THE LOVER.

The LOVER,
Sighing like furnace, with a woful ballad
Made to his mistress' eye-brow!

Having conducted the subject of our lucubrations through the successive periods of Infancy and Childhood, behold him arrived at the age of Puberty

See now the fiery Youth, from schools consign'd,

To tread the world at large ;-impetuous, keen,
Forward he rushes, like the mountain wind,

To reach his end-nor heeds the rocks between!

Light leaps the blood in every bounding vein,

Alternate passions mark th' expressive eye,
Now flashing ire, now looking calm disdain,

As flitting clouds that shade the autumnal sky!

New ideas, new feelings, new passions, spring up to occupy the youthful breast. The emotions of THE LOVER arise spontaneously, and in their consequences give birth to some of the most important relations in society. Delicious in their nature, and romantic in their operation, no words can adequately describe them. Nature has wisely appointed this

constitution of things. By means of this arrangement, a source of innocent enjoyment is opened, and the social affections are cherished in all their ramifications. Connexions are formed which multiply the joys, and divide the sorrows of the che quered condition of humanity!

It may be worthy of remark that SHAKSPEARE himself must have been very susceptible of the tender passion, since he took a wife when little more than eighteen; and his father was three times married. Whether or not "sighing like furnace," he “made a woful ballad to his mistress' eye-brow," certain it is, that by being thus early wedded, he has borne honourable testimony to the holy state of matrimony. Dr. Drake, speaking of his marriage remarks: “We conclude, and certainly with every probability on our side, that the young poet's attachment was not only perfectly disinterested, but had met likewise with the approbation of his parents. It is to be regretted, and it is indeed somewhat extraordinary, that not a fragment of the Bard's poetry addressed to his Warwickshire Beauty has been rescued from oblivion; for that the muse of SHAKSPEARE did not lie dormant on an occasion so propitious to her inspiration, we must believe, both from the custom of the times, and from his own amatory disposition. He has himself told us, that

Never durst Poet touch a pen to write
Until his ink were temper'd with Love's sighs.

“And we have seen that an opportunity for qualification was very early placed within his power. That he availed himself of it there can be no doubt; and had his effusions on this occasion descended to posterity, we should, in all probability, have been made acquainted with several interesting particulars relative to his early life and character, and to the person and disposition of his MISTRESS."*

The language of Lovers is in every age the language of hyperbole and extravagance. It is deeply tinctured with enthusiasm. The distress occasioned by the agitation of this passion, is compared by SHAKSPEARE to the singular image of the roaring furnace produced by the violence of the fiery element. SAPPho, in one of her odes, delineates with uncommon energy the agonies of jealous love. And Longinus, the prince of critics, commends the fidelity of her description. Thus it is that SAPPHO represents the fierce god of war, when affected with this passion, as groaning deeply

Mars, with sudden pain possest,
Sighed from out his inmost breast !

Building on the high credibility of ShaKSPEARE having employed his poetical talents at this period on the subject nearest his heart, two ingenious gentlemen have been so obliging as not only to furnish him with words on this occasion, but to offer these to the world as the genuine productions of his genius. It is scarcely necessary to add, that I allude to the Shakspeare Papers of young Ireland, and to a Tour in Quest of Genealogy, by a Barrister.