A word more: the progress of an author who alternates, in turn, between fact and his private fancies (like unequal crutches) cannot in reason be undisfigured by false steps. Therefore it is judicious to confess, Madam, that 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,
Your ladyship's most humble and most obedient servant,
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 négligée, 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._