NONSENSE

A MISCELLANY ABOUT LOVE.

BY WILLIAM JERDAN.

I DON'T know why I should call this "Nonsense;" perhaps it is because so much has been written upon the subject in prose and verse that it seemed impossible to write anything like sense upon it. But in that case, Nonsense itself has been exhausted, and the title would still be bad. Perhaps it is that the very hope of inditing some novelty even upon a theme which has lasted since the world began till now, induced the thought that such inventions must of necessity be greater nonsense than had appeared before. Perhaps it is that not being quite so young as one was, the same matter which formerly was deemed the main business, aim, scope, and material, may have changed its hue, and so become to be looked upon as the Nonsense of Life. But after all, what signifies a title ?

"A rose by any other name would smell as sweet:"

and a bouquet of violet, may, carnation, heliotrope, tulip, mignionette, and lily, and rose, tied up with rhyme and prose, may be as pleasing under the appellation of "Miscellany," as under the most grandiloquent epithet in the language. So here goes.

Were this an essay I would proceed to divide Love into deep, shallow, pure, impure, passionate, worldly, affectionate, mad, and a hundred other great and little divisions; but, letting all that alone, I will begin by invoking his picture as, painted by Cangiaggio, he hangs before my eyes in my studious retreat.

"It was the image of a sleeping boy,

Lying upon one side and rosy cheek,

With a delicious look of slumbering joy;

And down his brow a golden tress would break
Like a young sunbeam on his ivory neck:

And from the ripe lip peep'd the pearly teeth

Like lilies, when the morning dew-drops fleck

Their unclosed bells, waking their fragrant breath,
Kindling the violets blue and hyacinths beneath.

"And on the air are fluttering two white wings,
Light as the gossamer when evening's glooms
Brood o'er the earth, and purple starlight springs
As from a fount in heaven; the dove like plumes
Shake all the flowers, and soon a spirit comes,

Kissing his eyebrow with empurpled lips,
And in the rose and violet's living blooms,
Dipping all, one by one, the arrow's tips

Of his gold shaft, till night involve him in eclipse.

"Oh, miracle of beauty! thou art Love,

Sleeping or waking still the same sweet thing,
Ruler of stars, and seas, and skies above,
Sweeping eternity with glowing wing;

Divine, disastrous, smiling, suffering;

Killer of hearts, and healer,-on thy shrines
The young and lovely perish in their spring,
The cypress wreath the marble brow intwines,
And all that blessing-blest-to death declines."

Yet for all this, I do not quite agree with the Genoese artist. Were I to paint Cupid, I think I would give one of his wings of soft downy and wavy plumes, tinged with every prismatic tint of the rainbow; and the other dark, gloomy, and nodding like the feathers of a hearse. Thus like the statue of the cross-roads in the old tale, it would entirely depend on the side of which you approached him whether he should be, to your apprehension, the god of lively hues, however evanescent, and gladdening smiles and joys, or the divinity of sadness and despair. Assuredly, if you took time to ascertain the whole figure round and round, you might find that the light and the dark, the flutter and the droop, the soaring and the fatal fall, were equally the attributes of his pinions and himself. Truly did the Scottish lyrist sing

"O! wily, waly, but love is bonny

A little while when it is'new;

But when 'tis auld it waxeth cauld

And fades away like the morning dew!"

Take the dear fledgling from his soft nest all freshly feathered, pure and bright, and lovely, and smiling. Fondle him and cherish him among new-born delights, that promise to be endless, untiring, as if perfect felicity could ever pall? Alas! another winged creature passes by; and his pinions are by far the strongest and the longest of the two. His name is Time, and as he flies he casts a blight upon the gay and rapturous fondling of your breast. With regret you see him get sickly and ruffled; with sorrow you perceive him moult and pine; with anguish you watch him alter and decay; with horror you discover that even hope is fled, and that he dies.

