till another, which, to our taste, is the best of
his songs. A faulty versification deserves censure in all of them:

'Hast thou seen the down in the air,
When wanton blasts have tossed it?
Or the ship on the sea,
When ruder winds have crossed it?
Hast thou marked the crocodile's weeping,
Or the fox's sleeping?
Or hast thou viewed the peacock in his pride,
Or the dove by his bride,
When he courts her for his lechery?
Oh! so fickle, oh! so vain, oh! so false, so false is she!'

Love has been compared to a variety of objects, all of them with more or
less aptness. When some one likened it to a potato, because it 'shoots
from the eyes,' was it not Byron who was wicked enough to add, 'and
because it becomes all the less by pairing'? One wretched swain tells us
that he finds it to be

'----a dizziness,
That will not let an honest man go about his business.'

But no similitude can be more striking or more lasting than that of love
to a state of debt. So long as human nature continues materially the
same, these words, of four letters each, will express sensations pretty
nearly identical. The ease with which a poor creature falls into one or
the other of these snares, is all the more remarkable from the
difficulty which he is sure to encounter in his attempts at getting out.
Besides, is not love sometimes a real debit and credit account? But, not
to pursue the interesting inquiry further, we submit that there is good
sense, as well as good poetry, (does the latter always insure the
presence of the former?) in the lines we quote, which Sir John has
labeled _Love and Debt alike Troublesome_:

'This one request I make to him that sits the clouds above:
That I were freely out of debt, as I am out of love;
Then for to dance, to drink, and sing, I should be very willing--
I should not owe one lass a kiss, nor ne'er a knave a shilling.
'Tis only being in love and debt that breaks us of our rest,
And he that is quite out of both, of all the world is blest;
He sees the golden age wherein all things were free and common,
He eats, he drinks, he takes his rest, he fears no man nor woman.
Though Croesus compassed great wealth, yet he still craved more;
He was as needy a beggar still as goes from door to door.
Though Ovid was a merry man, love ever kept him sad;
He was as far from happiness as one that is stark mad.
Our merchant, he in goods is rich, a