Nevertheless, noble R----, come in, and take your seat here, between Armado and Quisada: for in true courtesy, in gravity, in fantastic smiling to thyself, in courteous smiling upon others, in the goodly ornature of well-apparelled speech, and the commendation of wise sentences, thou art nothing inferior to those accomplished Dons of Spain. The spirit of chivalry forsake me for ever, when I forget thy singing the song of Macheath, which declares that he might be _happy with either_, situated between those two ancient spinsters--when I forget the inimitable formal love which thou didst make, turning now to the one, and now to the other, with that Malvolian smile--as if Cervantes, not Gay, had written it for his hero; and as if thousands of periods must revolve, before the mirror of courtesy could have given his invidious preference between a pair of so goodly-propertied and meritorious-equal damsels, * * * * * 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 the _April Fool_. A QUAKER'S MEETING