The Sun.
London, England, 1829-08-27 00:00:00

POETS BAD LOVERS.

Poets seldom make good lovers, except on
paper ; there is no serving God and mammon.
The concentration of thought, which goes to the
highest flights of composition, allows the feeling
but little play. There has been much dispute,
whether great actors are the dupes of their own
art ; but the great actors themselves have ho-
nestly avowed, that they owe their successes to
their coolness and self-possession ; and the poets,
if they were equally candid, would own them-
selves in the same predicament. They are not,
however, often inclined to make the confession.
Horace says, " We must weep ourselves, before
we can make our readers weep ;" and Pope's
44 He best can paint them who can feel them
most," goes very nearly to the same tune. Pas-
sion, though eloquent, is not descriptive, and
delights not in those details which make the es-
sence of impressive writing. Dr. Johnson, who
loved, or fancied he loved, his she-bear, and was,
therefore, (good bruin !) the better authority on
the subject, has said, " he who woos his mistress
in verse, deserves to lose her ;" and there is no
woman of sense who would not come to the
same conclusion. I have heard an odd paradox-
ical person assign a physiological reason for this.
When one great organ, he says, is much and
permanently excited, the developement is at the
expense of all the other functions. Head work-
ers in particular have uniformly bad digestions ;
and how can a man be heroically in love with a
feeble stomach ? I, who am no physiologist,
can only appeal to facts. Pope, Dryden, Swift,
Racine, Boileau, La Fontaine, were none of
them famous as lovers ; they had no " great pas-
sion," and excited none ; some of them were ab-
solutely insensible to female charms, and were
sceptics to their influence. La Fontaine, with
all his naivete, (which is so generally indicative
of passion,) was as cold as an icicle. " Je
doute," says Ninon, his friend, " qu'il
.y ait
un filtre amoureux pour La Fontaine. Il n'a
gure aime les femmes." I have some doubts
even of the sensibility of the divine Petrarch,
notwithstanding his thousand and one sonnets,
which made so little impression on Laura. As
to Ovid, his conceits are the antipodes of pas-
sion and feeling ; and Anacreon was so mere a
roué, that I should as soon take Don Juan for
a martyr to the belle passion as he. Cowley,
who wrote so much upon love, was an anchorite.
Prior, who wrote so freely on it, was a rake ;
and Rousseau, a poet in prose, wrote " Julie,"
and lived with Therese, who, besides being an
imbgcille, was neither chaste nor sober, and was
" all for love, and a little for the bottle." When
Doctor de Pruli chided Rousseau, a few days
before his death, for exposing himself, in his
weak health, by going to the cellar, Rousseau,
pointing to Therese, observed, " (due voulez-
vous? quand elle y va, elle y rester ' " What
would you have me do ? when she goes to the
cellar, she always stays there."—Lady Morgan.

A correspondent informs us that THOMAS
ARctinoLD, of Colton, near this city, has a cat which
lately attacked a very large adder near his house, and after
a severe struggle, completely conquered_and destroyed it,—.
York Herald.

James Rogers, in the service of Mr. Chapman.—
On Monday morning last he brought the body of a
cow to Newgate-market by order of his master.
He was directed to deliver it to Messrs. Challis and
Harris, the salesmen.
Alderman ANSLEY—You had no direction what
they were to do with it ? Witness—No. One
quarter was carried to the place by a porter, but he
brcught it back to the cart directly, because the
salesman was not then up. It was then a little
after five in the morning.
William Adams, in the service of Messrs. Challis
and Harris, said that the porter brought the quarter
to him, but his master having given him strict
orders not to receive any thing unfit for sale, he ob-
jected to receiving it, and when his master came he
sent him to the cart to look at it.

Mr. Dunsby—Then in your judgment as a butcher
it was ❑nfit for food. Witness—l had such strict
orders, I thought I ought not to receive it.
Mr. Dunsby—Did your master sanction your re-
jection ?—Witness : The meat was such as he did

not choose to have any thing to do with.
William Fisher, the cleric of the market, consi-
dered the meat unwholesome. There was no doubt
upon his mind that the cow died without being killed.
Wilmer, a patrol, who had been in the grazing
line sixteen years, also believed the meat to be unfit
for human food. When Mr. Harris looked at it in
the cart, he turned away, and said, " I'll have no-
thing to do with it."
Bates being recalled by Mr. Dunsby, and ques-
tioned as to what he heard in the country when he
went with the summons, said he learnt that the cow
had dropped in a close next Dockeray's, a butcher
and publican at Cheshunt.
Mr. Alderman ANSLEY objected to any hearsay
evidence being taken, but Mr. Dunsby persisting in
his inquiries, Bates said, Dockeray told him he had
heard from Samuel Mould, a cow-doctor, that he
offered to buy it, but his offer was rejected, because

it was said that 71. or 81. could be obtained for the
carcass in London. In the neck there were as many
holes as in the top of a pepper-box, from the re-
peated attempts to make it bleed freer.
There being no further evidence,
Mr. Chapman said it was false that this cow had
died in a close next Dockeray's; and if any cow did•
die there, it was a different case. Dockeray lived at
a considerable distance from the field where this cow
dropped her calf. She was afterwards regularly
killed in the field, and dragged upon a truck to the
slaughter-house, 100 yards off. The cow was full
of fat, and in blooming condition, and he thought
it would be a pity to lose her. The carcass looked
very clean and handsome, except that one of the
quarters was bruised.
Mr. Dunsby—Being killed in the particular state
you have mentioned, did you consider the meat as
fit for food as any other beast ? Mr. Chapman—lt
was very good.
Mr. Dunsby recalled Mr. Fisher, who being asked
if he thought a cow killed immediately after calving
was fit for food, replied he should say it was not.
Mr. Over, a retired master butcher, was asked

