who has not felt them many times?--who has not knelt, and fawned,
and supplicated, and wept, and cursed, and raved, all in vain; and
passed long wakeful nights with ghosts of dead hopes for company;
shadows of buried remembrances that glide out of their graves of
nights, and whisper, "We are dead now, but we WERE once; and we made
you happy, and we come now to mock you:--despair, O lover, despair,
and die"?--O cruel pangs!--dismal nights!--Now a sly demon creeps
under your nightcap, and drops into your ear those soft
hope-breathing sweet words, uttered on the well-remembered evening:
there, in the drawer of your dressing-table (along with the razors,
and Macassar oil), lies the dead flower that Lady Amelia Wilhelmina
wore in her bosom on the night of a certain ball--the corpse of a
glorious hope that seemed once as if it would live for ever, so
strong was it, so full of joy and sunshine: there, in your
writing-desk, among a crowd of unpaid bills, is the dirty scrap of
paper, thimble-sealed, which came in company with a pair of
muffetees of her knitting (she was a butcher's daughter, and did all
she could, poor thing!), begging "you would ware them at collidge,
and think of her who"--married a public-house three weeks
afterwards, and cares for you no more now than she does for the
pot-boy. But why multiply instances, or seek to depict the agony of
poor mean-spirited John Hayes? No mistake can be greater than that
of fancying such great emotions of love are only felt by virtuous or
exalted men: depend upon it, Love, like Death, plays havoc among
the pauperum tabernas, and sports with rich and poor, wicked and
virtuous, alike. I have often fancied, for instance, on seeing the
haggard pale young old-clothesman, who wakes the echoes of our
street with his nasal cry of "Clo'!"--I have often, I said, fancied
that, besides the load of exuvial coats and breeches under which he
staggers, there is another weight on him--an atrior cura at his