The effects of this passion, on the efforts and disposition of man, are often surprizing: it operates in a manner equally beneficial on the body, and has sometimes remedied the most inveterate complaints, which had defeated the skill of physicians, and resisted the powers of medicine.
Though the most impetuous of all the passions, its progress is generally slow; and, if due precautions were taken, it would seldom be attended with unfavourable consequences.—Reason, however, often fails to subdue the first attacks of love, so that it ceases to excite pleasure, and not unfrequently reduces its victim to the lowest state of despondency. Hence it is advisable to remove every object, that tends to kindle the passion; and to introduce the patient into cheerful society. With the same intention, the strictest temperance should be observed; the mind and body alternately employed, by study or exercise; while the diet ought to be low, and less nourishing than usual. But the most efficacious remedy, in the plurality of instances, would be the union of the two parties; and, if parents were more solicitous to consult the real inclination and interest of their children, we are persuaded, that not only the number of wretched couples might be considerably diminished, but the public streets of populous cities would not be infested with those hapless females, who are at present doomed to perdition:—they afford, indeed, too many incontestable proofs of the imperfect state of society.
LOVE-APPLE, or Solanum Lycopersicum L. a native of the East and West Indies, whence it has been intrcduced into our gardens. It is propagated from seeds, which are sown in the month of March, in a hot-bed of a moderate temperature. When the plants have attained the height of about two inches, they are transplanted into another bed of a similar warmth, where they are set four inches asunder. In this state, they require constant moisture till the month of May, at which time they are finally removed into pots; frequently watered, and shaded till August, when their red fruit becomes perfectly ripe.—The love-apple is greatly esteemed at the table of the epicure: it is either used in soups or broths, to which it imparts an agreeable acid taste; or it is boiled and served up as a garnish to dishes of animal food.
LOUSE, in zoology, a genus of insects too well known to require any description.
Lice are not peculiar to mankind, but infest quadrupeds, birds, fishes, and vegetables. Each class of animals is troubled with a particular species of these vermin; and birds are remarkably obnoxious to their attacks. There are forty different species of lice that prey on the fluids of living animal bodies, and which are distinguished by their colour, shape, and size; nay, even insects, such as snails, spiders, and bees, are not exempt from them.
The human race is liable to be exclusively invaded by three different species of lice; namely, 1. The Crab, or Body-louse, which never appears in clothes, or on the head, but harbours only in some parts of the bodies of uncleanly, or such persons as are disordered by dissipation: it is easily exterminated, by applying a strong decoction of tobacco, or mercurial oint-
