The subjoined _morceau_ is worthy notice. Many grave essays have been
written upon the vanity and unreasonableness of human wishes; but it
would seem, without much effect. The rhapsodies of lovers in the olden
time were thought sufficiently extravagant, and their wishes have been
quoted as the very essence of inordinate imaginations: in fact,
Shakspeare has classed the lover and the madman together:
"The lunatic, the lover and the poet,
Are of imagination all compact:
One sees more devils than vast hell can hold--
That's the madman--the other all as frantic
Sees Helen's beauty in a brow of Egypt," &c.
Yet the old fashioned lovers kept some rule in their imaginary
desires, when compared with the vast conception of our correspondent.
"Ye Gods! annihilate both time and space,
And make two lovers happy"--
and the passionate exclamation of Romeo,
"Oh that I were a glove upon that hand!
That I might kiss that cheek!"
were thought wild enough for those more stoical times. But it seems
that the march of improvement is onward in love-making, as well as in
road-making, as we will trust our correspondent's effusion to show.
* * * * *
For the Southern Literary Messenger.