dulgencies a look-a touch of the hand, though occurring by accident-a kind word, though uttered almost unconsciously, suffices for its humble existence. In its first state, it is like man before the fall, inhaling the odours of paradise, and enjoying the communion of the Deity; in the latter, it is like the same being toiling amid the briar and the thistle, barely to maintain a squalid existence, without enjoyment, utility, or loveliness." Shakespeare has done little towards giving dignity to this passion, though he seems to have been intimately acquainted with its influence upon the human mind. The reason is obvious. Love is a familiar feeling, associating itself with mankind in their daily walk, and entering into the ordinary and domestic scenes of life; it therefore speaks in a language simple and familiar, scarcely admitting of poetical ornament, except in memory or imagination; and as the drama compels all persons to speak for themselves, almost exclusively from the impulse of the moment, they can only speak of love in the colloquial language of the day, which language changing with the tastes and fashions of the world, that of Shakespeare's dramatic characters, when they speak of love is not only offensive to modern ears, but degrading to the sentiment itself—a sentiment which always maintains the most elevated character where the proprieties of life are most scrupulously observed, and the standard of moral feeling is the highest. Yet Shakespeare has left a striking proof that he could reverence this feeling, in the following beautiful stanza. "Let me not to the marriage of true minds, "Admit impediments. Love is not love "That alters when it alteration finds, "Or bends with the remover to remove. "Oh! no! it is an ever fixed mark, "That looks on tempest and is never shaken; "It is the star of every wandering bark, "Whose worth's unknown although its height be taken. "Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks "Within his bending sickle's compass come; "Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, "But bears it out even to the edge of doom.” It would be wholly at variance with nature, were the poet to make his characters speak in tropes and metaphors, with classical allusions, and rounded periods, of the passion whose powerful influence was then upon them. No man ever yet could speak or write poetically, for any length of time, of the love he was then experiencing. Thus it is only by occasional touches of feeling that burst upon us in all their genuine intensity, that the depth of the sentiment is discovered. Our language may be forcible and affecting, but it is impossible that it should be elaborate when we are feeling acutely; and there is a certain identity with self, an exclusiveness, giving something like sacredness to the sensations which belong to love, that renders an open, full, unsparing exposure of it repulsive, even in the pages of the poet. It is this sacredness which, above all other things, constitutes the poetry of love. Those who live under its influence possess, so long as that influence lasts, a secret treasure, and often betray by their inadvertent expressions, and by a speaking smile, that they believe themselves to be enjoying an inward source of satisfaction, which their companions know not of. Imagination invests with a peculiar importance, and a mysterious charm, all the minutiae of life, as it is connected with one individual being, and the mind broods over its own private and particular hoard of joy, with a constant watchfulness and jealousy lest the world, that fell spoiler, should break in and pollute, even if it had no inclination or ability to steal. Under the influence of love, we are suspicious even of ourselves. We shrink from making it the common topic of conversation. It is a feeling which admits of no participation. We would not, if we could, make converts, any farther than our admiration extends; and as there is no sympathy to be obtained by communication, no one at all acquainted with the world, or with the principles of human nature, would ever tell their love, were it not for the power which this passion possesses to overthrow the rational faculties, to blind perception, and to silence experience, holding the wise man captive in the leading strings of second childhood, and drawing him on from one folly to another, until at last he awakes from his dream, and feels, like the unfortunate bellows-mender, that he is wearing an ass's head. No sooner is the spell dissolved, than he turns his fellow creatures the weapons of ridicule, dipped in the venom of his wounded pride; he laughs the more in order that he may appear to make light of his recent bonds, and thus revenges himself for his own mortification. upon Those who are wise enough to profit by the experience of others, learn to keep silence on this theme, but it pervades their thoughts and feelings not the less. It is present with them in the morning when they awake, and in the evening when they seek repose. It is cradled in the bosom of the scented rose, and rocked the crested waves of the sea. upon It speaks to them in the lulling wind, and gushes forth in the fountain of the desert. It is clothed in the golden majesty of the noonday sun, and shrouded in the silver radiance of the moon. It is the soul of their world, the life of their sweet and chosen thoughts, the centre of their existence, which gathers in all their wandering hopes and desires. Here they fix them to one point, and make that the altar upon which all the faculties of the soul pour out their perpetual incense. Burns, who has written of love more frequently, yet with more simplicity and sweetness than any other of our poets, strikingly illustrates the potency of this sentiment in associating itself with our accustomed amusements and avocations. There was no object in nature which he did not find it possible to compare or contrast with the reigning queen of his affections; but the memory of one, above all others, he has immortalized in strains as touching and poetical, as ever flowed from a |