ous, that sovereign about 1640 would
have anticipated those tastes, and even that enthusiasm, which are still
almost foreign to the nation.

The mind of Charles the First was moulded by the Graces. His favourite
Buckingham was probably a greater favourite for those congenial tastes,
and the frequent exhibition of those splendid masques and
entertainments, which combined all the picture of ballet dances with the
voice of music; the charms of the verse of Jonson, the scenic machinery
of Inigo Jones, and the variety of fanciful devices of Gerbier, the
duke's architect, the bosom friend of Rubens.[188] There was a costly
magnificence in the _fetes_ at York House, the residence of Buckingham,
of which few but curious researchers are aware: they eclipsed the
splendour of the French Court; for Bassompiere, in one of his
despatches, declares he had never witnessed a similar magnificence. He
describes the vaulted apartments, the ballets at supper, which were
proceeding between the services with various representations, theatrical
changes, and those of the tables, and the music; the duke's own
contrivance, to prevent the inconvenience of pressure, by having a
turning door made like that of the monasteries, which admitted only one
person at a time. The following extract from a manuscript letter of the
time conveys a lively account of one of those _fetes._

"Last Sunday, at night, the duke's grace entertained their majesties and
the French ambassador at York House with great feasting and show, where
all things came down in clouds; amongst which, one rare device was a
representation of the French king, and the two queens, with their
chiefest attendants, and so to the life, that the queen's majesty could
name them. It was four o'clock in the morning before they parted, and
then the king and queen, together with the French ambassador, lodged
there. Some estimate this entertainment at five or six thousand
pounds."[189] At another time, "the king and queen were entertained at
supper at Gerbier the duke's painter's house, which could not stand him
in less than a thousand pounds." Sir Symonds D'Ewes mentions banquets at
five hundred pounds. The fullest account I have found of one of these
entertainments, which at once show the curiosity of the scenical
machinery and the fancy of the poet, the richness Of the crimson habits
of the gentlemen, and the white dresses with white heron's plumes and
jewelled head-dresses and ropes of pearls of t