“Aye, my Lord!” as the old Spaniard says in his national poesy, “_mas, y mas, y mas, y mas_,” more and more and more and more. You may live to learn what vaunted maxims of your political philosophy are nothing else than absurdities in masquerade; what old and exploded follies there are, which with a little vamping and varnishing pass for new and wonderful discoveries; What a world of businesses Which by interpretation are mere nothings![2] This you may live to learn. As for my absurdities, they may seem very much beneath your sapience; but when I say _hæ nugæ seria ducunt_, (for a trite quotation when well-set is as good as one that will be new to every body) let me add, my Lord, that it will be well both for you and your country, if your practical absurdities do not draw after them consequences of a very different dye! [Footnote 2: BEAUMONT and FLETCHER.] No, my Lord, as well as Aye, my Lord! Never made man of woman born Of a bullock's tail, a blowing-horn; Nor can an ass's hide disguise A lion, if he ramp and rise.[3] [Footnote 3: PEELE.] “More fooling,” exclaims Dr. Dense: he takes off his spectacles, lays them on the table beside him, with a look of despair, and applies to the snuff-box for consolation. It is a capacious box, and the Doctor's servant takes care that his master shall never find in it a deficiency of the best rappee. “More fooling!” says that worthy Doctor. Fooling, say you, my learned Dr. Dense? Chiabrera will tell you _——che non è ria Una gentil follia,—_ my erudite and good Doctor; But do you know what fooling is? true fooling,— The circumstances that belong unto it? For every idle knave that shews his teeth, Wants, and would live, can juggle, tumble, fiddle, Make a dog-face, or can abuse his fellow, Is not a fool at first dash.[4] [Footnote 4: BEAUMONT and FLETCHER.] It is easy to talk of fooling and of folly, _mais d'en savoir les ordres, les rangs, les distinctions; de connoître ces differences delicates qu'il y a de Folie à Folie; les affinités et les alliances qui se trouvent entrè la Sagesse et cette meme Folie_, as Saint Evremond says; to know this is not under every one's nightcap; and perhaps my learned Doctor, may not be under your wig, orthodox and in full buckle as it is. The Doctor is all astonishment, and almost begins to doubt whether I am fooling in earnest. Aye, Doctor! you meet in this world with false mirth as often as with false gravity; the grinning hypocrite is not a more uncommon character than the groaning one. As much light discourse comes from a heavy heart, as from a hollow one; and from a full mind as from an empty head. “Levity,” says Mr. Danby, “is sometimes a refuge from the gloom of seriousness. A man may whistle ‘for want of thought,’ or from having too much of it.”