Volume II 1603-1660 - The Honourable Society of the Inner Temple

xlii INTRODUCTION.
supply," it was ordered that for the future all admittances to chambers
should be by the parliament and not by the treasurer alone, and that
each party admitted should pay such further sums as should be assessed,
three-fourths of such additional sum to be repaid on surrender of the
chamber. This course was said to have been found by the other inns
of court to be beneficial to the society and agreeable to the students.
P. 95 In April, 1616, George Lowe, the chief cook, petitioned the bench
for some compensation to be allowed him in respect of his chamber
in the cloisters, by reason that " a great part thereof and the chimney
therein was, at Christmas was a twelvemonth, broken down by such
as climbed up at the windows of the hall to see the mask which then
was." This entry has reference to the winter festivities of 1614-15,
when on the i3th January a very graceful entertainment, called
" The Inner Temple Masque," written with much poetic feeling, and
free from the grossness which contaminates many productions of the
age, was given in the Inner Temple hall. The musicians of the
society took part in the performance, and there were several changes
of scenery effected by the drawing of a curtain across the stage while
the company was being entertained by a song. It was written and
arranged by William Browne of Tavistock, author of " Britannia's
Pastorals," " The Shepherd's Pipe," and other epistles and poems.'
Browne was a member or the Inner Temple and a personal friend of
Selden and others of the literary society then collected in the inn. He
had been educated at Exeter College, Oxford, where he afterwards
graduated M.A., and was admitted to this house in November, 16ii.
He resided in the inn, and his " Pastorals," with most of his poems
and epistles, are dated from the Inner Temple. The argument of this
masque was the landing of the companions of Ulysses on the island
of lEea, as described in the tenth book of the Odyssey, their
transformation into hogs and other wild beasts by the enchantment
of Circe, and their restoration to the condition of gallant knights on
the intercession of Ulysses. This gave ample scope for the introduction
of tritons, sirens, water-nymphs, woodmen, and knights, and
the play was interspersed, after the manner of a masque, with songs,
choruses, and dances. Ulysses, Circe, and a siren were the chief
speaking characters. At the conclusion the grecian knights, restored
Among these was the celebrated epitaph on " Sidney's Sister Pembroke's Mother,"
(the dowager Countess of Pembroke), sometimes credited to Ben Jonson.