by the Queen of Great Britain, with her LADIES.
And because her Majesty (best knowing, that a principal part of life, in these Spectacles, lay in their variety)had commanded me to think on some Dance, or Shew, that might precede hers, and have the place of a foil or false Masque: I was careful to decline, not only from others, but mine own Steps in that kind, since the last Year, I had an Anti-masque of Boys: and therefore now, devis'd, that twelve Women, in the habit of Hags, or Witches, sustaining the Persons of Ignorance, Suspicion, Credulity, &c. the Opposites to good Fame, should fill that part; not as a Masque, but a Spectacle of strangeness, producing multiplicity of Gesture, and not unaptly sorting with the current, and whole fall of the Device.
Ben Jonson (1609)