• being too old to be got into this Hospital, is now ' at a school in Yorkshire, where young gentlemen 6 are boarded, clothed, and educated, and found in • all necessaries for ten pounds a year.

'That chubby little boy, which you see in the arms of yonder strapping wench in a camlet gown and red cloak, is her own son. She is by profes⚫sion a bed-maker in one of the universities, and of the same college, in which the father (a grave 'tutor) holds a fellowship, under the usual condition of not marrying. Many sober gentlemen of the cloth, who are in the same scrape, are glad to take the benefit of this charity and if all of the • same reverend order, like the priests abroad, were • laid under the same restrictions, you might expect to see a particular Hospital erected for the reception of the Sons of the Clergy.

That next child belongs to a sea captain's lady, whose husband is expected to return every mo. 'ment from a long voyage; the fears of which have happily hastened the birth of this infant a full 'month before its time. That other is the posthu 'mous child of a wealthy old gentleman, who mar'ried a young girl for love, and died in the honey'moon. This his son and heir was not born till ❝ near a twelve month after his decease, because its birth was retarded by the excessive grief of his widow; who on that account rather chose to lay-in • privately, and to lodge their only child here, than to have its legitimacy and her own honour called in question by her husband's relations.'

My companion pointed out to me several others, whose original was no less extraordinary; among whom, I remember, he told me, one was the unhallowed brood of a Methodist Teacher, and another the premature spawn of a Maid of Honour. A poor author eased himself of a very heavy load of two twin-daughters, which in an evil hour he begot on

an hawker of pamphlets, after he had been writing a luscious novel: but I could not help smiling at the marks sent in with these new Muses, signifying that one had been christened Terpsichore, and the other Polyhymnia. Several bantlings were imported from Islington, Hoxton, and other villages within the sound of Bow-bell: many were transplanted hither out of the country; and a whole litter of brats were sent in from two or three parishes in particular, for which it is doubtful whether they were most indebted to the parson or the 'squire.

A modest-looking woman now brought a very fine babe to be admitted: but the governors rejected it, as it appeared to be above two months old. The mother, on the contrary, persisted in affirming that it was but just born; and, addressing herself to me, desired me to look at it. I accordingly took it in my arms; and while I was tossing it up and down, and praising its beauty, the sly hussy contrived to slip away, leaving the precious charge to my care. The efforts which I made to bawl after her, and the squalling of the brat, which rung piteously in my ears, luckily awaked me: and I was very happy to find that I had only been dandling my pillow, instead of a bantling.

W

No. CXXIV. THURSDAY, JUNE 10.

Accipe, per longos tibi qui deserviat annos :
Accipe, qui pura norit amare fide.

Est nulli cessura fides; sine crimine mores;
Nudaque simplicitas, purpureusque pudor.
Non mihi mille placent; non sum desultor amoris ;
Tu mihi (si qua fides) Sura perennis eris.

OVID.

Scorn me not, Chloe; me, whose faith well try'd
Long years approve, and honest passions guide;
My spotless soul no foul affections move,
But chaste simplicity, and modest love:
Nor I, like shallow fops, from fair to fair
Roving at random faithless passion swear;
But thou alone shalt be my constant care.

ALMOST every man is, or has been, or at least thinks that he is or has been, a Lover. One has fought for his mistress, another drank for her, another wrote for her, and another has done all three : and yet, perhaps, in spite of their duels, poetry, and bumpers, not one of them ever entertained a sincere passion. I have lately taken a survey of the numerous tribe of Enamoratos, and after having observed the various shapes they wear, think I may safely pronounce, that though they all profess to have been in Love, there are very few who are really capable of it.

It is a maxim of Rochefoucault's, that many men 'would never have been in Love, if they had never .heard of Love.' The justice of this remark is equal to its shrewdness. The ridiculous prate of a family has frequently great influence on young minds, who learn to love, as they do every thing else, by imitation. Young creatures, almost mere Children, have been consumed with this second-hand flame lighted up at another's passion; and, in consequence

of the Loves of the footman and chambermaid, I have known little master fancy himself a dying swain at the age of thirteen, and little miss pining away with Love in a bib and hanging-sleeves..

That vast heap of volumes, filled with Love, and sufficient in number to make a library, are great enflamers, and seldom fail to produce that kind of passion described by Rochefoucault. The chief of these literary seducers are the old romances, and their degenerate spawn the modern novels. The young student reads of the emotions of Love, till he imagines he feels them throbbing and fluttering in his little breast; as Valetudinarians study the history of a disease, till they fancy themselves affected with every symptom of it. For this reason, I am always sorry to see any of this trash in the hands of young people: I look upon Cassandra and Cleopatra, as well as Betty Barnes, Polly Willis, &c. as no better than bawds; and consider Don Bellianus of Greece, and Sir Amadis de Gaul, with George Edwards, Loveill, &c. as arrant pimps. But though romances and novels are both equally stimulatives, yet their operations are very different. The ro

mance student becomes, a fond Corydon of Sicily, or a very Damon of Arcadia, and is in good truth such a dying swain, that he believes he shall hang himself on the next willow, or drown himself in the next pond, if he should lose the object of his wishes: but the young novelist turns out more a man of the world; and after having gained the affections of his mistress, forms an hundred schemes to secure the possession of her, and to bam her relations.

There are, among the tribe of Lovers, a sort of luke-warm gentlemen, who can hardly be said, in the language of love, to entertain a flame for their mistress. These are your men of superlative delicacy and refinement, who loath the gross ideas annexed to the amours of the vulgar, and aim at some.

thing more spiritualized and sublime. The philosophers in love doat on the mind alone of their mistress, and would fain see her naked soul divested of its material incumbrances. Gentlemen of this com plexion might perhaps not improperly be ranged in the romantic class; but they have assumed to themselves the name of Platonic Lovers.

Platonism, however, is in these days very scarce; and there is another class, infinitely more numerous, composed of a sort of Lovers whom we may justly distinguish by the title of Epicureans. The principles of this sect are diametrically opposite to those of the Platonics. They think no more of the soul of their mistress than a Mussulman, but are in raptures with her person. A Lover of this sort is in perpetual extasies: his passion is so violent, that he even scorches you with the flame; and he runs over the perfections of his mistress in the same style that a jockey praises his horse: Such limbs! such ' eyes! such a neck and breast! such....oh, she's a 'rare piece!' Their ideas go no farther than mere external accomplishments; and, as their wounds may be said to be only skin-deep, we cannot allow their breasts to be smitten with Love, though per haps they may rankle with a much grosser passion. Yet it must be owned, that nothing is more common than for gentlemen of this cast to be involved in what is called a Love-match: but then it is owing to the same cause with the marriage of Sir John Brute, who says, I married my wife because I wanted to lie with her, and she would not let 'me.'

Other gentlemen, of a gay disposition and warm constitution, who go in the catalogue for Lovers, are adorers of almost every woman they see. The flame of Love is as easily kindled in them as the sparks are struck out of a flint; and it also expires as soon. A Lover of this sort dances one day with a lady at