There is a peace of heart in lowly stations that the great can but seldom enjoy. The biography of celebrated monarchs and statesmen sufficiently shows that no rank, however exalted, is exempt from mortifications and annoyances, trying alike to temper and to pride, and it is very evident from such histories that the noblest of all governments, the government of oneself, is far more difficult of attainment for the exalted than for the humbler inhabitants of earth. Not only during Queen Elizabeth's reign, but at a much earlier period, the Inns of Court had been celebrated for the magnificence of their masques and revels. The first entertainment of this kind, of which there is any certain record, took place at Gray's Inn in the year 1525. Hall in his chronicle thus speaks of it: "A Plaie at Gray's Inn. This Christmas was a goodly disguising played at Gray's Inn, which was compiled by John Roo, Serjeant at the Law, twenty years past. This plae was so set forth with rich and costly apparel, and with strange devices of masks and morrisches, that it was highly praised by all men, except by the Cardinal (Wolsey), who imagined the play was devised of him. In a great fury he sent for Master Roo, and took from him his Coif, and sent him to the Fleet, and afterwards he sent for the young gentlemen that played in the play, and highly rebuked and threatened them, and sent one of them, called Master Moyle of Kent, to the Fleet, but by means of friends Master Roo and he were delivered at last. "This play sore displeased the Cardinal, and yet it was never meant for him; wherefore many wise men grudged to see him take it so to heart; and even the Cardinal said the King (Henry VIII.) was highly displeased at it, and spake nothing of himself." This unfortunate play seems to have made a great stir at the time, for not only Hall, but Fox, in his "Acts and Monuments," thus alludes to the performance when writing of a certain Simon Fish, who also belonged to Gray's Inn. Fox says: "It happened the first year this gentleman came to London to dwell, which was about the year of our Lord, 1525, that there was a certain play, or interlude, made by one M. Roo, of the same Inn, gentleman, in which play partly was matter against the Cardinal Wolsey; and when none durst take upon them to play that part which touched the said Cardinal, this aforesaid Mr. Fish took upon him to do it. Whereupon great displeasure ensued against him on the Cardinal's part, insomuch as he, being pursued by the said Cardinal the same night that this tragedy was played, was compelled of force to avoid his own house, and so fled over the sea to Tindal." It is singular that neither Hall nor Fox makes any mention of the name of the play that had such unhappy results for the luckless gentlemen who took part in it.