Betterton had now reached us, out of breath after his race, and utterly unable to articulate. 'Betterton,' cried I, 'what is love?' ''Tis,' said he, gasping, ''tis--'tis----' 'The gentleman,' cried Stuart, 'gives as good a description of it as most of our modern poets; who make its chief ingredients panting and broken murmurs.' 'Now in my opinion,' said I, 'love is a mystical sympathy, which unfolds itself in the glance that seeks the soul,--the sentiment that the soul embodies--the tender gaiety--the more delicious sadness--the stifled sigh--the soft and malicious smile--the thrill, the hope, the fear--each in itself a little bliss. In a word, it is the swoon of the soul, the delirium of the heart, the elegant inebriety of unsophisticated sentiment.' 'If such be love,' said Stuart, 'I fear I shall never bring myself to make it.' 'And pray,' said I, 'how would you make love?' 'There are many modes,' answered he, 'and the way to succeed with one girl is often the way to fail with another. Girls may be divided into the conversable and inconversable. He who can talk the best, has therefore the best chance of the former; but would a man make a conquest of one of the beautiful Inutilities, who sits in sweet stupidity, plays off the small simpers, and founds her prospects in life on the shape of her face, he has little more to do than call her a goddess and make himself a monkey. Or if that should fail, as he cannot apply to her understanding, he must have recourse to her feeling, and try what the touch can do for him. The touch has a thousand virtues. Only let him establish a lodgment on the first joint of her little finger, he may soon set out on his travels, and make the grand tour of her waist. This is, indeed, to have wit at his fingers' ends; and this, I can assure you, is the best and shortest way to gain the hearts of those demure misses, who think that all modesty consists in silence, that to be insipid is to be innocent, and that because they have not a word for a young man in public, they may have a kiss for him in private.' 'Come,' said I, 'let us talk of love in poetry, not prose. I want some pretty verses to fill up my memoirs; so, Betterton, now for an amorous ode to your mistress.' Betterton bowed and began: TO FANNY Say, Fanny, why has bounteous heaven, In every end benign and wise, Perfection to your features given? Enchantment to your witching eyes? Was it that mortal man might view Thy charms at distance, and adore? Ah, no! the man who would not woo, Were less than mortal, or were more. The mossy rose that scents the sky, By bee, by butterfly caress'd, We leave not on the stalk to die, But fondly snatch it to the breast There, unsurpassed in sweets, it dwells;-- Unless the breast be Fanny's own: There blooming, every bloom excels;-- Except of Fanny's blush alone.