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Half of society was there; and many staid and strenuous business men were promenading with their wives and daughters, more than one with his neck encircled by paper ribbons of many hues. The street-cars had stopped, but there were a number of automobiles filled with masques, singling out their friends on the pavement and hurling confetti.
In another case there were the original autograph copies of several famous works, for example, that of Pope's Homer, written on the backs of letters, the direction and seals of which appear in the midst of "the Tale of Troy divine," which also is much scratched and interlined with Pope's corrections; a manuscript of one of Ben Jonson's masques; of the Sentimental Journey, written in much more careful and formal style than might be expected, the book pretending to be a harum-scarum; of Walter Scott's Kenilworth, bearing such an aspect of straightforward diligence that I shall hardly think of it again as a romance; in short, I may as well drop the whole matter here.
His masques were written for occasions, such as the marriage of Lord Hayes , the nuptials of the Princess Elizabeth and the Elector Palatine , and the ill-starred wedding of Somerset and the quondam Countess of Essex in the same year. Many of them were written to music, sometimes music of his composing.
The King, the Duke, Sedley and Buckingham, Mesdames Castlemaine, Stuart and Gwynne, Dryden and Waller and Lely, the King's house, the Queen's chapel, the Queen's duennas, the Tityre Tus, Paul's Walk, the Russian Ambassador, astrologers, orange girls, balls, masques, pageants, duels, the court of Louis le Grand, the King's hunting parties, Madame d'Orleans, Olympe di Mancini.
Smith adds that he took several courtiers to see Pocahontas, and "they did think God had a great hand in her conversion, and they have seen many English ladies worse favoured, proportioned, and behavioured;" and he heard that it had pleased the King and Queen greatly to esteem her, as also Lord and Lady Delaware, and other persons of good quality, both at the masques and otherwise.
Sir Richard Huntlove, who longs to be among his own tenants and eat his own beef in the country; his lady, who loves the pleasures of the town, balls in the Strand, and masques; Device, the fantastic gallant, these are well-known figures in Shirley's plays. No other playwright of that day could have given us such exquisite poetry as we find in Captain Underwit.
Perhaps they did more. At any rate it is a significant fact that shortly afterwards the justices of Middlesex were somehow put in motion, and made such representations to the authorities at Ranelagh that they were obliged to give an undertaking not to indulge in any more public masques.
A few slight pieces by the quondam actor Robert Cox, partaking more or less of the character of masques, possess a certain pastoral colouring. This is the case, for instance, in the Acteon and Diana, published in 1656. The piece opens with the humours of the would-be lover Bumpkin, a huntsman, and the dance of the country lasses round the May-pole.
The Masques, moreover, of Jonson, of Lyly, of Fletcher, and of Chapman are exact reproductions upon the English court theatres of such festival pageants as were presented to the Medici at Florence or to the Este family at Ferrara.
Cromwell himself looked on at masques and revels, and Whitelock, a Puritan lawyer and his ambassador to Sweden, left behind him a reputation for stately and magnificent entertaining, which his admirers could never harmonize with his persistent refusal to conform to the custom of drinking healths.
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