 not very
long before the time of assembling; consequently, as each was sealed with a
private seal of the Landgrave's, sculptured elaborately with his armorial
bearings, forgery would have been next to impossible.
    These arrangements, however, were made rather to relieve the company from
the too powerful terrors which haunted them, and to possess them from the first
with a sense of security, than for the satisfaction of the Landgrave or his
minister. They were sensible that The Masque had it in his power to command an
access from the interior - and this it seemed next to impossible altogether to
prevent; nor was that indeed the wish of Adorni, but rather to facilitate his
admission, and afterwards, when satisfied of his actual presence, to bar up all
possibility of retreat. Accordingly, the interior arrangements, though perfectly
prepared, and ready to close up at the word of command, were for the present but
negligently enforced.
    Thus stood matters at nine o'clock, by which time upwards of a thousand
persons had assembled; and in ten minutes more an officer reported that the
whole twelve hundred were present without one defaulter.
    The Landgrave had not yet appeared, his minister having received the
company; nor was he expected to appear for an hour - in reality, he was occupied
in political discussion with some of the illustrious incognitos. But this did
not interfere with the progress of the festival; and at this moment nothing
could be more impressive than the far-stretching splendours of the spectacle.
    In one immense saloon, twelve hundred cavaliers and ladies, attired in the
unrivalled pomp of that age, were arranging themselves for one of the
magnificent Hungarian dances which the Emperor's court at Vienna had
transplanted to the camp of Wallenstein, and thence to all the great houses of
Germany. Bevies of noble women, in every variety of fanciful costume, but in
each considerable group presenting deep masses of black or purple velvet, on
which, with the most striking advantage of radiant relief, lay the costly pearl
ornaments, or the sumptuous jewels, so generally significant in those times of
high ancestral pretensions, intermingled with the drooping plumes of martial
cavaliers, who presented almost universally the soldierly air of frankness which
belongs to active service, mixed with the Castilian grandezza that still
breathed through the camps of Germany, emanating originally from the magnificent
courts of Brussels, of Madrid, and of Vienna, and propagated to this age by the
links of Tilly, the Bavarian commander, and Wallenstein, the more than princely
commander for the Emperor. Figures and habiliments so commanding were of
themselves enough to fill the eye and occupy
