declare his separation from the Church of Rome for five years longer, however much it might have been to his advantage to do so. His powers as a dramatist were at their height during the earlier half of the reign of James I.; and by the year 1616 he had produced nearly all the plays which are worthy of his genius. They include the tragedy of _Catiline_ (acted and printed 1611), which achieved only a doubtful success, and the comedies of _Volpone, or the Fox_ (acted 1605 and printed in 1607 with a dedication "from my house in the Blackfriars"), _Epicoene, or the Silent Woman_ (1609; entered in the Stationers' Register 1610), the _Alchemist_ (1610; printed in 1610), _Bartholomew Fair_ and _The Devil is an Ass_ (acted respectively in 1614 and 1616). During the same period he produced several masques, usually in connexion with Inigo Jones, with whom, however, he seems to have quarrelled already in this reign, though it is very doubtful whether the architect is really intended to be ridiculed in _Bartholomew Fair_ under the character of Lanthorn Leatherhead. Littlewit, according to Fleay, is Daniel. Among the most attractive of his masques may be mentioned the _Masque of Blackness_ (1606), the Masque of Beauty (1608), and the _Masque of Queens_ (1609), described by Swinburne as "the most splendid of all masques" and as "one of the typically splendid monuments or trophies of English literature." In 1616 a modest pension of 100 marks a year was conferred upon him; and possibly this sign of royal favour may have encouraged him to the publication of the first volume of the folio collected edition of his works (1616), though there are indications that he had contemplated its production, an exceptional task for a playwright of his times to take in hand, as early as 1612.