[2] The masque opens with an anti-masque, a comic scene involving characters from the "court buttery-hatch," including a Lady Alwife, a brewer's clerk, and a "rare artist" named Vangoose, among others.
Jonson created a whole series of such mock-Joneses in his works, starting with Lanthorn Leatherhead in Bartholomew Fair (1614) and extending through his last masque and play, Love's Welcome at Bolsover and A Tale of a Tub.
"[6] Scholarship has shown that Jonson utilized dictionaries and compilations by Robert and Charles Stephanus, Natalis Comes, Johannes Rosinus, and Caspar Peucer.
[7] This masque was the first one performed in the new Banqueting House in Whitehall Palace, designed and built by Inigo Jones after the previous wooden structure burned down in January 1619.
Still standing, the Banqueting House at Whitehall is often considered Jones's architectural masterpiece, and was the scene of many subsequent masques at the Stuart Court.