amusements of Elizabeth's time had an air of that decent restraint
which became the court of a maiden sovereign; and, in that earlier
period, to use the words of Burke, vice lost half its evil by being
deprived of all its grossness. In James's reign, on the contrary, the
coarsest pleasures were publicly and unlimitedly indulged, since,
according to Sir John Harrington, the men wallowed in beastly
delights; and even ladies abandoned their delicacy and rolled about in
intoxication. After a ludicrous account of a mask, in which the actors
had got drunk, and behaved themselves accordingly, he adds, "I have
much marvelled at these strange pageantries, and they do bring to my
recollection what passed of this sort in our Queen's days, in which I
was sometimes an assistant and partaker: but never did I see such lack
of good order and sobriety as I have now done. The gunpowder fright is
got out of all our heads, and we are going on hereabout as if the
devil was contriving every man should blow up himself by wild riot,
excess, and devastation of time and temperance. The great ladies do go
well masqued; and indeed, it be the only show of their modesty to
conceal their countenance, but alack, they meet with such countenance
to uphold their strange doings, that I marvel not at aught that
happens."[Footnote: Harrington's Nugae Antique, vol. ii. p. 352. For
the gross debauchery of the period, too much encouraged by the example
of the monarch, who was, in other respects, neither without talent nor
a good-natured disposition, see Winwood's Memorials, Howell's Letters,
and other Memorials of the time; but particularly, consult the Private
Letters and Correspondence of Steenie, _alias_ Buckingham, with his
reverend Dad and Gossip, King James, which abound with the grossest as
well as the most childish language. The learned Mr. D'Israeli, in an
attempt to vindicate the character of James, has only succeeded in
obtaining for himself the character of a skilful and ingenious
advocate, without much advantage to his royal client]