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.