Note 663 — VI THE MASK (continued)

Osborne, James, 75, 'So disobliging were the most grateful pleasures of the Court; whose masks and other spectacles, though they wholly intended them for show, and would not have been pleased without great store of company, yet did not spare to affront such as come to see them; which accuseth the King no less of folly, in being at so vast an expense for that which signified nothing but in relation to pride and lust, than the spectators (I mean such as were not invited) of madness, who did not only give themselves the discomposure of body attending such irregular hours, but to others an opportunity to abuse them. Nor could I, that had none of their share who passed through the most incommodious access, count myself any great gainer (who did ever find some time before the grand night to view the scene) after I had reckoned my attendance and sleep; there appearing little observable besides the company, and what Imagination might conjecture from the placing of the Ladies and the immense charge and universal vanity in clothes, &c.'