TOPICS OF THE DAY.
CUPID.
" Oh, 'Us love, 'tis love, 'tis love," Sce.
IN our last number we adverted to the frequency of suicide in France, and mentioned that the prime mover of these catastro phes is said to be love. In common parlance this pretty word only applies to the sentiment between the two sexes, but in its wider philosophical sense how much has it to answer for ! The love of the fair is, alas, not the only love which causes men to hang and drown, and commit thousands of other crimes or follies. The inhabitants of Newc,ate, the Fleet, and every jail in his Majesty's dominions, are, for the most part, what the newspapers would style unfbrtunate lovers of different descriptions. One man has fallen in love with his neighbour's silver spoon ; another has conceived a passion at first sight for a gold watch ; another's desires have been irresistibly excited by a flitch of bacon ; and these persons, instead of contenting themselves with the pastime of sighing for such beloved objects, having proceeded to possess themselves of them, have incurred the penalties imposed by law for the restraint of Cupid in all its forms. We confound things much by giving exclusively to the species the description of the geniis. Properly, Cupid should be the god of all our desires ; and the thief smitten by a Bandana handkerchief should blame the blind deity for the mischief, equally with the lover undone by the bright glance of a black eye. Gourmands at table, too, ought to consider themselves not as so many gluttons, but as so many tender lovers, and they should pride themselves on their sensibilities to fricandeaus, ragouts, and omelets. A beggar ogling a cook's shop-window, is a lover of the most ardent kind ; and his soul is overflowing with the poetry of desire, as his lips are overflowing with the moisture of longing. With what charms of flavour does his too fond imagination invest that rank leg of pork ; how insupportably insipid life appears to him without that roast pig ; how unendurable is existence without mutton! How fatally falls the shot of the plum-puddings on the vagabond heart ; what bright eyes move to wilder wishes than these heavy balls incite, in the passing ragged and hungry population ! All these are modifications of that love which we account so romantic a passion by fixing its application to one object. It is true that men do not so frequently hang or drown themselves on the occasion of being crossed in beef and mutton, as in novels and romances and news?aper paragraphs they hang or drown themselves for being crossed in the love of maids ; because, instead of dying of disappointment, they steal the objects of their uncontrollable affections, and go to the tread-mill in consequence, instead of to the Elysian fields. There is, however, one case of romantic self-destruction, which rivals the deed of WERTER • and that is the familiar case of the gentleman who loved muffins to distraction, and being unable to enjoy them by reason of the bile, shot himself after a full meal. All persons who are for extending the field of sentiment should wish a GOETHE would. arise to paint with an eloquent falsehood the sorrows of this unhappy gentleman, and inlist our tenderest sympathies with a bilious stomach. The disappointed affection of one slim young gentleman in black for one fair young lady in pink, is an affair (thanks to the ingenuity of the describers) of a most touching nature, though it, in fact, occupies but a very small part of the bepitied sufferer's life, and not a thousandth portion of the whole sum of his thoughts. But, ye gods ! what daily cares and crosses there are in the existence of a votary of the great UDE, which are yet unpainted.! A man sits down to table once, as our friends of the Minerva Press would say, in the course of each revolving sun, with a soul full of love for the dishes on the board ; but how cruel is the return made for his ardent affection! The rump-steak as hard as a coquette's heart ; the fricandeau, refusing to yield to the spooe ; the omelet, cold as a disdainful beauty, and insipid yea as the white of an egg. These be griefs, daily griefs, while the sorrows of other lovers, of which so much sentiment is made, are by comparison but passing shadows. If for the sake of novelty only, we wish poets and romancers would attend to our suggestion, and turn their geniuses to new topics. Why should not a bard indite a sonnet to his mutton cutlet, or bemoan the cruelty of an obdurate Jhaunch of venison ? If it be our policy to encourage and pamper unreasonable desires, why should we not do it in a subordinate as well as an exalted province ? Why not sympathize with the poor cit who pines for unattainable turtle, as much as with the lackadaisical lad who languishes for an impracticable princess ?
Another phase of love—the most universal, and the most mischievous—which yet wants the decoration of romance, is the love of gold. ANAC RE ON has indeed devoted the first lover of this metal to destruction, on account of the mischief it has done to the other sort of love, more congenial to his muse and proper for the lyre. There is also a love of brass which lacks celebration ; but the gold still bears the bell. MOLIERE makes his miser, when he hears bright eyes commended, imagine them of necessity the bright eyes of his casket. There are few affections deeper or more sin cere, accompanied with more self-denial and devotion, than that of the miser. So intense a passion is surely worthy of the /yre. It is illustrated, too, with as much hanging and drowning, and robbery and murder, as any other description of love.
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