masque to begin with a speech; but Lawes, thinking it better for stage purposes to begin with a song, had taken the liberty of transferring to this point a portion of that which now stands, and which Milton intended to stand, as the final song or epilogue of the Attendant Spirit at the end of the masque. In that final song or epilogue, as we now have it, the Attendant Spirit, announcing his departure when the play is over, says—

"To the ocean now I fly,

And those happy climes that lie
Where day never shuts his eye,

Up in the broad fields of the sky"

which lines, with a part of their sequel, Lawes, it will be seen, converted cleverly into a prologue, or song of arrival, by the change of "To the ocean "into" From the heavens." He doubtless thought it more effective to "descend" on the stage, singing this prologue; after which, when on the stage, he made the speech announcing the purpose for which he had descended. In that speech, after introducing himself in his character as an attendant Spirit of Good, sent down to Earth from Jove's realms on a special errand, he thus informs the audience at the outset as to the general drift of the play they are about to witness, and connects it gracefully with the actual circumstances of the Earl of Bridgewater's presence among them, and of his entry on so high a British office as the Welsh Presidency

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'Neptune, besides the sway

Of every salt flood and each ebbing stream,
Took in, by lot 'twixt high and nether Jove,

Imperial rule of all the sea-girt isles

That, like to rich and various gems, inlay

The unadorned bosom of the deep;

Which he, to grace his tributary gods,

By course commits to several government,

And gives them leave to wear their sapphire crowns,

And wield their little tridents.

But this Isle,

The greatest and the best of all the main,

He quarters to his blue-haired deities;
And all this tract that fronts the falling sun

A noble Peer of mickle trust and power
Has in his charge, with tempered awe to guide
An old and haughty nation, proud in arms:
Where his fair offspring, nursed in princely lore,
Are coming to attend their father's state
And new-intrusted sceptre. But their way

Lies through the perplexed paths of this drear wood,
The nodding horror of whose shady brows
Threats the forlorn and wandering passenger;
And here their tender age might suffer peril,
But that, by quick command from sovran Jove,
I was despatched for their defence and guard."

Prepared by these words, and by the farther explanation of the Attendant Spirit that the wood is haunted by the god Comus and his crew of revellers, who waylay travellers and tempt them with an enchanted liquor which changes the countenances of those who partake into the faces of beasts, the audience see the story developed in action before them. They see Comus and his crew appear in the wood with torches, making a riotous and unruly noise: Comus with a charming-rod in one hand and a glass in the other; and his crew, a set of monsters, with bodies of men and women in glistering apparel, but headed like sundry sorts of wild beasts. They see the crew knit hands and dance, and the dance broken off by the orders of Comus, at the sound of a light footstep approaching. They see the crew then disappear among the trees, leaving their master alone, who knows that the footstep is that of some benighted virgin, and who, after throwing his "dazzling spells" (some blaze of blue light?) in the direction in which she is coming, also steps aside to watch. Then they see "the Lady" enter, the sweet Lady Alice, received, of course, with rapturous applause. They hear her explain how she has lost her brothers since sunset, how it is now midnight, how the rude sounds of revelry have attracted her to the spot, and how the darkness and the silence would alarm her, were it not for her trust in a higher Power, guarding virtuous minds. As she speaks there comes a gleam through the grove; and, thinking her brothers may be near, she will guide them to her by a song. Accordingly, she sings the song beginning "Sweet Echo,"-the first song in the masque, according to Milton's arrangement of it, but the second in Lawes's stage-arrangement. It is not her brothers that the song brings to her, but Comus, who has been listening in admiration. Appearing before her in the guise of a shepherd, he tells her that he has seen her brothers, and offers to lead her to them, or to lodge her in his humble cottage till they can be found in the morning. Scarcely has she accepted the offer, and left the scene with Comus, when her two brothers, -the boys, Viscount Brackley and Mr.

Thomas Egerton, also greatly cheered, of course,-appear. They discuss with great anxiety the situation of their sister, the elder comforting the younger, till their conversation is interrupted by a far-off holloa. Lest it should be a robber, they draw their swords.

