Note 631 — VI THE MASK (continued)

The descriptions often say nothing of vizards, but probably they take them for granted, for as late as 1618 Chamberlain writes of the Gray's Inn Mask of Mountebanks (Birch, ii. 66), 'I cannot call it a masque, seeing they were not disguised, nor had vizards'. Similarly the unmasking is rarely described (Indian and Chinese Knights; Twelve Goddesses; Hay Mask), and may have been omitted as a formal stage, especially when the maskers danced off into the pageant.