haps, be better described than by shewing the wicked and malevolent character of its author Cupid, as given by his mother Venus, in the language of the poet Moschus.

His skin is not white, but the colour of flame;
His eyes are most cruel, his heart is the same:
His delicate lips with persuasion are hung;
But, ah! how they differ, his mind and his tongue!
His voice, sweet as honey; but nought can control,
Whene'er he's provoked, his implacable soul.
He never speaks truth; full of fraud is the boy;
Deep woe is his pastime, and sorrow his joy.
His head is embellish'd with bright curling hair;
He has confident looks, and an insolent air.

Though his hands are but little, yet darts he can fling
To the regions below, and their terrible king.
His body quite naked to view is reveal'd;

But he covers his mind, and his thoughts are conceal'd.
Like a bird light of feather, the branches among,
He skips here and there to the old and the young:
From the men to the maids on a sudden he strays,
And, hid in their hearts, on their vitals he preys.
The bow which he carries is little and light:
On the nave is an arrow wing'd ready for flight;
A short little arrow, yet swiftly it flies

Through regions of ethers, and pierces the skies.
A quiver of gold on his shoulders is bound,

Stor❜d with darts, that alike friends and enemies wound.
Ev'n I, his own mother, in vain strive to shun

His arrows -so fell and so cruel my son.
His torch is but small, yet so ardent its ray,
It scorches the sun, and extinguishes day.

Goodness is the fairest spring and purest fountain of conjugal affection; and from this source flow all those graces which so eminently adorn female beauty, whether of person or of mind.

Beauty, indeed, shines with such vivid lustre, 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 satisfied of her goodness; for the idea of good and fair cannot easily be separated. As amber attracts a straw, so does beauty admiration, which only lasts while the warmth continues : but virtue, wisdom, goodness, and real worth, like the loadstone, never lose their power. These 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 so firmly united to each other.

Hail! bright Virtue, hail! without thee what are all
Life's gayest trappings? what the fleeting show
Of youth or charms, which for a moment spread
Their visionary bloom, but withering die,
Nor leave remembrance of their fancied worth?
O! how adorn'd in heaven's all-glorious pomp
Fair Virtue comes, and in her radiant train
Ten thousand beauties wait! Behold, she comes
To fill the soul with never-ceasing joy!
Attend her voice, sweet as the solemn sounds
Of cherubs, when they strike their golden harps
Symphonious. Hence, ye fond delusive dreams
Of fleeting pleasure! She the heart distends
With more enduring bliss: these charms will bloom
When time shall cease; e'en Beauty's self by these
More lovely seems, she looks with added grace,
And smiles seraphic. Whate'er adorns
The female breast, whate'er can move the soul
With fervent rapture, every winning grace,
All mild endearment, tenderness, and love,
Is taught by Virtue, and by her alone.

The heroic passion of love is engendered by luxury and idleness, (the effects of which we have already described,) by sight, by beauty, by dress, and other blandishments of the like frivolous and exterior kind.

Sight is, of all other senses, the first step to this unruly passion; 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 sight is the means by which the fair object is first pointed out. As a view of pomp inspires ambition; as the sight of gold engenders covetousness; so does the sight of a beautiful woman beget love. A boy, who had from his infancy been brought up in the deep recesses of a forest, by a venerable and pious hermit, saw by chance, when he had attained manhood, two lovely females, who had wandered in their walks within view of the sequestered 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 some time afterwards, what was the pleasantest object he had ever seen, he readily replied, with a heartfelt sigh, "Oh, father! the two fairies whom we lately saw in the purlieu of the wood."

Thus when the rustic swain

Saw sleeping Beauty on the grassy bank,
Reclin❜d at ease, and careless beaming round
Her charms attractive, while upon her face

Play'd all the laughing loves, surpris'd he gaz'd,
And felt a thousand transports shoot along
His shivering nerves; felt his unfeeling heart,
Unus'd to pant, with soft emotion heave,
And while he trembling view'd, began to love.

Plotinus, indeed, derives love from sight, pws quasi paris; and the eyes are certainly its secret orators, and first harbingers. Scaliger calls them Cupid's arrows; Tibullus, the torches of desire and, as the basilisk is said to kill afar off by sight, so do the sexes inveigle and destroy each other by the mutual glances of enamoured eyes. The Thracian Rodophe was so eloquent in the exercise of this dumb rhetoric, that she bewitched every one she looked at. But the love which is disclosed by the chaste and downcast looks of virgin modesty and virtuous feelings, is of a very different description from that which is announced by the rolling eye of wantonness and vice; for it is not the eye itself, but the wandering, adulterous, wanton, rolling, and lascivious eye, that produces the pernicious effects of this heroic madness. Apuleius, in the elegant and pleasant interlude of "The Judgment of Paris," has given very appropriate and characteristic manners to the respective candidates for the golden apple: Juno appears in all the majesty of the queen of heaven; Minerva with the becoming gravity of wisdom; but Venus, the patroness of heroic love, is introduced amidst the soul-subduing sounds of music, smiling with captivating grace, and rolling her eyes as she dances wantonly along, to express

the charm by which she expected to gain the prize. How different from the mild, modest, and downcast eyes of the Virgin Mary, which Baradius Gerson and Bonaventure assure us were the type of chastity itself, and a perfect antidote to heroic love!

Beauty, indeed, that divine, powerful, soulravishing, and captivating beauty, which, as Tatius observes, is more pie rcing than the sharpest dart, is the most delightful and enchanting object of the human vision. It is the deity on whose altar love makes its constant sacrifice. Every heart acknowledges its power, and every imperfection lies concealed within its blaze. It subdues whatever it approaches: but the love it kindles is, as we are told in holy writ, "like unto a devouring fire." When Constantinople was sacked by the Turks, the beautiful Irene fell into the hands of Mahomet; but her charnıs made a captive of her conqueror, and inspired his soul with a passion so violent and ungovernable, as to cause their ruin; and many more instances of the fatal effects which it produces, have been furnished by history, and displayed by the tragic poets of every age and country. The powers of female beauty almost captivates the gods themselves. Barbarians stand in awe of a fine woman; and by a beautiful aspect the fierceest spirit is pacified.

Since first the vital spark

Awaked the human breast, and man arose
To conscious being, the fair female form