upon the early efforts of the poet Burns. At a time when that most extraordinary child of genius was struggling against the frowns of fortune and of former friends, and when he had by great efforts caused a small edition of his early poetical effusions to be put to press, at à country town in the west of Scotland, in order to raise the means of embarking to a foreign land, where his genius would in all probability have soon gone with his bones to the oblivion of a West Indian charnel house; at that time did the amiable Mac Kenzie immediately invite public attention to the simple, natural, and “truly pastoral strains” of the “ Ayrshire ploughman.* ” The fact that the poet was soon found in all the circles of taste and refinement within the Scotish capital, where he was “universally admired, feasted, caressed, and flattered;" and that his genius and writings became known and appreciated throughout England, is ascribed, and probably with justice, by one of his biographers, to the timely interference of him, who thus proved that the “ man of feeling" was not a mere “ creature of the brain.”
'Tis said that music is the food of Love, Light diet, certes, though excess of it, As the bard sings—THE BARD, par excellence May give a surfeit, and the appetite Sicken and die—the Irish way, perhaps The poet meant—to live a little longer. If some have died for love, 'tis probably Not over-eating, but the lack of food Led to such sad catastrophes. The limners Have sometimes made this Love a chubby child, Like Clara Fisher, (who's a little love, Par parenthese,) in Gobbleton. But who Would think of Cupid, as of one o' the quorum, (Not but that aldermen can love, however,) Dying of calipash and calipee!— Yet music is the food of love, nay more, It is the vital air of love, its soul, It's very essence, love is harmony Or nothing; love's the music of the mind(Perhaps that thought is stol'n from Lady Morgan Whose books I read with pleasure, notwithstanding Some pigmy critics here, and those they ape, Those barbarous, one-eyed Polyphemuses, The Cyclopes of the English Quarterly.) But to return from rambling-Cupid's movements Are the true “poetry of motion," (that
I'm sure belongs to Lady Morgan,) full,
We must confess, of strange variety.
From epic down to ballad. Here's a pair
Will bow and curtsy, in chapeau and hoop,
Then stalk the stately minuetto round,
Ending where they began their metaphysics,
With bow and curtsy! this is called "engagement”-
Very engaging truly! Here's another,
Goes you to church in galliard, and returns
In a coranto. One is all adagio,
Another naught but jig. All times, all movements,
This mighty master of the heart-strings tries
In his capricio: most full of crotchets,
And quavers, too, is love-as I have learn'd
From the old book of nature, always open.
I knew a gentleman was quite unlover'd,
('Twas in the days when youthful damsels sew'd
What time our mothers flourish'd,) for his mistress
Threaded her needle with a too careless air
While he read Werter to her. And 'tis giv'n
As a strict verity, when Dame Von Haller
First rear'd her cambric banner o'er the stage,
Commanding tears to flow-two German barons,
Warm lovers too, as German barons may be,
Broke troth and plight with their affianced brides
The self-same night-the first because his lady
Was weak enough to weep a sister's fall;
The other, for his fair display'd a heart
So hard, it would not melt at other's woes.
And such is love-or such, at least, the whims
Of those by courtesy call'd lovers, fellows
Who plume themselves upon their manliness,
And arrogate superiority
Over a sex, which, in all things where love
Truly is shown:-in faith and constancy,
(Ay, sneer ye brainless coxcombs, constancy,)
In perfect self-devotedness: in courage
To brave the world's barbarity; and patience
To bear e’en wrong from him for whom that world
Was cast aside, and lost: in truth and honour:
In pure, enduring, fond and fix'd affection,
Nature has placed upon an elevation
In her great scale of being, over man;
Man, that mere egotist, vain, fickle, selfish,
In whom e'en love is a disease, a kind
Of tertain that by fits freezes the soul,
Or burns it up with fever-yea, as high
As the most glorious Heavens are raised above
The
gross
and sordid Earth. But to resume
My tale--which, by the way, I have not yet
Begun, I think-without more preface, or
Digression--for I hate digressions more,
If possible, than long and wordy preface-
But who could ever yet encounter woman
And keep the onward, jog-trot, business pace,
Passing her without reverence!- To my story:-
There lived in Italy, I think near Florence,
Some brace of centuries past, a good old count,
Who, in his fine old castle rear'd a daughter,
His only child—Angelica-so named,
Perhaps, from her of the divine “ Orlando;"
Medoro's fair Angelica, the fondest
And tenderest of women, whose sweet face,
As given by Cipriani I could kiss
Although but in translation, from the copper
Of Bartolozzi. Our Angelica
Was beautiful:--but I had rather not
Describe minutely, lest it should be deem'd
Invidious, by some female friend of mine
Whom the description suited not. 'Tis dangerous
To dwell on female charms too long or warmly,
Or too particularly-I never do,
Save in a sonnet to my lady's eye-brow,
And then, if that be flaxen, I avoid
Praise of the raven arch, and vice versa.
So, what our heroine was, in shape or air
And feature and complexion-whether pale
And interesting, of fragile, sylph-like form-
Or flush and fat-I beg a million pardons,
I mean--approaching to the embonpoint,
Haply the painter may divulge, not I.
She was a frank, kind-hearted, generous creature-
Had proved a most dear daughter; and, within
Her innocent heart had stores of precious love
To bless the happy husband, far beyond
His fondest hope, were he the veriest miser
In Hymen's wide domain. I can't aver
She was in love, for she had liv'd secluded,
Shut out from all society, to please
Her good old sire, who, since her mother's death,
Grew, to be plain, hypochondrical.
Yet so it was, she was betrothed, to one
She thought, at least, she loved. Ippolito
Was a fair youth of a right noble lineage,
Who came from Florence duly every summer,
To rusticate among his father's oaks.
Angelica and he had met—and so
Became of course, in the country, lovers--and
The match being eligible on either side,
The estates already wed, the parents smiled,
The notary chuckled, and the lovers blush'd
And were betrothed: how soon a contract's made
When all are to be gainers. Love, however,
Smiled not, it seems, on those solemnities.
Perhaps he did not like the notary,
Love does not write his billets doux on parchment.
The sequel will denote he was displeased,
Yet such a sequel to a tale of love
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