he ladies, was in a
manuscript letter of the times, with which I supplied the editor of
"Jonson", who has preserved the narrative in his memoirs of that poet.
"Such were the magnificent entertainments," says Mr. Gifford, "which,
though modern refinement may affect to despise them, modern splendour
never reached, even in thought." That the expenditure was costly, proves
that the greater encouragement was offered to artists; nor should
Buckingham be censured, as some will incline to, for this lavish
expense; it was not unusual for the great nobility then; for the
literary Duchess of Newcastle mentions that an entertainment of this
sort, which the Duke gave to Charles the First, cost her lord between
four and five thousand pounds. The ascetic puritan would indeed abhor
these scenes; but their magnificence was also designed to infuse into
the national character gentler feelings and more elegant tastes. They
charmed even the fiercer republican spirits in their tender youth:
Milton owes his Arcades and his delightful Comus to a masque at Ludlow
Castle; and Whitelocke, who, was himself an actor and manager, in "a
splendid royal masque of the four Inns of Courts joined together" to go
to court about the time that Prynne published his Histriomastix, "to
manifest the difference of their opinions from Mr. Prynne's new
learning,"--seems, even at a later day, when drawing up his "Memorials
of the English Affairs," and occupied by graver concerns, to have dwelt
with all the fondness of reminiscence on the stately shows and masques
of his more innocent age; and has devoted, in a chronicle, which
contracts many an important event into a single paragraph, six folio
columns to a minute and very curious description of "these dreams past,
and these vanished pomps."

Charles the First, indeed, not only possessed a critical tact, but
extensive knowledge in the fine arts, and the relics of antiquity. In
his flight in 1642, the king stopped at the abode of the religious
family of the Farrars at Gidding, who had there raised a singular
monastic institution among themselves. One of their favorite amusements
had been to form an illustrated Bible, the wonder and the talk of the
country. In turning it over, the king would tell his companion the
Palsgrave, whose curiosity in prints exceeded his knowledge, the various
masters, and the character of their inventions. When Panzani, a secret
agent of the Pope, was sent over to England to promote the Cath