It is with this passion as with the Amreeta in Southey's Hindoo tale, the most original of his poems; its effects are beneficial or malignant according to the subject on which it acts. In this respect Love may also be likened to the Sun, under whose influence one plant elaborates nutriment for man, and another poison; and which while it draws up pestilence from the marsh and jungle, and sets the simoom in motion over the desert, diffuses light, life, and happiness over the healthy and cultivated regions of the earth. It acts terribly upon Poets. Poor creatures, nothing in the whole details of the Ten Persecutions, or the history of the Spanish Inquisition, is more shocking than what they have suffered from Love, according to the statements which they have given of their own sufferings. They have endured scorching, frying, roasting, burning, sometimes by a slow fire, sometimes by a quick one; and melting,—and this too from a fire, which while it thus affects the heart and liver, raises not a blister upon the skin; resembling in this respect that penal fire which certain theological writers describe as being more intense because it is invisible,—existing not in form, but in essence, and acting therefore upon spirit as material and visible fire acts upon the body. Sometimes they have undergone from the same cause all the horrors of freezing and petrifaction. Very frequently the brain is affected; and one peculiar symptom of the insanity arising from this cause, is that the patients are sensible of it, and appear to boast of their misfortune. Hear how it operated upon Lord Brooke, who is called the most thoughtful of poets, by the most bookful of Laureates. The said Lord Brooke in his love, and in his thoughtfulness, confesseth thus; I sigh; I sorrow; _I do play the fool!_ Hear how the grave—the learned Pasquier describes its terrible effects upon himself! _Ja je sens en mes os une flamme nouvelle Qui me mine, qui m'ard, qui brusle ma möuelle._ Hear its worse moral consequences, which Euphues avowed in his wicked days! “He that cannot dissemble in love is not worthy to live. I am of this mind, that both might and malice, deceit and treachery, all perjury and impiety, may lawfully be committed in love, which is lawless.” Hear too how Ben Jonson makes the Lady Frampul express her feelings! My fires and fears are met: I burn and freeze; My liver's one great coal, my heart shrunk up With all the fibres; and the mass of blood Within me, is a standing lake of fire, Curl'd with the cold wind of my gelid sighs, That drive a drift of sleet through all my body, And shoot a February through my veins.