File:Old and new London - a narrative of its history, its people, and its places (1873) (14597886969).jpg

Identifier: oldnewlondonnarr03thor (find matches)
Title: Old and new London : a narrative of its history, its people, and its places
Year: 1873 (1870s)
Authors: Thornbury, Walter, 1828-1876
Subjects:
Publisher: London : Cassell, Petter, & Galpin
Contributing Library: University of California Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: Internet Archive

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four chariots, carrying in as many com-panies the masquers from the four inns. On theirarrival at Whitehall The Triumph of Peace wasacted at the Banqueting House. It was a comicallegory of the social pleasures of peace, endingwith a gorgeous tableau, in which the other deitiesappeared, all grouped round the peaceful goddess Irene. The performance itself, which cost about^^21,000, caused a perfect furore, and is oftenmentioned by writers of the time. A fortnight later Carews masque, The British Hea^en, was acted onthe same boards at Whitehall—Lawes and Inigo Jones helping as before—by Charles I. himself,assisted by a dozen or so of his courtiers. In fact,the masque—as an intermediate step between thepastoral idyll, which is purely ideal, and the realityof the drama proper—at this time had become thefavourite form which private theatricals assumedin the time of our last Tudor and our first Stuart sovereigns, and its home was the Palace of White- Whitehall.) MASQUES AT WHITEHALL. 343
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A reduced copy of Fisher's ground plan of the Royal Palace of Westminster, taken in the reign of Charles 2nd. 1680. (survey of 1680 by John Fisher - Plan of palace, Scotland Yard, the Bowling Green and the river.) - 544 OLD AND NEW LONDON. (Whitehall. hall. The masque, as such, is styled by pleasantand witty Leigh Hunt the only glory of King James reign, and the greatest glory of Whitehall. In the palace was a private theatre, with a little stage, the contrivance of Inigo Jones, whom Ephraim Hardcastle, in the Somerset House Gazette, does nothesitate to call the father of scene-painting in England. Elegant masques were performed hereby his Majestys servants, in the reign of James L These pieces, says Horace Walpole, were some-times composed at the command of the king incompliment to the nuptials of certain lords and ladies of the Court; and he grows positively elo-fjuent in their praise, as a custom productive ofmuch good, by encouraging marriage among theyoung nobility. Ben Jonson was the poet, Inigo Jones the inventor of the decorations, Laniere and Ferrabosco c

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