PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION.
The success of the 'Queens of Society' will have pioneered the way for
the 'Wits and Beaux:' with whom, during the holiday time of their lives,
these fair ladies were so greatly associated. The 'Queens,' whether all
wits or not, must have been the cause of wit in others; their influence
over dandyism is notorious: their power to make or mar a man of fashion,
almost historical. So far, a chronicle of the sayings and doings of the
'Wits' is worthy to serve as a _pendant_ to that of the 'Queens:' happy
would it be for society if the annals of the former could more closely
resemble the biography of the latter. But it may not be so: men are
subject to temptations, to failures, to delinquencies, to calamities, of
which women can scarcely dream, and which they can only lament and pity.
Our 'Wits,' too--to separate them from the 'Beaux'--were men who often
took an active part in the stirring events of their day: they assumed to
be statesmen, though, too frequently, they were only politicians. They
were brave and loyal: indeed, in the time of the Stuarts, all the Wits
were Cavaliers, as well as the Beaux. One hears of no repartee among
Cromwell's followers; no dash, no merriment, in Fairfax's staff;
eloquence, indeed, but no wit in the Parliamentarians; and, in truth, in
the second Charles's time, the king might have headed the lists of the
Wits himself--such a capital man as his Majesty is known to have been
for a wet evening or a dull Sunday; such a famous teller of a
story--such a perfect diner-out: no wonder that in his reign we had
George Villiers, second Duke of Buckingham of that family, 'mankind's
epitome,' who had every pretension to every accomplishment combined in
himself.
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