Folk-lore, like Venus herself, has indeed specially flung her cestus over “the palmer in love’s eye.” She has more charms to soothe his melancholy than were ever prescribed by Burton. She is not above dabbling in spells and the unholy mysteries of the black art to inform him who shall be his partner for life. When sleep at length seals his eyes, she waits at his bedside next morning to tell him the meaning of his dreams. And most certainly the weaker sex has not been forgotten by folk-lore, which, in proportion to their easier powers of belief, provides them with infinite store of solace and prediction. Milkmaids, country lasses, and secluded dwellers in whitewashed farm or thick-walled ancestral grange are her particular charge. The Juliets and Amandas of higher rank already possess enough nurses, confidantes, and bosom friends, to say nothing of the poets and novelists. Perhaps it would be well for them if they never resorted to more dangerous mentors than do their rustic sisters when they listen to old wives’ wisdom at the chimney corner. Yet an exception must be made in favor of some lovers of rank, when we recall the ludicrously simple wooing of Mr. Carteret and Lady Jemima Montagu, and how mightily they were indebted to the good offices of the more skilled Samuel Pepys, who literally taught them when they ought to take each other’s hand, “make these and these compliments,” and the like; “he being the most awkerd man I ever met with in my life as to that business,” as the garrulous diarist adds. For ourselves, we do not profess to be love casuists, and the profusion of receipts which the subject possesses is so remarkable that we shall be unable to preserve much order in our prescriptions. Like those little books which possess wisdom for all who look within them, we can only promise our readers a peep into a budget fresh from fairy-land, and each may select what spell he or she chooses. Autolycus himself did not open a pack stuffed with greater attractions for his customers, especially for the fair sex.