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THE QUEEN’S REQUIREMENTS 123 
The example there was followed almost immediately by others.* 
In general the Chapel Children’s plays did much to set the dra- 
matic tone of the time. Novelty indeed carried it away, for the 
Children were “now the fashion.’* The influence especially on - 
Shakespeare as well as other contemporaries, likewise also on 
_ the character of the Court entertainments under James I, particu- 
_ larly the masques,’ requires extensive investigation in detail, and 
is reserved of necessity for a later publication. 
The furnishing of apparel at the Queen’s cost has already been 
presented.* The prodigal lavishness of the rich costuming is 
mentioned in the Diary and abundantly supported by the plays. 
The sense of unlimited resources gave the Blackfriars dramatists, 
Jonson, Chapman, and Marston, a free hand and enabled them to 
undertake plots and present characters and situations requiring 
the most elaborate courtly elegance. Theatrical conditions in 
this phase as in all others had much to do with shaping the nature 
of the drama,—more than is commonly supposed. By virtue of 
the conditions of management and distributed shareship originally 
peculiar to the Globe,® Shakespeare alone of all the numerous 
other dramatists of this period® enjoyed a similar sense of unre- 
strained freedom in choice and artistic treatment of dramatic 
material. | 
The masques already mentioned, with fairies, nymphs, gods, 
dium “devysed by Sir Harry Gyll- 
furth, Master of the Revells ... 
in the whiche conteyned a moresk 
of VI. persons and II. ladys.” 
[Foot-note reference, Collier, I, . 
dialogue are of course of even very 
much earlier date than these cases 
cited by Brotanek. But all these 
cases fall into a class wholly out- 
side the masque as an integral part 
68ff; Letters and Papers of the 
Reign of Henry VIII, I, 718f.] 
Diese Auffiihrung ist sicher ident- 
isch mit dem von William Cornish 
fiir dieselbe Weihnachtsfeier ge- 
schrieben Tryumpe of Love and 
Bewte. Sir Henry Guildford er- 
sann offenbar die Handlung, und 
Cornish fiihrte die Reden aus.” 
Brotanek points out further that 
in Interlude of the Four Elements 
at close is a Mumming indicated, 
“also, if ye list, ye may bring in a 
Disguising.” Then the maskers ap- 
pear. He mentions finally a similar 
superaddition in a Morality of 1527. 
Court masques accompanied by 
of the theatrical drama as known 
for the first time in the history of 
the English drama on Blackfriars 
stage. 
*See further complete work, vol. 
? Infra, 166-67, 174, Fy, 177. 
*For a _ chronological list of 
known masques, see Soergel, op. cit., 
72-75 (1604-37) ; and Brotanek, op. 
ctt. 
* Supra, 98-101. 
*See newly discovered documents 
on Shakespeare, Globe, and Black- 
friafs,.u. S.) 1x-x, 84°) .44. 56% 
*See list of dramatists, 
1603, infra, 163°. 
1597- 
237 
