They came by tickets which included supper. Each ticket cost five guineas, and admitted one gentleman or two ladies including supper. It seems a monstrous price for a single evening; but the cost of the entertainment was enormous. The ticket itself was a beautiful thing representing Venus with Cupids. They were gazing with interest upon a Nymph lying beside a fountain. She had, as yet, nothing upon her, and she was apparently engaged in thinking what she would wear for the evening. A pretty thing, prettily drawn. But five guineas for a single evening!
As soon as the doors were thrown open, a line of footmen received the company, took their tickets and showed them into the tea-room where that refreshment was offered before the ball commenced. When this room was full, the doors leading to the ball-rooms and the other rooms were also thrown open, and the company streamed along the great gallery which was lined with flowering shrubs. Here was stationed a small string band playing soft and pleasing music. Then they crowded up the Grand staircase. When most of the masqueraders were within the Ball-room, and before they had done looking about them and crying out for astonishment at the mirrors and the candelabra and the lights, we struck up the music in the gallery, and as soon as order was a little restored, the minuets began.
For my own part I love to look upon dancing. The country-dance expresses the happiness of youth and the gladness of life. The hey and jig are rustic joys which cannot keep still, but must needs jump about to show their pleasure. But the minuet expresses the refinement, the courtesies, the politeness of life. It is artificial, but the politeness of Fashion in the Civilized world must be acknowledged to be an improvement on mere Nature, which is too often barbarous in its expression and coarse in its treatment. I know not any of our music which could be played to such a dance of savages as the Guinea Traders report from the West Coast and the Bight of Benin.
The company flowed in fast. All, except a few who kept about the doors and did not venture in the crowd, were in masquerade dress, and even those who were not carried dominoes in their hands. One would have thought the whole world had sent representatives to the ball. There were pig-tailed Chinese; Dervishes in turbans; American Indians with tomahawks; Arabs in long silken robes; negroes and negresses; proud Castilians; Scots in plaid; Monks and Romish Priests; Nuns and Sisters; milkmaids in dowlass; ploughboys in smocks; lawyers; soldiers and sailors: there were gods and goddesses; Venus came clad much like her figure in the books; Diana carried her bow; the Graces endeavoured to appear as they are commonly represented: Apollo came with his lyre; Mars with his shield and spear: Vulcan with his lame leg: Hercules with his club. There were dozens of Cupids: there were dozens of Queens; Cleopatra; Dido; Mary, Queen of Scots: and Queen Elizabeth. There were famous kings as Henry the Fifth; Henry the Eighth: Charles the First; and Charles the Second. There were potentates, as the Pope, the Sultan, the Grand Cham, Prester John, and the Emperor of China: there were famous women, mostly kings' favourites, as the Fair-Haired Editha: Fair Rosamund: Jane Shore, the most beautiful of London maidens: and merry Nell Gwynne, once an Orange Girl: there were half a dozen ladies representing Joan of Arc in armour: there was a bear-ward leading a man dressed as a bear who made as if he would hug the women (at which they screamed in pretended affright) and danced to the music of a crowd: there were gipsies and fortune-tellers: there were two girls—nobody knew who they were—one of whom danced on a tight-rope, while the other turned somersaults. There were Harlequin, Columbine, Pantaloon and clown, as if straight from Drury Lane: there was the showman who put his show in a corner and loudly proclaimed the wonders that were within: there was the Cheap Jack in another corner, who pretended to sell everything: there was the itinerant Quack who bawled his nostrums for prolonging life and restoring youth and arresting beauty: there was the orange girl, of Drury Lane, impudent and ready with an answer and a joke to anything: there were dancing-girls who ran in and out, cleared a space; danced: then ran to another place and danced again. I learned, afterwards, that the dancers and tumblers, with many of the masks, were actors, actresses, and dancing-girls, hired from the Theatre by Madame herself, in order to ensure vivacity and activity and movement in the evening. If these things were neglected or left to the masquers themselves, the assembly would fall quite flat, very few persons having the least power to play any part or keep up any character. Punchinello, for instance, trod the floor with a face like a physician for solemnity: the clown could not dance or laugh or make other people laugh: and so with the women: they thought their part was played as soon as they were dressed.
