MASQUERADE from the Spanish mascara, ( which is from the Arabic mas-chara, a mimic or sport-maker Italian mascherata, and French mascarade), an amusement introduced into England in the 16th century from Italy, though the use of masks for purposes of satire is of great antiquity, and was practised by the Greeks and Romans. Hall in his Chronicle,' says, " On the dale of the epiphaine, ' at night (A.D. 1512-13), the king (Henry VIII.) with eleven others were disguised after the manner of Italie, called a maske, a thing not seen afore in England: thei were appareled in garmentes long and brode, wrought all with golde, with visers and capper of golde ; and after the banket doen, these maskers came in with the six gentlemen disguised in silke, beryng staff° torches, and desired the ladies to I daunce : some were content ; and some that knew the fashion of it Afused, because it was not a thing commonly seen : and after thei daunced and communed together, as the fashion of the masker] is, thei toke their leave and departed, and so did the quene and all the ladies." The distinction between this species of amusement and the disguis ing', and mummings of the middle ages appears to have been the general mingling of the company in dance and conversation, in lieu of the execution of a particular dance or preconcerted action by certain individuals for the entertainment of the guests, the latter being as old at least as the time of Edward III. in England, and the precursors of
the dramatic masque of the 10th century. In "the garmentes long and brode," and disguisings of alike," we may perceive the present domino, so called, according to some authorities, from an ecclesiastical vestment (a black hood worn by canons of cathedrals), dominus being a title applied to dignified clergymen in the middle ages. Others derive it. from the ordinary robe or gown worn by Venetian noblemen at that period. Granacci, who died in 1543, is said to have been the inventor of masquerades : at what particular date does not appear ; but from the above evidence of Hall, they had become fashionable in Italy as early as 1512. In England the disguisings are of the most fantastic variety, but the characters assumed as a disguise are seldom well sustained, and the amusement afforded is consequently of a very in different and often of a very equivocal kind.