Page:Lives of Poets-Laureate.djvu/131

Rh "The Earle of Hollande, the Lord Goringe, Mr. Percy, and Mr. Jermyn were the men that attended.

"The Prince Elector sat in the midst, his brother Robert on the right hand of him, and the Prince d'Amours on the left.

"The masque was very well performed in the dances, scenes, cloathing, and musique; and the Queene was pleased to tell mee, at her going away, that she liked it very well.

"Mr. Corseilles made the scenes."

Much ridicule has, in later times, been heaped upon these diversions; and we have been taught to smile at the grotesque taste which was gratified with such fanciful exaggerations; but there is this diversity between a Court pageant of the olden time and a modern costume ball. In our advanced stage of civilization, we rely solely upon the genius of the tailor and the milliner; while our forefathers, less enlightened, called in the additional aid of the poet and the artist. The noble of the nineteenth century lounges languidly through a quadrille, bedizened in the coxcombry of an exploded fashion; the noble of the seventeenth exercised both body and mind, and betrayed a heartiness of enjoyment that would provoke only wonder and contempt in a more refined and fastidious age.

Davenant had now established his fame as a popular dramatist, and his successive productions were sure of a cordial welcome. They, as must the works of all save the chosen few, have now fallen into oblivion; so that their very titles are probably quite new to the majority of our readers; but they will repay the labour of perusal. They were the popular pieces of their day. Men the most competent, from their acquirements to judge,