[ 422 ] [Or/r. 



THK WISDOM OF 1-OLLY. 



Any one who loves not an honest laugh — any one who is not ready 

 to give the brightest day in August to a frolic dedicated to Momus alone 

 — any one who is not a jolly^ roystering blade, who can forgive a joke 

 even against himself, for the sake of the joke — any one who goes up the 

 steps of life one by one, counting each step as he goes, instead of now 

 jumping three at a time, now pausing a livelong day on a single one, 

 and now hop})ing up half-a-dozen on the left-leg alone — any one who 

 likes grave airs better than meri*y faces ; — any and each of these, on read- 

 ing the title of my paper, will cry out " a pai*adox ! a paradox !" shake 

 their huge ears with solemn, sneering glee, and wonder how any editor, 

 not utterly insane, could ever dream of admitting such an article into 

 his magazine. So let it be ! I heed them not ! " The Wisdom of 

 Folly" is not written for their comprehension. 



For myself, I am determined to laugh all through the paper. I have 

 wrapped myself round with the mantle of good-humour. I have, like 

 Mr. Peter Piggins, thrown oft' the world's heaviness for the nonce, and 

 I am determined to have a day's pleasure, couie qui coute. The disbe- 

 lievers in " the wisdom of Folly" I discard, before they have an oppor- 

 tunity of discarding me ; and if, on any point, I should descend to the 

 explanatory, it is not in obedience to their scruples, but in the hope of 

 picking up by the way the doubters, the fickle, and the weathercocks, 

 and confirming them in the true and honest faith of the wisdom of 

 Folly. 



When Folly was born, IMirth was the next to come into the Avorld ; 

 and so close did the one birth follow the other, that the good midwife, 

 Lucina, owned herself fairly puzzled to tell which had precedence. 

 Mirth, however, like a jolly, honest-hearted fellow, and considering 

 that 



" when a lady's in the case. 



You know, all other things give place," 



yielded in favour of his sister, and, at the same time, swore by IVIoraus, 

 sire of both, that never should his sister shew her face without his being 

 at hand to do honour to her presence. Thus as they began, so have they 

 ever been ; and so shall they ever be, in spite of old, wrinkled Age, who 

 frowns and puckers when laughing Echo first gives notice of their 

 approach. 



Every thing of, about, and concerning Folly is in keeping. Like the 

 hai-vest-moon, she has a halo of her own, the whole of which borrows 

 its lustre and colour fron. the luminary that shines in the midst. " When 

 the heart of a man is depressed with care," it flies to the shining light 

 for illumination and gladness ; while Folly herself revels in a sort of 

 green field, which nature has adorned with a thousand bewitching inno- 

 cencies for the spirit of all honest men, when worn down with ugly 

 worldly care, to rejoice in, and regain its pristine buoyancy : it is the 

 meadow-lancl of the imagination — the paddock surrounded with an invi- 

 sible fence, in which the skittish fancy of a man may frisk, and bound, 

 and jump, and dance, without the fear of the dingy harness of solemn 

 prudery before his eyes : — he who enters there in the true feeling of the 

 place must be a partaker with Cowley's grasshopper— 



