To descend from these altitudes, and not to protract our Fools'
Banquet beyond its appropriate day,--for I fear the second of April
is not many hours distant--in sober verity I will confess a truth to
thee, reader. I love a _Fool_--as naturally, as if I were of kith and
kin to him. When a child, with child-like apprehensions, that dived
not below the surface of the matter, I read those _Parables_--not
guessing at their involved wisdom--I had more yearnings towards
that simple architect, that built his house upon the sand, than I
entertained for his more cautious neighbour; I grudged at the
hard censure pronounced upon the quiet soul that kept his talent;
and--prizing their simplicity beyond the more provident, and, to my
apprehension, somewhat _unfeminine_ wariness of their competitors--I
felt a kindliness, that almost amounted to a _tendre_, for those five
thoughtless virgins.--I have never made an acquaintance since, that
lasted; or a friendship, that answered; with any that had not some
tincture of the absurd in their characters. I venerate an honest
obliquity of understanding. The more laughable blunders a man shall
commit in your company, the more tests he giveth you, that he will
not betray or overreach you. I love the safety, which a palpable
hallucination warrants; the security, which a word out of season
ratifies. And take my word for this, reader, and say a fool
told it you, if you please, that he who hath not a dram of
folly in his mixture, hath pounds of much worse matter in his
composition. It is observed, that "the foolisher the fowl or
fish,--woodcocks,--dotterels,--cod's-heads, &c. the finer the flesh
thereof," and what are commonly the world's received fools, but such
whereof the world is not worthy? and what have been some of the
kindliest patterns of our species, but so many darlings of absurdity,
minions of the goddess, and, her white boys?--Reader, if you wrest my
words beyond their fair construction, it is you, and not I, that are