Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    The First of April Or, The Triumphs of Folly: A Poem Dedicated to a Celebrated Duchess. By the author of The Diaboliad.
    The First of April Or, The Triumphs of Folly: A Poem Dedicated to a Celebrated Duchess. By the author of The Diaboliad.
    The First of April Or, The Triumphs of Folly: A Poem Dedicated to a Celebrated Duchess. By the author of The Diaboliad.
    Ebook65 pages34 minutes

    The First of April Or, The Triumphs of Folly: A Poem Dedicated to a Celebrated Duchess. By the author of The Diaboliad.

    By William Combe

    ()

    Read preview
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherArchive Classics
    Release dateNov 26, 2013
    The First of April Or, The Triumphs of Folly: A Poem Dedicated to a Celebrated Duchess. By the author of The Diaboliad.

    Related to The First of April Or, The Triumphs of Folly

    Related ebooks

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      HERNAN BAS New and Recent Work

      Dec 15, 2018

      HERNAN BAS New and Recent Work
      6 min read

    • Article

      Two Poems

      Jul 1, 2022

      After centuries of deferralto the white sky cloud cover God, who kept me on orange alert,babbling for mercies that were batted away sloppilylike dustballs in the wake of a sock, I turned to the Divine Creatrix,who built the short night, I was convinc

      2 min read

    • Article

      Three Poems by Geoffrey Hill

      Dec 15, 2018

      62. Why such irony in re the mystical context when a graph of even the most commonplace exchange would appear perplexed; when we drop out from the plainest statement in the posture of a bat? So, decide to make something of that, the style to resemble

      2 min read

    • Article

      AUSTRALOPITHECA1 & STARMAN2

      Sep 1, 2019

      The countdown to you begyns with me, deere Starman, when I wander, dumbly, deep into a space hospittable to Hunger. Now, all’s desert. No milk in syte. Just pitifull sand, what shushes as it slydes through your hande to rejoin itself. I’d join myself

      7 min read

    • Article

      Spell

      Apr 25, 2018

      Spell
      4 min read

    • Article

      Four Poems

      Sep 4, 2018

      In London. England. Who knows why?Perhaps this rumpled guyFrom central casting or a page of Dickens.He’s taking ordinary usTo haunts of the illustrious,Where even dull pulse quickens. A red felt hat’s dark fingered brim,Food-spotted vest are—him.A mo

      4 min read

    • Article

      Cul-de-Sac

      Dec 1, 2021

      That old rage for order: how my father drove a square mouthed mower over-and-back, over-and-back, each row of neatly trimmed grass cut just like he told his barber: boy’s short, regular. O pioneer, taming this joke bit of prairie, no bindweed or dog

      5 min read

    • Article

      Commonplace Book

      Dec 1, 2021

      The light from the full moon lent a silky, glacial sheen to the towering front of the cloud, which stretched off to the horizon in both directions. I stood transfixed as it made its way down the street toward me at a little over the town’s speed limi

      3 min read

    • Article

      On Love

      Mar 7, 2022

      On Love
      7 min read

    • Article

      Air Rights

      Nov 1, 2020

      The French Church—never much on looks, red brick leaningin the direction of Romanesque—settled into modest circumstanceshow many decades on West 16th?Nothing divine in the details,veneer peeling from doors nevermeant for here, never open. No light,ev

      4 min read

    • Article

      On Grief

      Jul 29, 2019

      On Grief
      5 min read

    • Article

      Another Passionless Day

      May 23, 2017

      Another Passionless Day
      2 min read

    • Article

      Two Poems

      Jul 1, 2019

      Then the blue screech the lake bellowing my name over a crowd but I never felt found never knew that sharp peal of a bellTo be greeted hello by a warm group of friends who all look like me but for long years I have been litigating HellOnly to win any

      1 min read

    • Article

      Bard In The Woods

      Nov 30, 2020

      Bard In The Woods
      4 min read

    • Article

      John Ashbery

      Mar 15, 2019

      He could understand the things at home.—Wallace Stevens, “Things of August” Scribbled on the expansive mist, the desireof many dwindles to usand our “activities,” wholesomeor otherwise. Soon it becomes apparentthat neither they nor I have any prise o

      4 min read

    • Article

      Fredericksburg’s Wounded Warriors

      Jul 11, 2023

      Fredericksburg’s Wounded Warriors
      6 min read

    • Article

      Nick Laird

      Dec 15, 2017

      I was trying to write like an adult.I had children.I was at the end of something. As I waited at my table by the window for the coffee,I saw that the sirocco had depositeda scrim of dust on the sill overnight,and it was the dark red of powdered blood

      3 min read

    • Article

      Sleepwalking In Venice

      Mar 15, 2018

      Two kinds of imagination: the strong, the promiscuous. —Leopardi Watching a boneless nymph’shalf-hearted resurrectionfrom a spout in the pavementover and over; catching a glimpseof the source of my exhaustion,as if my gaze all this time had lent musc

      3 min read

    • Article

      The Devil’s Dictionary

      Jul 6, 2021

      Select entries from Ambrose Bierce’s lexicon of cynicism, bitterness, and humor, produced over a 30-year period beginning in 1881. APOLOGIZE, v.i. To lay the foundation for a future offence. BARD, n. A person who makes rhymes. The word is one of the

      4 min read

    • Article

      Why Opera Will Never Die

      Nov 11, 2020

      Why Opera Will Never Die
      5 min read

    • Article

      If I Had a Sense of Beauty

      Dec 5, 2017

      If I Had a Sense of Beauty
      14 min read

    • Article

      Notes From A Nothing

      Feb 14, 2020

      Notes From A Nothing
      13 min read

    • Article

      Roger’s PROFANISAURUS

      Aug 5, 2021

      profanisaurus@viz.co.uk aroma diffuser 1. n. A scientific device that breaks “essential oils” down into smaller molecules, dispersing them into the air for a pleasant or calming effect on the gullible. 2. n. The arsehole. Barbie’s minge sim. Somethin

      8 min read

    • Article

      What’s the Point?

      Sep 23, 2019

      What’s the Point?
      5 min read

    Reviews for The First of April Or, The Triumphs of Folly

    0 ratings

    0 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      The First of April Or, The Triumphs of Folly - William Combe

      The Project Gutenberg EBook of The First of April, by William Combe

      This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with

      almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or

      re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included

      with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org

      Title: The First of April

      Or, The Triumphs of Folly: A Poem Dedicated to a Celebrated

      Duchess. By the author of The Diaboliad.

      Author: William Combe

      Release Date: August 4, 2006 [EBook #18988]

      Language: English

      *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE FIRST OF APRIL ***

      Produced by David Edwards, Taavi Kalju and the Online

      Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This

      book was produced from scanned images of public domain

      material from the Google Print project.)

      THE

      FIRST OF APRIL:

      OR, THE

      TRIUMPHS

      OF

      FOLLY:

      A

      POEM.

      DEDICATED TO A

      CELEBRATED DUTCHESS.

      BY THE AUTHOR OF THE DIABOLIAD.

      —— DOST THOU CALL ME FOOL, BOY?—

      ALL THY OTHER TITLES THOU HAST GIVEN AWAY

      THAT THOU WAST BORN WITH!—

      Shakespeare.

      LONDON:

      Printed for J. Bew, No. 28, Paternoster-Row.

      MDCCLXXVII.

      [Price Two Shillings and Six-Pence.]

      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

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1