zag

enlivening with occasional sprinklings of fun-with a refined and delicate humor, which does not spring from words alone, but has intense meaning underneath the grotesque sounds-is consecrated to 'Laughter holding both his sides,' to Momus and broad grins. Joking has, in fact, become a trade. The cap and the bells which once, like greatness, were 'thrust upon' a man, because he had a genius for jesting, are now assumed with cold-blooded calculation. Wit, that splendid zigof the mind, which defies accurate analysis, though it electrifies all that it touches, is manufactured, like Sheffield hardware, at a fixed tariff." We have comic Histories of Rome and England, comic Blackstones and Letter-writers, and a host of similar facetious productions, not to mention that fountain of inexhaustible wit-Punch. So universally has this tendency to bandinage and ridicule pervaded society, that life itself has almost been perverted into a joke and jest. This excess is a serious evil, and should be frowned upon, not laughed at.

There are certain moods of mind in which a jest is as nauseous as a pill; but your cold-blooded, hardened wit would crack a joke by the bedside of a sick friend -would greet the sunrise from the peak of Mont Blanc

with a pun, and tickle your ribs at the foot of the cataract of Niagara. No reverence has he for high and solemn things-no admiration for the noble, or love for the beautiful; high, solemn, noble, and beautiful, are qualities he appreciates only because they can be turned. into the broadest burlesque-just as the sweetest cider makes the sourest vinegar. The gravest themes of

human contemplation he studies only with a view to suggesting comical images and associations, and a remark as gloomy as death, will, in passing through his mind, acquire the motley livery of a harlequin.

"Now we are not one of those who would frown at a jest always, and look scowlingly upon every indication of mirth. We are no hater of such delicacies when indulged in sparingly, and cannot consider them as some do, as much out of place on a thoughtful man's lips as on a gravestone or in a ledger. Without a little sprinkling of fun, nonsense, and frivolity, pray, what would become of us in these sad days of suicide, war, shipwrecks, tight money markets, failures, and bank explosions? Say what you will of this solemn world'—and such, alas! it too often is—a little of the sherry must be mixed up with the bitters of life, to help us digest our dinners and sleep o' nights; and a little of the vanitas vanitatum will intermingle gratefully with the sterner alarums of existence. been wisely said that our graver faculties and thoughts are much chastened and bettered by a blending and interfusion of the lighter, so that 'the sable cloud' may turn forth her silver lining on the night;' while our lighter thoughts require the graver to substantiate them and keep them from evaporation. There must be some folly, or there could be no wisdom; some broad grins, or even tears would lose their meaning; and it will detract none from the music of life, if now and then, in the world's orchestra, the notes of the penny whistle are heard over those of the deep-toned bassoon."* Every good thing may be perverted.

It has

Miss Landon never uttered a truer sentiment, than when, in one of her novels-" Francesca Carrara" she said "Too much love of the ridiculous is the dry rot of all that is high and noble in youth." Like a canker, it eats away the finest qualities of their nature, and there is no limit to the sacrifices made to it.

*N. B. Quarterly Rev.

"Woman is not undeveloped man;

But diverse; could we make her as the man,
Sweet love were slain whose dearest bond is this,
Not like to thee, but like in difference;

Yet in the long years like must they grow;

The man be more of woman, she of man;

He gain in sweetness and in moral height,

Nor lose the wrestling throes that throw the world;
The mental breath nor fail in childward care;
More as the double-natured poet each:

Till at the last she set herself to man,

Like perfect music unto noble words."*

"O Love! what are thou, Love? the ace of hearts,
Trumping earth's kings and queens, and all its suits;
A player, masquerading many parts

In life's odd carnival;-a boy that shoots
From ladies' eyes, such mortal woundy darts;

A gardener, pulling hearts'-case up by the roots;
The Puck of Passion-partly false, part real-
A marriageable maiden's 'beau ideal.'"

"Love," Petrarch maintains, "is the crowning grace of humanity, the holiest right of the soul, the golden link which binds us to duty and truth, the redeeming principle that chiefly reconciles the heart to life, and is prophetic of eternal good."

"Love is like the ocean

Ever fresh and strong;

Birth, and life and motion,

Speed, and strength and song,
With which the world surrounding,
It keeps it green and young."

* Tennyson.

Or take another version:

"Love reigneth in cot, in palace and hall,

Love beginneth with breath,

Ending not e'en in death,

O love, love,

Thou art ruler of all!"

But let us leave the poets for the present, since to seek a full definition from them will be hopeless, as we gather from one, who turns "state's" evidence on the subject:

"Love is something so divine

Description would but make it less;
'Tis what we know, but can't define,
'Tis what we feel, but can't express."

Sydney Smith said, "The imperishable, inexhaustible, unapproachable nature of love is shown in this-that all the million of love stories which have been written, have not one whit abated the immortal interest which there is in the rudest and stupidest love story. All the rest of the stupid thing may be the merest twaddle, but you can't help feeling a little interest, when you have taken up the book, as to whether Arabella will relent in favor of Augustus, and whether that wicked creature, man or woman, who is keeping them apart, will not be disposed of somehow."

"All thoughts, all passions, all delights,

Whatever stirs this mortal frame,

All are but ministers of love,

And feed his sacred flame."