the same question, and gave a similar answer. Mr.
Over was sure Mr. Chapman must, upon reflection,
see that the loins in particular, which were the seat
of pain, in a cow killed, as it were, while in the ago-
nies of parturition, must be discoloured.
Mr. Dunsby asked why the carcass was sent to
London for Monday's market, there being a consi-
derable meat market at Ware on Tuesday, within
seven miles of the place where it was killed.
Mr. Chapman said, because the London market
had always been the receptacle for such kind of.
meat. There was no consumption for it elsewhere.
Mr. Dunsby thanked him for so frankly stating the
feeling in the country respecting the palates and
judgment of the Londoners.
Mr. Chapman called John Miles, his servant, who
swore that the cow was alive in the field, when he
knocked it on the head and stuck it. A pailfull and
a•half of blood came from it.
Mr. Dunsby—lt was in a very healthy state ?
Miles—l cannot say more than this,—l ate the
scut.—(A laugh.)
Mr. Dunsby—lf you had eaten the hide, it would
not have proved the meat was; good. It was in a
healthy state ? Miles—lt was " down," but it was
alive.

Mr. Dunsby—l am afraid that is as much as you
can say. Miles—lt might have lived three or four
days, or recovered with a little expense.
The City Solicitor remarked, that a fine cow worth
201. would not have been killed to be sold for 81. if
there had been a hope of recovery.
A gentleman from Cheshunt spoke to the cow
being in fat high condition two days before it was
killed, and Mr. Chapman rested his case on Mould,
the cow-doctor, having advised that he should be
killed for London, denying, at the same time,- that
Mould had offered to buy it as dog's meat.
John Kidgell Sandon, Esq., was anxious to make
some observations, but
Mr. Alderman ANSLEY said Mr. Sandon's name
had not been mentioned in these proceedings, and
he would advise him to refrain, lest he might crimi-
nate himself.
Mr. Sandon said, as his name had been mentioned
in the newspapers, he wished to speak the truth.
The Alderman again interrupted him, to repeat
his caution.
Mr. Dunsby submitted that this was a case which
called forprosecution,if the City Solicitor thought the
evidence brought the charge home to Mr. Chapman.
The City Solicitor thought the evidence quite
strong enough.
Mr. Chapman said it would be exceedingly hard
to prosecute him for killing the beast under Mr.
Sandon's direction.
Captain Sandon said, Mr. Chapman would recol-
lect he directed him entirely upon the advice he re-
eeived from him.
Mr. Alderman ANSLEY said, he would only re-
quire Mr. Chapman to enter into his own recogni-
zance in 50/. to appear at the next Sessions, if the
City Solicitor should think it a case to prosecute.
Mr. Chapman entered into the desired recogni-
zance.
Mr. Dunsby hoped this would be the last case he
should bring to notice. If the country gentlemen
were so kind as to send the Cocknies any more un-
sound meat,
_they would probably find they would

= Yesterday the stewarl and secretary of a Ger-
tan benefit society appei .ed before Mr. HALLS, to
answer the comp!aint of Adolph Frederick Birch, a
very old and infirm German, whose name had been
" scratched" from the books of the society for an
alleged non-compliance with its rules.
It appeared that the complainant, who is almost
in his second childhood, has been for 40 years a
member of the society, paying regularly his subscrip-
tions during that long period, and seldom if ever re-
quiring to participate in the advantages to which he
was entitled. By the rules of the society it is in-
cutntent that members shall pay their arrears of
subscription within six months, in default of which
they are liable to be " scratched,"—that is, exclud-
ed altogether from the society. In the present in-
stance it appeared, that the complainant was in
arrear last Christmas, to the amount of about 12s.
On the March following, this arrear was paid up,
and the amount entered regularly in the book of sub-
scriptions. The entry, however, did not specify
the sum as the balance of a former payment, but
the .12s. were placed to the account of the current
quarter. Owing to the growing infimities of the
complainant, he was at last obliged to apply to the
society for a stipulated allowance, when his applica-
tion was met by a refusal, on the ground that more
than six months had expired since last he had paid
up his subscription, and that, consequently, his
name had been erased from the books, and he was
no longer to consider himself a member of the society.
Mr. HALLS, on referring to the entry in the book,
observed that it was a clear acknowledgment made
by the complainant in the month of March, for the
quarter then due. Upon what ground, therefore,
could the officers of the society turn round upon so
old a member and tell him that he was excluded, as'
he had suffered an arrear of six months and upwards?
The Secretary endeavoured to show that the
12s. paid in March was merely the balance of the
December payment. He admitted that the sum had
been improperly entered.
Mr. HALLS—And is this poor old man to suffer
for your error? I shall take the entry as I find it,
and not as you would wish it to appear. It has not
been proved to me that the complainant has suffered
six months to expire.--' since his last payment, and
therefore I determine 'that he be at once restored to all
the benefits of the society, of which he has been so
long a member. The attempt to deprive him of
his hard-earned rights was most discreditable to the
society, and furnished another instance of the un-
principled manner in which benefit societies were in
general conducted.
The old man stepped forward. to thank the Magis-
trate for his humane decision, and Mr. HALLS ex-
pressed a hope that he would live for many years to
vex the worthy conductors of, the German Benefi
Society.