122 CHILDREN OF THE CHAPEL AT BLACKFRIARS 
further suggestive. Although nothing further is known of it, 
there is little likelihood that Gyles and Evans took the trouble of 
preparing such an entertainment without reaping the benefits of 
its re-presentation at the theatre. Moreover, the Queen wouid 
hardly have called for such a specialty if the Children had not 
been previously trained in similar performances. Documentary 
proof of such “shows” would explain the gap in the period of 
1597 to 1600. But at present it seems only highly probable that 
an important part of their lost repertoire consisted of these mu- 
sical and dramatic ephemera. 
The requirements for the training of the Children at Black- 
friars gave rise to new features in the drama. Music of minor 
sort as also singing are known earlier, particularly in plays of 
the Children of the Chapel and Paul’s from their beginnings on. 
The public theatres had less of either. But the origin of musical 
praeludia, interludia, and intermezzos, cannot be traced farther 
than this period at Blackfriars. 
The masque as an integral part of the play is unknown in dra- 
matic history prior to the establishment of Blackfriars theatre.? 
“It is probable that the Queen 
not infrequently called for such 
ephemeral “shows.” Jonson, may 
well have got that training here in 
masques which made him under 
James the foremost man of all time 
in that special form of entertain- 
ment. In his Conversations with 
Drummond (ed. Laing. S. S. Pub., 
1842), 27, he says, “that the half 
of his Comedies were not in print.” 
Why? Jonson was generally care- 
ful to preserve his work. Were a 
good part of his inventions among 
these evanescences, which the Queen 
may have commanded? His Cyn- 
thia’s Revels is a tribute to her as 
such a patroness. In that play she 
is Cynthia and he is Crites. It is 
so suggestive of the mode of ful- 
filling the Queen’s requirements at 
Blackfriars as to seem to be drawn 
from life when in that play, near 
the close of V, ii, just preceding 
the masque of iii, Arete says to 
Crites, 
“Crites you must provide straight 
for a masque, 
’T is Cynthia’s pleasure.” 
*Dr. A. Soergel, Die Englischen 
Maskenspiele (Diss. Halle, 1882), 
88, dates the beginning of the 
masque within the play as ca. 1600, 
but without knowing the influences 
here mentioned. It is probable that 
this new species of drama that had 
such wide following in the next 
half century began three years ear- 
lier than Soergel puts it, with the 
opening of Blackfriars. This part 
of his thesis Dr. Soergel has only 
touched upon, leaving a thorough 
working to the future.. But it has 
not yet been made public, if ever 
undertaken. 
Dr. Rudolf Brotanek, Die Eng- 
lischen Maskenspiele (Wien, 1902), 
99, has assembled the known evi- 
dences to show that the masque 
within the play is of earlier ori- 
gin :— 
Das fritheste Zeugnis ftir die in 
der Bliitezeit der Maske sehr be- 
liebte Einschiebung in andere 
Stiicke stammt aus dem Jahre 1514 
und bezieht sich auf ein Interlu- 
236 
