Still, it is impossible to overlook the rapidity with which all sorts of things whisk about in the Athens, and how cleverly her ladies and gentlemen creep into the nut-shells of science, or the whispering-corners of scandal; or how dextrously they contrive to make one thing answer many purposes. It is impossible that any people, and more especially a people so ardent and so educated as the Athenians, can be without a reasonable commodity of love; but the talking apparatus is so sensitive to the slightest touch, and vibrates so instantaneously over the whole city, that this commodity cannot be brought into action in the ordinary way. Accordingly, the various systems of philosophy which have from time to time warmed and gladdened the Athenians, have been, in a great measure, a succession of bows and quivers for the artillery of Cupid. Sometimes they were awkward enough for this purpose; and the barbs and feathers of those instruments of man’s mischief, sticking out at the ends of arguments against revelation, or disquisitions upon cause and effect, had rather a ludicrous appearance. When Smellie brought the philosophy of beasts into vogue, matters mended a little; and youths and virgins sauntered away into the fields for the pure and intellectual purposes of investigating the origin and progress of lambs and linnets. The day of the botanists was equally favourable for erotic purposes; and when the researches of Doctor Hutton had made the fairy-rings upon Arthur’s Seat matter of philosophy, thither winded the philosophic fair of the Athens, under the soft beams of the chaste moon, just to see whether they could catch a glimpse of the green elves, capering and dancing to the tune of “Catherine Ogie,” as Scotch fairies had been known to do from time immemorial. But the best system that ever came into general practice and belief, has proved to be that of the skull-men,--a system which, though the Athenians gainsayed it a little at the outset, they have subsequently fallen deeper into than any other people upon the earth or moon; and in a truly-bred Athenian company, you are sure to have your cranium thumbed over by every lady and gentleman. This is an excellent system, if there be truth in it; and indeed, whether there be truth in it or not, it brings the papillæ of the fingers, whose very use is the receiving of impressions, into contact as it were with the very elements of the soul; and when the delicate fingers of a lady are measuring the base and altitude of No. 1. in a gentleman’s neck, there is every chance that the embers of the tender passion, if they have not previously been charred to incineration, shall blaze or burn.