neither afford these splendors nor did they attempt even a distant imitation of them. When the King commanded a play, it was put on the stage with none of the accessories which belonged to the Masque. At Whitehall, as at Bankside, the back of the stage represented a wall, a palace, or a castle; the hangings—black or blue—showed whether it was night or day. But the Masque was not a show for the people; it is certain that the “groundlings” of the Globe would not have understood the classical allusions with which it was crammed. At the present day a masque would only be endured as a spectacle for the picturesque grouping, the beauty of the actresses, the splendor of the dresses, the perfection of the dancing, the lovely songs, and the admirable skill and discipline of the company. When the principal actress was no other than the Queen herself, who led off a dance, followed by ladies representing mythological characters perfectly well understood by a Court of scholars, when the scenery, new and beautiful, was changed again and again, even though the fable was no great thing, the entertainment was delightful.