1831.] Affairs in General. 315 



the viceroy little more than a gentleman who held levees^ and presided 

 at balls and suppers. So much for policy ! 



•■}.% 



No one doubts Moore's skill as a general master of poetry ; but we 

 have been always sceptical on the point on which he has been most 

 studious to excel — his amatory themes. In our apprehension, no bard 

 of his own or of any other day, ever knew so little about Passion, ever 

 less spoke its language, or ever exhibited more glaringly the glaring 

 error -of mistaking it for the mere work of the senses. We should be 

 content to let the question be ti'ied by this brief extract from his observ- 

 ations in the " Memoirs of Lord Edward Fitzgerald : — ■ jSi> 



" In natures of this kind (the warm and enthusiastic), a first love is almost 

 always but a rehearsal for the second ; that imagination must act as a taster to 

 the heart before the true ' thirst from the soul' is called forth — and that accord- 

 ingly out of this sort of inconstancy to one object is oftenest seen to spring the 

 most passionate and even constant devotion to another." 



Now the man who could write this, evidently has no more notion of 

 love than that it is a mere thing of appetite. The experience of man- 

 kind is against it, for what has been the language of all poets but him- 

 self, on the crime of inconstancy to a first love, on the force and depth 

 of its impressions, and on the almost impossibility of ever reviving, by 

 a second, the fine ardour and vivid delight of a first passion. We 

 believe, that even poetry has not exaggerated this sentiment. There 

 may be fondness and esteem, and even a liveliness of attachment, in a 

 second love, capable of solacing the heart for the loss of the first; but the 

 sensation of the first is never to be restored nor forgotten. We might 

 as well say that the consciousness of life could be felt a second time as it 

 was at the moment when it first shot through the veins. No one will 

 dispute the beauty of sunrise, but who can see it like him who, born 

 blind, has his vision opened to it for the first time. 



The plain conclusion from all our rhapsody is, that Moore, however 

 capital a lyrist, knows no more of love than an oyster. 



Since the death of Kitchiner, " alas ! poor Yorick !" nothing great 

 has been done in the culinary line. Men eat turtle and pines without 

 asking, or venturing to ask, whether the callipash might not be made 

 more transcendant by a new patent Cayenne, or the " Anana, best of 

 fruits," touch the feelings more exquisitely by the new phusiteknicon 

 sauce. Still there are some efforts, some tentamina, as Apicius Hexameter 

 Burney would say, towards a revival of the glorious science. For in- 

 stance, the following receipt for making a goose what a goose should 

 be:— 



" The first step is to wrap the goose up in linen ; after which stop the eai's 

 with peas, and hang it up in a dark place, where, neither hearing nor seeing any 

 thing, it remains in a state of stupidity, neither struggling nor crying. After 

 this preparation give three times a day pellets, made of ground malt or barley, 

 mixed with water, setting, within reach, water and gravel, in a pan. In this 

 manner the birds are made so fat, that, without seeing, one can scarcely form aa 

 idea of it." 



This, we own, may be at first sight called a cruel affair. But then it 

 is, at the worst, kind to the eater, and the true view of the case is, that 

 it is kind also to the eaten, for the sooner he is fat the sooner he is put 

 out of all his paui in this world. But clever as the receipt is, we must 



