done, "either by simplicity, negligence, or conspiracy." Hurd, a cold systematic critic, thought he might safely prefer the Masque in the _Tempest_, as "putting to shame all the Masques of Jonson, not only in its _construction_, but in the _splendour_ of its show;"--"which," adds Gifford, "was danced and sung by the ordinary performers to a couple of fiddles, perhaps in the balcony of the stage." Such is the fate of criticism without knowledge! And now, to close our Masques, let me apply the forcible style of Ben Jonson himself: "The glory of all these solemnities had perished like a blaze, and gone out in the beholder's eyes; so short-lived are the bodies of all things in comparison of their souls!"[13] FOOTNOTES: [2] Sir Philip Sidney, in his "Defence of Poesy," 1595, alludes to the custom of writing the supposed locality of each scene over the stage, and asks, "What child is there that coming to a play, and seeing _Thebes_ written in great letters on an old door, doth believe that it is Thebes." As late as the production of Davenant's _Siege of Rhodes_ (_circa_ 1656), this custom was continued, and is thus described in the printed edition of the play:--"In the middle of the frieze was a compartment wherein was written _Rhodes_." In many instances the spectator was left to infer the locality of the scene from the dialogue.--"Now," says Sidney, "you shall have three ladies walke to gather flowers, and then we must believe the stage to be a garden. By and by we heare newes of shipwracke in the same place; then we are to blame if we accept it not for a rock." In Middleton's _Chaste Maid_, 1630, when the scene changes to a bed-room, "a bed is thrust out upon the stage, Alwit's wife in it;" which simple process was effected by pushing it through the curtains that hung across the entrance to the stage, which at that time projected into the pit. [3] The play of _Pyramus and Thisbe_, performed by the clowns in Shakspeare's _Midsummer Night's Dream_, is certainly constructed in burlesque of characters in court Masques, which sometimes were as difficult to be made comprehensible to an audience as "the clowns of Athens" found _Wall_ and _Moonshine_ to be.