But it is their father's faithful shepherd, Thyrsis; or rather they think it is he: for, in reality, it is the good Attendant Spirit, who has been taking note of all that has befallen the lady, and who, on meeting the brothers, has assumed the disguise of one well known to them. He explains the state of affairs, and greatly alarms the younger brother by his account of Comus and his crew. The elder, though more steady, is for rushing at once to the haunt of the magician and dragging him to death. But the Attendant Spirit, as Thyrsis, explaining that such violence will be vain against the craft of a sorcerer, proposes rather that they should avail themselves of the power of a certain precious plant, called Hæmony, of which a portion had once been given him by a certain skilful shepherd-lad of his acquaintance. He had tested the virtue of this plant to ward off enchantments, for he had already approached Comus safely by means of it; and he now proposes that they should all three confront Comus with its aid. The Brothers agree, and they and the supposed Thyrsis go off. Then the scene changes before the eyes of the audience, representing "a stately palace, set out with all manner of deliciousness; soft music; tables spread with dainties"; the Lady in an enchanted chair, with Comus pressing her to drink out of a glass, while his rabble stand around. There is a matchless dialogue between the Lady and Comus, an argument of Purity or Abstinence against Sensuality, in which Purity overcomes and defies its enemy. The Sorcerer, awed, but still persevering, prays the Lady only to taste, when her brothers rush in with drawn swords, wrest the glass from his hand, and dash it to pieces. Comus and his crew resist slightly, but are driven away and dispersed. Thyrsis then, coming in after the Brothers, finds that unfortunately they have not attended to his instruction to seize the enchanter's wand. The Lady is still marblebound to her chair, from which the motion of the wand might have freed her. To effect this, Thyrsis proposes a new device. It is to invoke Sabrina, the nymph of the adjacent and far-famed Severn river. Who so likely to succour distressed maidenhood as she, that daughter of Locrine, the son of Brutus, who, as ancient British legends told, had flung herself, to preserve her honour, into the

stream which had since borne her name? By way of invocation of Sabrina, Thyrsis (ie. Lawes) sings what is now the second song in the masque, but is the third in Lawes's arrangement, the exquisite song beginning "Sabrina fair." Obeying the invocation, Sabrina rises, attended by water-nymphs, and sings the song "By the rushyfringed bank," the third song in Milton's arrangement, the fourth in Lawes's. She then performs the expected office of releasing the Lady by sprinkling drops of pure water upon her, and touching thrice her lips and finger-tips. Sabrina descends, and the Lady rises from her seat. But, though she is now free from the spell of Comus in his enchanted wood, it remains to convey her and her brothers safely to their father's residence, where their arrival is waited for. Accordingly, after an ode of thanks to Sabrina for her good service, with blessings on the stream that bears her name, the supposed Thyrsis continues:

"Come, Lady; while Heaven lends us grace,

Let us fly this cursed place,

Lest the Sorcerer us entice
With some other new device.
Not a waste or needless sound
Till we come to holier ground.
I shall be your faithful guide
Through the gloomy covert wide;
And not many furlongs thence
Is your Father's residence,
Where this night are met in state
Many a friend to gratulate
His wished presence, and beside
All the swains that there abide

With jigs and rural dance resort.
We shall catch them at their sport;

And our sudden coming there

Will double all their mirth and cheer.

Come, let us haste! the stars grow high,
But Night sits monarch yet in the mid sky."

Thyrsis, the Lady, and the two Brothers, here leave the stage, and are supposed to be gradually wending their way, through the wood, while it is still night, or very early morning, towards Ludlow Castle. While the spectators are imagining this, the journey of some furlongs is actually achieved; for straightway "the scene changes, presenting Ludlow Town and the President's Castle: then come in country-dancers:

after them the Attendant Spirit, with the two Brothers and the Lady." In this stage-direction it seems to be implied that the spectators now looked on some canvas at the back of the stage, representing Ludlow Town, and the exterior of the very castle they were sitting in, all bright on a sunshiny morning, and that, as they looked, there came in first a bevy of rustic lads and lasses, or representatives of such, dancing and making merry, till their clodhopping rounds were interrupted by the appearance among them of the guardian Thyrsis and the three graceful young ones. This is confirmed by what Thyrsis says to the dancers in the song which stands fourth in the printed masque, but must have been the fifth in the actual performance :—

So dismissed, the clodhoppers vanish; and there remain on the stage, facing the Earl and Countess and the audience, only (we may drop the disguise now, as doubtless the audience did in their cheering) the musician Lawes, the Lady Alice, and her brothers Viscount Brackley and Master Thomas Egerton. Advancing towards the Earl and Countess, Lawes presents to them his charge with this continuation of his last song:

"Noble Lord and Lady bright,

I have brought ye new delight.
Here behold so goodly grown
Three fair branches of your own," etc.

There seems still to have been a dance at this point, to show off the courtly grace of the young people after the energy of the clodhoppers; for at the end of Lawes's song there comes this last stage-direction, "The dances ended, the Spirit epiloguises." That is to say, Lawes, relapsing into his character of the Attendant Spirit who had descended from Heaven at the beginning of the piece, and had acted so beneficially through it in the guise of the shepherd Thyrsis, winds up the whole by a final speech or song as he slowly recedes or reascends. In our printed copies the Epilogue is a longish speech; but, as part