ven, the other finks it into hell; the one is the root of all mischief, the other the parent of all good. The one, which is represented to have fprung from the ocean, is as various and raging in the human breaft as the fea itself; but the other, which is the golden chain that was let down from heaven to bind congenial fouls in celestial happiness, is mild, placid, and discreet. If divine Plato's words be right, Dishonest, wanton, uncontroul'd, And fraught with Misery's sting*. But the miseries and misfortunes, which are likely to attend this disease of love, cannot, perhaps, * Love is a mixed paffion, founded, on the one hand, on the natural defire of the fexes; and, on the other hand, on defires which, although not fo ungovernable as this, are more lafting in kind, and purer in their object: they are commonly, called fentiments of the heart. The union of the fexes is the work of nature, and is a law which all men, in common with all animals, obey: the union of mind is not only peculiar to men, but is not even general among mankind; for it appears to be the offspring of civilization and culture: by the first mentioned defire, the great object of animal life is completed; by the fe cond, the sphere of happiness is increased and promoted, CRICHTON on Mental Derangement. 232 OF LOVE MELANCHOLY. haps, be better defcribed than by fhewing the wicked and malevolent character of its author CUPID, as given by his mother Venus, in the language of the poet Mofchus. His skin is not white, but the colour of flame ; But, ah! how they differ, his mind and his tongue! Though his hands are but little, yet darts he can fling But he covers his mind, and his thoughts are conceal'd. Stor❜d with darts, that alike friends and enemies wound. His arrows-so fell and so cruel my son. GOODNESS GOODNESS is the faireft fpring and pureft fountain of conjugal affection; and from this fource flow all those graces which fo eminently adorn female beauty, whether of perfon or of mind. Beauty, indeed, fhines with fuch vivid luftre, that it causes immediate admiration by reason of its splendour; but the fair object cannot hope to be beloved, until the mind of the admirer is fatisfied of her goodness; for the ideas of good and fair cannot eafily be feparated. As amber attracts a ftraw, fo does beauty admiration, which only lafts while the warmth continues: but virtue, wisdom, goodness, and real worth, like the loadstone, never lofe their power. Thefe are the true graces, which, as Homer feigns, are linked and tied hand in hand, because it is by their influence that human hearts are fo firmly united to each other, Hail! bright VIRTUE, hail! without thee what are all of 234 OF LOVE MELANCHOLY. Of fleeting pleasure! She the heart distends The heroic paffion of love is engendered by LUXURY and IDLENESS, (the effects of which we have already defcribed,) by SIGHT, by BEAUTY, by DRESS, and other blandifhments of the like frivolous and exterior kind. SIGHT is, of all other fenfes, the first step to this unruly paffion; for it is the channel through which the rays of beauty, and the graces of demeanour, first make their way towards the heart. Love is a natural inbred affection of the human heart, which feels the want of a companion to render its happiness complete; but fight is the means by which the fair object is first pointed out. As a view of pomp infpires ambition; as the fight of gold engenders covetousness; fo does the fight of a beautiful woman beget love. A boy, who had from his infancy been brought up in the deep receffes of a foreft, by a venerable and and pious hermit, faw by chance, when he had attained manhood, two lovely females, who had wandered in their walks within view of the fequestered cell. He inquired earnestly, and with anxious emotion, of the old man, what creatures they were. The hermit told him they were fairies; but, on his asking him fome time afterwards, what was the pleasantest object he had ever seen, he readily replied, with a heart-felt figh, Oh, father, the two fairies whom we lately faw in the purlieu of the wood. Thus when the rustic swain Saw sleeping Beauty on the grassy bank, Plotinus, indeed, derives love from fight, pws QUASI paσis; and the eyes are certainly its fecret orators, and first harbingers. Scaliger calls them Cupid's arrows; Tibullus, the torches of defire: and, as the bafilifk is faid to kill afar off by fight, fo do the fexes inveigle and destroy each other by the mutual glances of enamoured eyes. The Thracian |