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Updated: May 31, 2025
The most famous victim of the Star Chamber was William Prynne, whose work Histriomastix, or the Player's Scourge, directed against the sinfulness of play-acting, masques, and revels, aroused the indignation of the Court.
I speak for myself when I say that, in fitness for the particular end it had to serve, Milton's poem appears to me to be surpassed, for instance, by the best of Jonson's masques, no less than it surpasses them, and all others of their kind, in the poetical beauty of the verse, whether of the 'tragical' or lyrical portions.
He passed Lake Benacus while a gale was blowing, and saw the waves raging as they raged when Virgil looked upon them. At Venice, then the gayest spot in Europe, the traveller spent the Carnival, the gayest season of the year, in the midst of masques, dances, and serenades. Here he was at once diverted and provoked by the absurd dramatic pieces which then disgraced the Italian stage.
Among other salons and galleries, thrown open, was the enormous Perspective of the "Grande Galerie des Glaces," lighted up on that occasion with no less than four thousand wax candles, reflected and repeated by all the mirrors, so that the effect was almost dazzling. The grand suite of salons was thronged with masques, in every conceivable costume. There was not a single room deserted.
When the church is reached, the people gather about the child, and she recites a composition written for the occasion. During carnival time, processions of mountebanks, cavaliers, dressed as knights of old, on horses splendidly adorned, races, masques, balls and all manner of revelries are indulged in.
But a band of Puritans, who watched the scene, invisible themselves, compared the masques to those devils and ruined souls with whom their superstition peopled the black wilderness. Within the ring of monsters appeared the two airiest forms that had ever trodden on any more solid footing than a purple and golden cloud.
Many contemporary letters throw light on this Christmas celebration, when, if one letter writer is to be believed, as many as thirty masques and interludes were presented, when all the Court, the foreign ambassadors and their attendants thronged to Hampton Court.
It was to be expected that Francezka and Gaston should live with splendor and gaiety at the Hôtel Kirkpatrick, and they did; this, too, upon a scale that probably made Francezka's father, the prudent old Scotchman, writhe in his grave. Balls, masques, concerts and ballets followed each other with dazzling swiftness.
What happened at the masquerade. From this time to the day of the masquerade nothing happened of consequence enough to have a place in this history. On that day Colonel James came to Booth's about nine in the evening, where he stayed for Mrs. James, who did not come till near eleven. The four masques then set out together in several chairs, and all proceeded to the Haymarket.
Besides the very free and easy balls, masques and banquets, there were what were called "quaint conceits" of more than doubtful decency, and there was much buffoonery of a very low type.
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