ABSTRACT
THE position of Jonson as a purveyor of entertainments to the Court was made finally secure in January, 1605, when by royal invitation he wrote his first royal mask for the Queen. Therein his erudition was taxed to satisfy an odd persistent fancy that she had to be black as well as comely. Jonson, beginning with Pliny and Solinus and remembering a river in Aethiopia by the name of Niger, brings a bevy of black beauties to Whitehall and celebrates Britannia ruled by a sun, Whose beams shine day and night, and are of force To blanch an Aetheop and revive a corse.
