MASTER of the Revels, an officer with an appointment of 100l. a-year, whose business is to order all things relating to the performance of plays, masques, balls, &c. at court. Formerly he had also a jurisdiction of granting licences to all who travel to act plays, puppet-shews, or the like diversions; neither could any new play be acted at either of the two houses till it had passed his perusal and licence; but these powers were afterwards much abridged, not to say annihilated, by a statute for regulating playhouses, till the licensing plays by the lord chamberlain was established. This officer has a yeoman with L. 46 : 11 : 8 a-year.