on it. My son,' said he, to feelings like yours it may not be unpleasing to recall my story :-if the world allure thee, if vice ensnare with its pleasures, or abash with its ridicule, think of father Nicholas be virtuous, and be happy.' Ꮓ N° 85. SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 16, 1786. Non adeo inbumano ingenio sum, Charea, TER WHY,' says one of my correspondents, who writes in a fair Italian hand, and subscribes herself Imoinda, Why have you so little of love in the Lounger? I answer, because there is so little of it in the world, • Love,' says an author, who is probably of Imoin da's acquaintance, Love, the passion most natural to the sensibility of youth, has lost the plaintive dignity he once possessed, for the unmeaning simper of a dangling coxcomb; and the only serious concern, that of a dowry, is settled even among the beardless leaders of the dancing-school*.' It is undoubtedly true, that our young men now-a-days begin very early to see the propriety of mingling in love-affairs the utile dulci; which may be translated, that they think fully as much of the fortune as of the lady. * Man of Feeling, The present age, amidst all its acquirements and all its polish, has lost a good deal of that spirit of gallantry, and delicate respect for the ladies, which former times possessed. If we trace the history of their power, from the days of chivalry and romance down to the present less heroic times, we shall find it gradually declining, till now that there is little more than a mere sovereignty of form, but scarce any thing of the empire of sentiment remaining. The prevailing rage for play, which is almost the only amusement (if it may not rather be called a business) which interests the fashionable world, has perhaps, of all circumstances, the most direct and powerful tendency to level the supremacy of the sex, and to stifle the feelings of respectful and delicate affection. Besides that the passions it excites are of that ungentle kind which scare the little loves,' there is, at a Whist or a Pharaoh table, a sort of business and money-transaction with the ladies, which necessarily abates the prerogative of sex, and abolishes that humble homage which they were wont to claim, which we were flattered to pay. In the intercourse of ordinary life, the late foun der of a school of politeness recommended a certain indifference or nonchalance of manner, as the characteristic of a well-bred man. The system has since his time flourished and prevailed in a most extensive degree; and, like all other systems that war on nature, has been carried a good deal farther by the disciples, than it is probable their masters intended. Nous avons changé tout cela,' says the Mock Doctor of Moliere, when his patient's father ventured to suppose that the heart lay on the left side of the body. The fine gentleman of Lord Chesterfield has made a change still greater; the heart is struck out of his anatomy altogether. N° 85. Nor is it only in the resorts of fashionable, or of dissipated life, that Love has lost its votaries. In the walk of letters, in the haunts of meditation, the studies of modern times tend also to exclude his power. The modern discoveries in natural history, and in the mechanical arts; the researches into the various properties of matter, which the chymist and the naturalist have pushed to so extraordinary a length, however useful to the purposes of life, are unfavourable to that enthusiasm which formed the lover and the poet. The shadowy tribes of mind,' are much less cultivated than formerly. Fancy and imagination give place to sober reason and to certain truth; and the young man who in the academic shades was wont to dream majestic things, and to weave the myrtle garland for his mistress, now watches the progress of experiment, or unravels the maze of demonstration. Poetry is almost extinguished among us; and its decline may not unfairly be supposed to hold an equal pace with that of love, and to proceed from causes of a similar kind. Of all the 'pensive cares of life,' none have a greater tendency to purify and exalt the mind, than those of a delicate and virtuous love. The inspiration of its melancholy soars above the grossness of vice, and the meanness of worldly and low-thoughted care. Its tender distresses humanize and soften the heart and the bope or the pride of its more fortunate state is the strongest incentive to great and noble atchievements. I have been led into this strain of reflection, from the perusal of an elegant little poem, with which I was lately favoured by an unknown correspondent. My readers, I am persuaded, will hold themselves indebted to me for its insertion. The muse of later times, like a beauty in the days of her decay, has been in use to trick herself out in artificial orna ments, to load her language with epithet, and to twist her expression with inversions. The verses of my correspondent are free from that defect; he breathes the artless sentiments of ingenuous love, and clothes them in a suitable simplicity of language. Ꮓ ODE to a LADY going abroad. I. FAR, far from me my Delia goes, Companion of the wretched, come, Fair Hope! and dwell with me a while Oh! who can tell what Time may do? Can Delia e'er forsake her friend? Unkind and rude the thorn is seen, No sign of future sweetness shows; Then come, fair Hope, and whisper peace, II. Hope, sweet deceiver, still believ'd, Then hear, ye Powers, my earnest pray'r, Why should I live to hate the light, But far from her all ills remove, III. But if, to prove my love sincere, Till Delia come, no more to part, My Delia come! whose looks beguile, Oh, come! and make me full amends, |