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.