the part of the _Elder Brother_, and Thomas
Egerton, who appeared as the _Second Brother_. We do not know who acted
the parts of _Comus_ and _Sabrina_, but the part of the _Attendant
Spirit_ was taken by Henry Lawes, "gentleman of the Chapel Royal, and
one of His Majesty's private musicians." The Earl's children were his
pupils, and the mask was naturally produced under his direction.
Milton's friendship with Lawes is shown by the sonnet which the poet
addressed to the musician:

Harry, whose tuneful and well measur'd song
First taught our English music how to span
Words with just note and accent, not to scan
With Midas' ears, committing short and long;
Thy worth and skill exempts thee from the throng,
With praise enough for Envy to look wan;
To after age thou shalt be writ the man,
That with smooth air could'st humour best our tongue.
Thou honour'st Verse, and Verse must lend her wing
To honour thee, the priest of Phoebus' quire,
That tun'st their happiest lines in hymn, or story.
Dante shall give Fame leave to set thee higher
Than his Casella, who he woo'd to sing,
Met in the milder shades of Purgatory.

We must remember also that it was to Lawes that Milton's _Comus_ owed
its first publication, and, as we see from the dedication prefixed to
the text, that he was justly proud of his share in its first
representation.

Such were the persons who appeared in Milton's mask; they are few in
number, and the plan of the piece is correspondingly simple. There are
three scenes which may be briefly characterised thus:

I. The Tempter and the Tempted: lines 1-658.
_Scene_: A wild wood.

II. The Temptation and the Rescue: lines 659-958.
_Scene_: The Palace of Comus.

III. The Triumph: lines 959-1023.
_Scene_: The President's Castle.

In the first scene, after a kind of prologue (lines 1-92), the interest
rises as we are introduced first to Comus and his rout, then to the Lady
alone and "night-foundered," and finally to Comus and the Lady in
company. At the same time the nature of the Lady's trial and her
subsequent victory are foreshadowed in a conversation between the
brothers and the attendant Spirit. This is one of the more Miltonic
parts of the mask: in the philosophical reasoning of the elder brother,
as opposed to the matter-of-fact arguments of the younger, we trace the
young poet fresh from the study of the