Nothing could exceed the enthusiasm with which the idea was taken up in the great world. All aristocratic London set themselves to study the pages of Chaucer and Froissart. At the same time, though the Court was to be that of Edward III and his Queen, no limit was put to the periods and nationalities to be selected by the guests. The ball was to be a masque, and perhaps it would have lost a little of its motley charm had it been confined entirely to one age in history, and to one country of the world. A comical petition had to be presented, that the masquers might remain covered before the Queen, lest the doffing of hats should cause the displacement of wigs. The great attraction lay in the fact that not only did her Majesty represent one of her predecessors, an ancestress however remote, but that many of the guests were enabled to follow her example. They appeared--some in the very armour of their forefathers, others in costumes copied from family pictures, or in the dress of hereditary offices still held by the representatives of the ancient houses. For it was the sons and daughters of the great nobles of England that held high revelry in Buckingham Palace that night. There was an additional picturesqueness, as well as a curious vividness, lent to the pageant by the circumstance that in many cases the blood of the men and the women represented ran in the veins of the performers in the play. The wildest rumours of the extent and cost of the ball circulated beforehand. It was said that eighteen thousand persons were engaged in it. The Earl of Pembroke was to wear thirty-thousand pounds' worth of diamonds--the few diamonds in his hat alone would be of the value of eighteen thousand pounds. He was to borrow ten thousand pounds' worth of diamonds from Storr and Mortimer at one per cent, for the night. These great jewellers' stores were reported to be exhausted. Every other jeweller and diamond merchant was in the same condition. It almost seemed as if the Prince of Esterhazy must be outdone, even though the report of his losses from falling stones on the Coronation-day had risen to two thousand pounds. One lady boasted that she would not give less than a thousand pounds for her dress alone. Lord Chesterfield's costume was to cost eight hundred pounds. Plain dresses could not be got under two hundred; the very commonest could not be bought under fifty pounds. A new material had been invented for the occasion--gold and silver blonde to replace the heavy stuffs of gold and silver, since the nineteenth century did not always furnish strength or endurance to bear such a burden in a crowded ball-room on a May night. Truly one description of trade must have received a lively impetus.