Gallantry. Dizain des Fetes Galantes

more than once I have pieced the opulence of my subject with the poverty of my inventions. Indisputably, to thrust words into a dead man's mouth is in the ultimate as unpardonable as the axiomatic offence of stealing the pennies from his eyes; yet if I have sometimes erred in my surmise at what Ormskirk or de Puysange or Louis de Soyecourt really said at certain moments of their lives, the misstep was due, Madam, less to malevolence than to inability to replevin their superior utterance; and the accomplished shade of Garendon, at least, I have not travestied, unless it were through some too prudent item of excision.

Remains but to subscribe myself—in the approved formula of dedicators—as,

MADAM,

Your ladyship's most humble and most obedient servant,

THE AUTHOR.

THE PROLOGUE SPOKEN BY LADY ALLONBY, WHO ENTERS IN A FLURRY

The author bade we come—Lud, I protest!—
He bade me come—and I forget the rest.
But 'tis no matter; he's an arrant fool
That ever bade a woman speak by rule.

Besides, his Prologue was, at best, dull stuff,
And of dull writing we have, sure, enough.
A book will do when you've a vacant minute,
But, la! who cares what is, and isn't, in it?

And since I'm but the Prologue of a book,
What I've omitted all will overlook,
And owe me for it, too, some gratitude,
Seeing in reason it cannot be good

Whose author has as much but now confessed,—
For, Who'd excel when few can make a test
Betwixt indifferent writing and the best?

He said but now.
And I:
—La, why excel,
When mediocrity does quite as well?
'Tis women buy the books,—and read 'em, say,
What time a person nods, en negligee,

And in default of gossip, cards, or dance,
Resolves t' incite a nap with some romance.
The fool replied in verse,—I think he said
'Twas verses the ingenious Dryden made,
And trust 'twill save me from entire disgrace
To cite 'em in his foolish Prologue's place.

Yet, scattered here and there, I some behold,
Who can discern the tinsel from the gold;
To these he writes; and if by them allowed,
'Tis their prerogative to rule the crowd,
For he more fears, like, a presuming man,
Their votes who cannot judge, than theirs can.

I SIMON'S HOUR As Played at Stornoway Crag, March 25, 1750

'You're a woman—one to whom Heaven gave beauty, when it grafted roses on a briar. You are the reflection of Heaven in a pond, and he that leaps at you is sunk. You were all white, a sheet of lovely spotless paper, when you first were born; but you are to be scrawled and blotted by every goose's quill.'

DRAMATIS PERSONAE.

LORD ROKESLE, a loose-living, Impoverished nobleman, and loves Lady Allonby. 

SIMON ORTS, Vicar of Heriz Magna, a debauched fellow, and Rokesle's creature.

PUNSHON, servant to Rokesle.

LADY ALLONBY, a pleasure-loving, luxurious woman, a widow, and rich.

SCENE

The Mancini Chamber at Stornoway Crag, on Usk.

SIMON'S HOUR

PROEM:—The Age and a Product of It

We begin at a time when George the Second was permitting Ormskirk and the Pelhams to govern England, and the Jacobites had not yet ceased to hope for another Stuart Restoration, and Mr. Washington was a promising young surveyor in the most loyal colony of Virginia; when abroad the Marquise de Pompadour ruled France and all its appurtenances, and the King of Prussia and the Empress Maria Theresa had, between them, set entire Europe by the ears; when at home the ladies, if rumor may be credited, were less unapproachable than their hoop-petticoats caused them to appear, [Footnote: 'Oft have we known that sevenfold fence to fail, Though stiff with hoops, and