244 A CHAPTER ON LOVERS. 



of the visage, set off by divers nods, stops, &c. Sec. ; the burthen — or as 

 Chaucer and the okl troubadours would have termed it " the reframe" — 

 intimated that love was ** quite a little man." Now whether the poet and 

 the syren meant what they said and sung is much more than I dare to 

 affirm, for '* poets" and " syrens'* are, occasionally, apt to say and sin^ 

 the very reverse of their sentiments ; but be this as it may, the song 

 itself, very commendably, speaks truth. Love is no longer a child — a 

 beauteous babe, whose golden ringlets, steeped in ambrosia, wanton over 

 a brow of ivory, beneath which rove his blue and star-like eyes, now 

 melting with ecstacy, or softened into a sweet abstraction, such as 

 Domenichino has infused into the upraised orbs of his celestial '* Amor.*'* 

 He is no longer the winged and laughing cherub who, crowned with 

 myrtle and roses, spangled with the tears of Aurora, revelled with the 

 nymphs of Arcadia, or charmed them with his lyre in those happy and 

 primitive ages when the kid and the panther disported together, and the 

 serpent, shining like emerald and gold, rolled itself, harmlessly, round 

 the nest of the dove. The son of Venus and Jupiter is no more ! a 

 departed grasshopper at the end of the autumn has as much chance of 

 revivifying; and yet, in the language of rival advertisements, "coun- 

 terfeits are abroad,*' who, in the days of our grandmammas, putting on the 

 garb of the ** genuine," passed current with four-fifths of mankind. An 

 ill-concealed appetite for gold, a penchant for rank, title, and equipage, a 

 propensity for china and lace, for trinkets and diamonds, . for cards, 

 balls, routs, musical soirees, &c. &c., betrayed the impostor in spite of 

 the fascinations he assumed, and an elaborate mimicry of his predecessor. 

 In our own times, the myrtle, the wreath of moss-roses, the lyre, and 

 the bow, have been abandoned as superfluous and canaille. If you wish 

 for a Cupid accoutred after the fashion of antiquity, you must seek him 

 depicted in the voluminous correspondence of St. Valentine, or curiously 

 modelled in clarified sugar at the certain well known annual ex- 

 hibition on *' Twelfth-day," You may, occasionally, encounter him 

 on the stage, provided with a gauze petticoat of classical brevity, and a 

 pair of taffeta pinions, and fluttering at the end of a ten-penny cord, to 

 the obvious delight of the junior spectators, who, rapturously, deem 

 themselves in the actual presence of the much-talked-about little deity, 

 in whom they are so peculiarly interested. Again you may discover him 

 in the gorgeous repositories of Flight and Barr, of Chamberlain, 

 or of Grainger; surrounded by a display of dazzling magnificence 

 that makes us, involuntarily, shield our eyes with our hand, and startles 

 us into the idea of having wandered into some haunt of enchantment, 

 the fairy vault of Aladdin, or the treasure-chamber of an Eastern 

 monarch. Here you may find him embodied in porcelain of alabaster 

 purity, or glowing with the warm hues of vitality, and environed by 

 flowers — all captivation and loveliness, and wanting but dew-drops and 

 motion, and fragrance, to be meet for the garland of Flora herself.f 



* The divine picture alluded to formed the principal feature of the exhibition of 

 old paintings at Exeter Hall, in 1833. 



t It is scarcely possible to do justice to the exquisite beauty displayed in the 



Eaintings embellishing the superb porcelain of Worcester ; and still further ex- 

 ibited in those unrivalled fac-similes of flovpers which have, of late, been produced, 

 to the astonishment of the connoisseur eye. Nothing but reality can surpass 

 these inimitable deceptions : of the most elegant disposition, they have the 

 brilliancy, the delicacy, the sharpness of outline, the purity and variety of tint — 

 nay, the very bloom and freshness of nature itself. Such, indeed, is the perfection 

 to which they have been brought, that we may cite them not only as the che/s- 

 d'ceuvre of art, but as irrefragable evidence of the fine taste, ingenuity, and industry 

 of our countrymen. 



