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DEDICATION
TO A
CELEBRATED DUTCHESS.
MADAM,
I am rather apprehensive that you will rank me among the Impertinents of the Age, in giving a performance which treats professedly of the Triumphs of Folly, the Sanction of Your Grace. But tho', in the too great quickness of apprehension, this may be the case; I have not the least doubt but, in some succeeding moments of coolness and candour, you will accompany me through this Address; and not suffer a condemning spirit to pass a final sentence upon me, without giving some little attention to my justification.
I need not tell Your Grace, that, in former times, every Family of Distinction was considered as incomplete in its establishment, if it did not possess a certain whimsical Character called a Fool; who was either to afford amusement to his witty Master by the real singularity of his Humour,—or to act as a foil to his foolish Lord by well-timed displays of affected Folly.—These appendages to Greatness have long been laid aside.—Indeed, the present Age, which is remarkable for its refinements, has, in the general methods of forming the Great, blended the two Characters;—and it does not seldom happen, as Your Grace very well knows, that a Modern Man of Fashion serves his Company both as their Host and their Buffoon. I cannot therefore, in justice, be considered as guilty of any impropriety in addressing this work to Your Grace, as it relates to a Personage, who has heretofore possessed, as it were, a domestic union with the Great, by furnishing, from among her Children, the chief Wits of their noble Houses.
Tho' it has changed its appearance, the connection has not ceased to subsist; and Folly, though she extends her influence over all ranks and professions, still seems more particularly attached to the higher Orders of Life.