mere thinking of a particular person is sufficient
to excite this reproductive faculty, I will
consider on another occasion.

WHAT WAS IT?

IT was not a scold, nor a cuff, nor a kick,
The wound of a sword, nor a blow from a stick,
A shot from any sort of a gun
That ever was forged beneath the sun,
A fall from a horse, nor a bite of a dog;
A burn from a torch carried out in a fog,
That made me ache confoundedly
Just where a gentleman's heart should be.

It was not a plaister, nor lotion, nor draught,
Homœopath practice, or Allopath craft,
Nor any description of patent pill,
That ever was pounded to cure or kill:
Nor the cure for nerves that are running to seed—
That cured my pain. 'Twas a smile for me
Just where a pretty girl's lips should be.

For my heart had been aching for many a day,
And my mind full of trouble and sorrow,
I vowed that I never would see her again;
But haunted her steps on the morrow.
I worried my friends, and neglected my work,
Was horribly jealous of stupid young Smirk,
In short, was a nuisance to hear or to see,
Just as a fellow in love should be.

Well, well! it's all over, my smile I got,
And stole something else from its pretty birth-spot,
Went home with a breast that with rapture was thrilling,
Gave cabbie a sovereign instead of a shilling,
And the sweet lips that cured me – at breakfast and tea
Are just where a gentleman's wife's should be.

CUPID'S MANUFACTORY.

THE name and address of the eminent
manufacturing firm of Cupid and Co. are not to be
found in the Post-office Directory. I know this
because I have searched the magnum opus
through all its divisions without being able to
discover them. Nevertheless, the firm has not
only a name but a local habitation; and I have
visited the habitation, been over the works,
and know all about the concern. I have long
aspired to possess this knowledge. Years past,
when, long before the advent of the month
which is popularly supposed to usher in the
mating season of both birds and men, I have
noticed the windows of small booksellers and
stationers break out into a pictorial rash in
anticipation of the Feast of St. Valentine, I have
been in the habit of wondering how and where
the outbreak originated. With regard to such
matters I can claim a certain community of mind
with his deceased majesty, King George the
Third. When I see apple-dumplings I am very
curious to know how the apples found their way
inside the dumplings. So, for years, I was
anxious to know where the valentines came
from; who executed those highly-coloured
illustrations of a lady and gentleman walking arm
in arm up a pale brown pathway towards a
salmon - coloured church in the immediate
vicinity (the lady and gentleman being
considerably taller than the church); who wrote
that beautiful poetry where " love" is for ever
sweetly linked with " dove," save occasionally
when it spoils the rhyme by a disposition to
" rove," or retire into a " grove," and where
" twine" is so largely employed in the penultimate
lines as to convey the idea that the poet ran his
poetry off a reel and made it up in balls ; who
printed them, who coloured them, who stuck
Cupids and transfixed hearts upon them ; how, in
fact, they found their way into those shop
windows, to be offered to an affectionate public at
prices varying from one farthing up to two
pound two ?

I have been to the mint, and, having seen love's
tokens coined, I am now about to describe the
process. No matter how I discovered the mint;
suffice it that, from information I received, I
proceeded there, and found Cupid and Company
actively engaged in their business, on extensive
premises situated in Love-lane, number thirty-five.
Perhaps you are unacquainted with Love-lane:
may never have heard of it before. Well, – no
matter; if you should ever go there, you will
find it remarkably like Red Lion-square. Paint
the picture how you will, you cannot make
anything but a red lion of it. However, Love-lane
is better, as it gets rid of an unpleasant association
with the Mendicity Society, an idiot asylum,
and several forlorn institutes, with dirty door-
steps and cobwebbed windows. The outside of
Cupid's manufactory is perhaps a little
disenchanting to the visitor, who has been drawing
fancy pictures of it in his mind coming along.
If you expect wreaths and festoons, you will be
disappointed; if you look for cornucopias, you
will not find them; if you have called up a
vision of Cupid swinging on a rope of roses
over the doorway, you will not realise that
vision. You find simply a plain brick house,
bearing no other emblem of the trade carried
on within than a pair of iron extinguishers on
each side of the doorway, in which, by a
considerable stretch of the imagination, you may
conceive the torch of Hymen to have been
occasionally quenched, at a period prior to the
introduction of gas. Neither the red rose, nor the
blue violet, nor the sweet carnation, embowers
the windows; these being wholly unadorned,
rather dingy, and provided each with a wire
blind, on which are painted, in the severest prose,
the words "Cupid and Co., Manufacturers."

Entering that mundane doorway, and wiping
my feet on that cocoa-nut mat, of the earth
earthy, I could not conceive the realm of
sublimated fancy which lay beyond. With a lively
impression of what was afterwards revealed to
me, I feel now that it was like going up the
greasy gallery-stairs of a theatre, to find the
transformation scene on, and all the fairies gracefully
reposing in the Bower of Bliss. I was not,
however, inducted to the mysteries too
suddenly. A youth, in all the elegance of turned-
up shirt-sleeves, came and took my card, and
I had to wait in the counting-house – Cupid's