Meantime, the music played on without stopping. After the minuets, we proceeded to the country dance. But you must not think that at the Masquerade we conducted our dancing with the same order and form as an ordinary assembly. I looked down upon a scene which was quite unlike the ordinary assembly, and yet was the most beautiful, the most animated, the most entrancing that I had ever witnessed. The room was like a flower-bed in July filled with flowers of every colour. It was enough, at first, to look at the whole company, as one might look upon a garden filled with flowers. Presently I began to detach couples or small groups. First, I observed the fair domino who lured on the amorous youth—dressed, perhaps, as a monk—by running away and yet looking back—a Parthian Amazon of Love. She must be young, he thought, with such a sprightly air and so easy a step: she must be beautiful, with such a figure, to match her face: she must be rich, with such a habit—with those gold chains and bracelets and pearls. Presently the young fellow caught his goddess: he spoke to her and he led her to a seat among the plants where they could sit a little retired and apart. But from the gallery I could see them. He took her hand: he pressed her, saying I know not what: presently she took off her domino: and disclosed loveliness: the youth fell into raptures: she held him off: she put on her domino again: she rose: he begged for a little more discourse—it was a pretty pantomime—she refused: she went back to the general company: they remained together all the night: when they went away in the morning he led her out whispering, and one hopes that this was the beginning of a happy match. The removal of the domino to let the gentleman see the masked face was, I observed, very common, yet it was not always that the little comedy ended, as they say, happily. Sometimes the lady, after showing her face, would run away and exchange a kerchief, or a mantle, with a friend so as to mystify and bewilder her pursuer who could not tell what had become of his lovely partner.
Such were the little comedies performed before the eyes of the spectators from the music gallery. As for the rest, the mountebanks pranced, and the dancing-girls and the tumbling-girls capered, and they all laughed and sang and gave themselves wholly to the mirth and merriment of the moment.
Some of the men I observed were drunk when they arrived: others pretended to be drunk in order that they might roll about and catch hold of the girls. It has always been to me a marvel that women do not mark their displeasure, at the intrusion upon their pleasures, of men who are drunk. They mar all the enjoyment of society whether at the theatre, or at such assemblies as this, or in the drawing-room. Ladies of fashion have it in their power to put an end to the habit at a stroke of the pen, so to speak: namely, by forbidding the presence at their assemblies of gentlemen in liquor: they should be refused admission however great their position, even if their breast is ablaze with stars.
There were many stars present, and with them ladies whose head-dresses were covered with diamonds. It was rumoured that Madame retained in her service for these occasions, a body of stout fellows on the watch for any attempt upon the jewels. It was also rumoured that there were R—l P—s present at the Masquerade: the young D— of Y—k, for instance, it was said positively, was among the company, but so disguised that none could recognise him. Some of the ladies wore no dominoes; but these persons, I observed, did not leave their partners and took no share in the merriment. Indeed, they seemed, for the most part, not to laugh at the fun: I suppose they found it somewhat low and vulgar. In our gallery they were well known. 'That is the Duchess of Q— with the rubies: the lady with the diamond spray in her hair is Lady H—: the lady with the strings of pearls round her neck and arms is the Lady Florence D—,' and so forth—with scandalous stories and gossip which belonged, I thought, more to the footmen in the hall than to the music gallery. We had no such talk at the Dog and Duck. Perhaps, however, the reason for our reticence in that favourite retreat and rendezvous of the aristocracy was that there were no women at the Dog and Duck whose lives were not scandalous. The stories, therefore, would become monotonous.
At one, a procession was formed for supper. There was no order or rank observed because there were plenty of persons who masqueraded as noblemen, and it would take too long to examine into their claims. The small band of stringed instruments, of which I have spoken, headed the procession, played the company into the supper-room, and played while they were taking supper. There was not room for more than half in the supper-room: the rest waited their turn.
'It is a rest for us,' said the First violin, 'we shall get some supper downstairs. Eat and drink plenty, for what we have done already is a flea-bite compared with what we have to do.'