St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1884-04-09
AN EXOTIC.
Why the Masquerade Ball Does Not Flour
ish IN England.

ISL IN England.
It is not very probable that we shall Dor
row 'professional' masquerades of the Mad
ison square garden type from the New York
ers, Our licensing magistrates will not per-
NIT public masquerades to begin with; nor,
curiously enough, even when England was
Catholic country, and when Shrovetide mer-
rment was fast and furious, do masquerades
appear to have taken kindly root in English
soil. These entertainments, it is said were
the invention of one Granacci, an Italian
who iourished at the beginning of the six
teenth century; and it is certain that so ear
" as 1912 ''mascherate'' were highly fash
ionable in England Henry VIII, who in
his earlier days was fond of anything that
was vivacious and elegant and artistic, tried
hard to pOpularise tn newly-introducedm mas
querade in England. Hall in his ''Chr oni-
cles,'' tells US that in 1912, ''On the date of
the Epiphanie, at night the king, with eleven
others, were disguised after the manner of
Italie in a masbe, athyng not seen afore in
England; they were apparelled in garments
long and brode wrought all with gold, with
vizors and cappers of gold, and after the
banket dozen, these masker came with six
gentlemen disguised in silk, bearying static
torches, and desiring the ladies to dance.
Some were content, and some shat knew the
fashion of it refused, because it was not
thing commonly seen. And they danced
and commoned together, as the fashion of
the maske is they took their leave and de-
parted; and so did the quene and all the
ladies. In this quaint narration there is
curious evidence of the prevalence even
among the highest society in the days of
Bluff King Hal of that eminently English
characteristic 'Emauvaise nonte.'
Elizabeth and her two immediate success
ors were more fortunate in the organization
ton of Mosques, which became however, ult-
imately less masquerades proper than musi-
cal, poetical spectacles, half drama and half
ballets. But transparents as they were, the
| Whitehall Mosques melted Prynne to pen his
furious 'HistriomastiX,n and they were
among the remoter causes of the great rebel =
| ion After the restoration no attempt was
made to revive the court Mosques; while
throughout the eighteenth century masquer-
! AIDES, as public exhibitions admission to
which was by payment, can scarcely-al-
though their occurrence was frequent and
| their aspect sometimes very Splendid-be
said to have ever become, in the truest sense
popular. Mr.. Thacllery has left us an anus
ing sketch of Sir Joshua Reynolds in domi
no, holding his mask in one hand and his
ear trumpet in the other, at one of the Pan
theon masquerades; and what was done by
the decorous president of the Royal academy
of arts, great many members of polite soci-
ETY. did likewise. AS a rule, the final cause
of the Georgian masquerades was the preach
ing of sermons vehemently denouncing such
enormities, and the penning of essays by fe-
male moralists of the Hannah More and Cha
pone type, pointing out that the shortest cuts
to Tophet was a masquerade. On the mod
ern history of masquerades it is needless to
dwell, They became at last noisy nuisances,
as coarse as they we're dull, and for some
years past they have been disallowed both by
the licensing magistrates and the lord cham
berlain. Genuine masquerades, such as are
given at carnival time in Italy and Spain,
would seem to be incompatible with the spir-
it of the English people. We are very I'M
skilled in the art of intrigue. We do not
know how to mystify; and intrigue and
mystifcation are essentials of Italian and
Spanish Masquerades.