And so much for such bird's.nesting, except a quaint and ancient illustration from our friend, old Heale, in his "Apologie for Women.” "The doves, he well remarks, are observed to be most exquisite in their love, and at the fatal departure of one, the other pines to death with sorrowe. The nightingall makes pleasant melodie in his love's welfare, but in her distress he mourns in sadder tones. The swanne is of a nature suitable to his feather, white and faire, black swans were unknown to England in 1606, and all his feare is to keep his mate from feare. Go therefore, into the fieldes, and the doves will read thee a lesson of love; returne into the woodes, and the nightingall will sing the madrigals of love; walk by the river, and the swannes will school thee the art of love; every where such loving couples in brutish beastes will shame the disagreeing matches in reasonable creatures."

Better indeed, than enter into such "disagreeing matches" it were never to match or mate at all: better repose in wise philosophy, and follow the example of a Newton.

Sir Isaac, we are told, was once persuaded by his friends to entertain some thoughts of marriage, and a suitable young lady was selected by them, and recommended to him-not to his choice. Though considerably engaged with celestial bodies at the time, he liked the terrestrial luminary very well; but in the honest way of courtship, informed the girl that he had many odd habits, and among the rest was very fond of smoking. Complaisant and good-natured, as most young ladies are under similar circumstances, the fair one promised to be indulgent; and so pleased was Sir Isaac with her

kind-heartedness, that he resorted to his favourite pipe immediately. Enjoying it, whiff after whiff, he entered into conversation with his sweet partner; held her hand in his at first with befitting gravity, but by and by, squeezing it occasionally as a lover ought. At length however, he sunk into one of his abstracted reveries, and whether he was thinking of an apple and the fall, of squaring the circle, or of what else, never has been determined, but his pipe becoming dull, in the absence of its mind, he unwittingly raised the yielding damsel's hand towards it, and used her little finger as a tobacco-stopper. Her scream aroused him, and looking innocently in her face, the philosopher exclaimed, "Ah, my dear madam, I beg your pardon! I see it won't do! I see, I see, that I am doomed to remain an old bachelor."

And this is the comedy of love; better, perhaps, than the melo-drama, serious opera, or tragedy.

Love, like the sky so blue and pure,

At first all bright appears;

But if too much of warmth! be sure,
Must fall in rain and tears.

And in verity, real physical tears have been the fruit of indulgences in that passion or desire, and induced by causes more curious and fantastic than those imagined by the poet.

In 1347, and that is long ago, the good Jane, Queen of the Two Sicilies, and Countess of Provence, made a law for the regulation of intrigues, amours, &c. &c. of an unlicensed description. Whipping was the regular punishment for any infraction of this law, and it seems very hard upon a race who have always been persecuted, it was specially ordained if any Jew went near any place where any such practices might be carried on, he, the said Israelite, was to be summarily arrested, and as summarily, as far as the commencement of the process was concerned, whipped through the town. In fact, a wealthy Jew, named Doupedo, broke the statute in 1408, and was publicly scourged through the streets of Avignon. Here were genuine tears, and history informs us it was pitiful to see them trickle down Doupedo's beard. But Jane's enactments were of a severe description; and thence she was entitled "the good!" If an abbess permitted any visitor even to call upon her on a Good-Friday, Saturday, or Easter-Sunday, she was to be whipped; and if any lady robbed another she was to be whipped (honourably!) by the serjeant of the state :-if she stole anything a second time, for such offence the whipping was to be administered by the common executioner! These are matters of the olden time, but they may be pondered upon with benefit even in our days by Jews prone to iniquity, and ladies given to fall in love with unappropriated trifles belonging to others, such as scarfs, shawls, boas, muffs, jewels, or other little articles of finery or luxury, which we so frequently hear of losing their owners at theatres, and crowded resorts of rank and fashion.

If ladies in such places would attend more to their property, and less to their flatterers, it is likely that fewer things would be missing; but after all, coqueting is as familiar to country innocence as to town temptation. A very natural reproach for such doing is contained in the following provincial lines by a simple, disappointed, and indignant Simon.