No. LXVI. THURSDAY, MAY 1. Detrahere et pellem, nitidus qua quisque per ora Where all, their beauties to full view display'd, HOR. AMONG the many exotic diversions that have been transplanted into this country, there is no more cultivated, or which seems to have taken deere root among us, than that modest and rational e tainment the masquerade. This, as well as the o is originally of Italian growth, and was brought w hither by the celebrated Heideger; who, on bot counts, justly acquired among his own country, 1 the honourable title of Sur-Intendant des Ploi d'Angleterre. C I have called the masquerade a modest and rat entertainment. As to the first, no one can hav least scruple about it's innocence, if he considers it is always made a part of the education of ourĮ females; and that the most virtuous woman ashamed to appear there. If it be objected, c lady is exposed to hear many indecencies fro men, (as the mask gives them a privilege to say thing, though ever so rude) it may be answered hat no lady is obliged to take the affront to hersel; because, as she goes disguised, the indignity is not ed to her in her own proper person. Besides, according to Dryden, She cannot blush, because they cannot see. As to the rationality of this entertainment, every one will agree with me, that these midnight orgies are full as rational as sitting up all night at the card table. Nor is it more strange, that five or six hundred people should meet together in disguises purposely to conceal themselves, than that the same number should assemble at a rout, where most of the company are wholly unacquainted with each other. But we can never enough admire the wit and humour of these meetings; which chiefly consists in exhibiting the most fantastic appearances, that the most whimsical imagination can possibly devise. A common person may be content with appearing as a Chinese, a Turk, or a Friar: but the true genius will ransack earth, air, and seas, reconcile contradictions, and call in things inanimate, as well as animate, to his assistance; and the more extravagant and out of nature his dress can be contrived, the higher is the joke. I remember one gentleman about six foot high, who came to the masquerade drest like a child in a white frock and leading-strings, attended by another gentleman of a very low stature, who officiated as his nurse. The same witty spark took it into his head at another time to personate fame, and was stuck all over with peacock's feathers by way of eyes: but when he came to fasten on his wings, they were spread to so enormous a length, that no coach or chair was spacious enough to admit him, so that he was forced to be conveyed along the streets on a chairman's horse, covered with a blanket. Another gentleman, of no less humour, very much surprised the company Ly carrying a thatched house about him, so contrived, that no part of him could be seen, except his face, which was lookng out of the casement: but this joke had like to have cost him dear, as another wag was going to set fire to the building, because he found by the leaden policy affixed to the front, that the tenement was insured. In a word, dogs, monkeys, ostriches, and all kinds of monsters, are as frequently to be met with at the masquerade, as in the Covent-Garden Pantomimes; and I once saw with great delight a gentleman, who personated one of Bay's recruits, prance a minuet on his hobby-horse, with a dancing bear for his partner. I have said before, that the masquerade is of foreign extraction, and imported to us from abroad. But as the English, though slow at invention, are remarkable for improving on what has already been invented, it is no wonder that we should attempt to heighten the gusto of this entertainment, and even carry it beyond the licence of a foreign carnival. There is something too insipid in our fine gentlemen stalking about in dominos; and it is rather cruel to eclipse the pretty faces of our fine ladies with hideous masks; for which reason it has been judged requisite to contrive a masquerade upon a new plan, and in an entire new taste. We all remember, when (a few years ago) a celebrated lady endeavoured to introduce a new species of masquerade among us, by lopping off the exuberance of dress; and she herself first set the example, by stripping to the character of Iphigenia undrest for the sacrifice. I must own it is a matter of some surprise to me considering the propensity of our modern ladies to get rid of their cloaths, that other Iphigenias did not immediately start up; and that nuns and vestals should be suffered ever after to be seen among the masks. But this project, it seems, was not then sufficiently ripe for execution, as a certain aukward thing, called bashfulness, had not yet been banished from the female world; and to the present enlightened times was reserved the honour of introducing, however contradictory the term may seem, a naked masquerade. What the above-mentioned lady had the hardiness to attempt alone, will (I am assured) be set on foot by our persons of fashion, as soon as the hot days come in. Ranelagh is the place pitched upon for their meeting; where it is proposed to have a masquerade Al Fresco, and the whole company to display all their charms in puris naturalibus. The Pantheon of the heathen gods, Ovid's metamorphoses, and Titian's prints, will supply them with a sufficient variety of undrest characters. One set of ladies, I am told, intend to personate water-nymphs bathing in the canal: Three sisters, celebrated for their charms, design to appear together as the three graces: And a certain lady of quality, who most resembles the goddess of beauty, is now practising, from a model of the noted statue of Venus de Medicis, the most striking attitude for that character. As to the gentlemen, they may most of them represent very suitably the half-brutal forms of satyrs, pans, fauns, and centaurs: our beaux may assume the semblance of the beardless Apollo, or (which would be more natural) may admire themselves in the person of Narcissus; and our bucks might act quite in character, by running about starknaked with their mistresses, and committing the maddest freaks, like the priests and priestesses of Bacchus celebrating the bacchanalian mysteries. If this scheme for the naked masquerade should meet with encouragement, (as there is no doubt but it must) it is proposed to improve it still further. Persons of fashion cannot but lament, that there are no diversions allotted to Sunday, except the card-table; and they can never enough regret, that the Sunday evening tea-drinkings at Ranelagh were laid aside, from a superstitious regard to religion. They, therefore, intend to have a particular sort of masquerade on that day; in which they may shew their taste, by ridiculing all the old womens tales contained in that idle book of fables, the bible, while the vulgar are devoutly attending to them at church. This, indeed, is not without a parallel: We have already had an instance of an Eve; and by borrowing the serpent in Orpheus and Eurydice, we might have the whole story of the fall of man exhibited in masquerade. : It must, indeed, be acknowledged, that this project has already taken place among the lowest of the people, who seem to have been the first contrivers of a naked masquerade and last summer I remember an article in the newspapers, that " several persons of both 66 sexes were assembled naked at Pimlico, and being "carried before a magistrate, were sent to Bride well." This, indeed, is too refined a pleasure to be allowed the vulgar; and every body will agree with me, that the same act, which at the green lamps or Pimlico appears low and criminal, may be extremely polite and commendable in the Haymarket or at Ranelagh. No. LXVII. THURSDAY, MAY 8. O imitatores, servum pecus !....... HOR. SIR, Dull imitators' like the servile hack, To Mr. Town. BAYES in the Rehearsal frequently boasts it as his chief excellence, that he treads on no man's heels, that he scorns to follow the steps of others; and when he is asked the reason of inserting any absurdity in his play, he answers," because it is new." The poets of the present time run into the contrary error: they are so far from endeavouring to elevate and surprise by any thing original, that their whole business is imitation; and they jingle their bells in the same road with those that went before them, with all the dull exactness of a pack-horse. ་ |