Ovid never would have said that, if he had smoked a cigar or chewed tobacco. The ancients believed that love might be excited by certain articles taken from the vegetable kingdom. Why then should it be considered impossible to allay the same feeling in a similar manner? Every bane has its corresponding antidote; if so, there may be physic even for a philter. And for the pangs which a virgin has inflicted, what remedy could be prescribed more reasonable than the Virginian weed;—besides, love generally ends in smoke.
A CURE FOR THE HEARTACHE.
Væ misero capiti, madefacto, sæpe fenestræ
Imbribus immundis, Lydia cara, tuæ:
Woe to my wretched head, often wetted, dear
Lydia, by the unclean showers of your window.
This would be a proper place for introducing a few remarks on the ancient mode of serenading; which we are prevented from doing by the very imperfect state of our present information on this interesting point. It is, however, pretty generally admitted that the Romans always took care to provide themselves with an umbrella on these occasions, and this for a reason which the above distich will have rendered sufficiently obvious. It appears to us that so salutary a precaution is well worthy of being sometimes adopted in these modern days—and with this hint we conclude the Syntax.