[4] It is due to a great poet like Ben Jonson, that, without troubling the reader to turn to his works, we should give his own description of these characters, to show that they were not the "perplexed allegories" they are asserted to be by Granger; nor inappropriate to the _Masque of Christmas_, for which they were designed. MINCED-PIE was habited "like a fine cook's wife, drest neat, her man carrying a pie, dish, and spoon." BABY-CAKE was "drest like a boy, in a fine long coat, biggin-bib, muckender (or handkerchief), and a little dagger; his usher bearing a great cake, with a bean and a pease;" the latter being indicative of those generally inserted in a Christmas cake, which, when cut into slices and distributed, indicated by the presence of the bean the person who should be king; the slice with the pea doing the same for the queen. Neither of these characters speak, but make part of the show to be described by Father Christmas. Jonson's inventive talent was never more conspicuous than in the concoction of court Masques. [5] The first employment of these two great men was upon _The Masque of Blackness_, performed at Whitehall on Twelfth-Night, 1603; and which cost nearly 10,000_l._, of our present money. [6] The music of Whitelocke's _Coranto_ is preserved in Hawkins's "History of Music." Might it be restored for the ladies as a waltz? [7] This was _Chloridia_, a Masque performed by the queen and her ladies at court, on Shrovetide, 1630; upon the title-page of which is printed "the inventors--Ben Jonson, Inigo Jones." Jonson was, by reason of the influence of Inigo, deprived of employ at court ever after, supplanted by other poets named by the architect, and among them Heywood, Shirley, and Davenant. [8] George Chapman's _Memorable Maske_, performed at Whitehall, 1630, by the gentlemen of the Middle Temple and Lincoln's Inn, cost the latter society nearly 2000_l._ for their share of the expenses. [9] Ben Jonson records the names of the noble ladies and gentlemen who enacted his inventions at court. [10] The figures and actions of dancers in Masques were called motions. [11] Memoirs of Jonson, p. 88. [12] See Gifford's Jonson, vol. vii. p. 78. This performance was in the _Masque of Hymen_, enacted at court in 1605, on the occasion of the marriage of the Earl of Essex to the daughter of the Earl of Suffolk. [13] Splendour ultimately ruined these works; they ended in gaudy dresses and expensive machinery, but poetry was not associated with them. The youthful days of Louis XIV. raised them to a height of costly luxuriance to sink them ever after in oblivion. OF DES MAIZEAUX, AND THE SECRET HISTORY OF ANTHONY COLLINS'S MANUSCRIPTS.