His becoming a writer of
plays was a necessary consequence; for the theatres, newly opened after
so long silence, were resorted to with all the ardour inspired by
novelty; and dramatic composition was the only line which promised
something like an adequate reward to the professors of literature. In
our sketch of the taste of the seventeenth century previous to the
Restoration, this topic was intentionally postponed.
In the times of James I. and of his successor, the theatre retained, in
some degree, the splendour with which the excellent writers of the
virgin reign had adorned it. It is true, that authors of the latter
period fell far below those gigantic poets, who flourished in the end of
the sixteenth and beginning of the seventeenth centuries; but what the
stage had lost in dramatic composition, was, in some degree, supplied by
the increasing splendour of decoration, and the favour of the court. A
private theatre, called the Cockpit, was maintained at Whitehall, in
which plays were performed before the court; and the king's company of
actors often received command to attend the royal progresses.[1]
Masques, a species of representation calculated exclusively for the
recreation of the great, in whose halls they were exhibited, were an
usual entertainment of Charles and his consort. The machinery and
decorations were often superintended by Inigo Jones, and the poetry
composed by Ben Jonson the laureate.
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