OF MASQUES AND TRIUMPHS 95 



it is better they should be graced with elegancy than 

 daubed with cost. Dancing to song, is a thing of great 

 state and pleasure. I understand it, that the song be in 

 quire, placed aloft, and accompanied with some broken 

 music ; and the ditty fitted to the device. Acting in song, 

 especially in dialogues, hath an extreme good grace ; I say 

 acting, not dancing (for that is a mean and vulgar thing) ; 

 and the voices of the dialogue would be strong and manly, 

 (a base and a tenor ; no treble ;) and the ditty high and 

 tragical; not nice or dainty. Several quires, placed one 

 over against another, and taking the voice by catches, 

 anthem-wise, give great pleasure. Turning dances into 

 figure is a childish curiosity. And generally let it be 

 noted, that those things which I here set down are such 

 as do naturally take the sense, and not respect petty 

 wonderments. 



It is true, the alterations of scenes, so it be quietly and 

 without noise, are things of great beauty and pleasure ; for 

 they feed and relieve the eye, before it be full of the same 

 object. Let the scenes abound with light, specially coloured 

 and varied ; and let the masquers, or any other, that are 

 to come down from the scene, have some motions upon 

 the scene itself, before their coming down ; for it draws 

 the eye strangely, and makes it with great pleasure to 

 desire to see that it cannot perfectly discern. Let the 

 songs be loud and cheerful, and not chirpings or pulings. 

 Let the music likewise be sharp and loud, and well placed. 

 The colours that shew best by candle-light, are white, car- 

 nation, and a kind of sea-water-green ; and oes, or spangs, 

 as they are of no great cost, so they are of most glory. 

 As for rich embroidery, it is lost and not discerned. Let 

 the suits of the masquers be graceful, and such as become 

 the person when the vizards are off; not after examples of 

 known attires ; Turks, soldiers, mariners, and the like. 

 Let anti-masques not be long ; they have been commonly 

 of fools, satyrs, baboons, wild-men, antics, beasts, sprites, 

 witches, Ethiops, pigmies, turquets, nymphs, rustics, 

 Cupids, statua's moving, and the like. As for angels, it is 

 not comical enough to put them in anti-masques; and 



