February 7.

St. Dorothy,A. D.308.St. Vedast, Bishop,A. D.539.St. Amandus,A. D.675.St. Barsanuphius.

Blue Jacinth.Hyacinthus Orientalis cœruleus.Dedicated toSt. Dorothy.

St. Romuald,A. D.1027.St. Richard, King of the West Saxons,A. D.722.St. Theodorusof Heraclea,A. D.319.St. Tresain, 6th Cent.St. Augulus, Bishop.

Roundleaved Cyclamen.Cyclamen Coum.Dedicated toSt. Romuald.

St. Johnof Matha,A. D.1213.St. Stephenof Grandmont,A. D.1124.St. Paul, Bishop of Verdun,A. D.631.St. Cuthman.

Narrow Spring Moss.Mnium Androgynum.Dedicated toSt. John of Matha.

St. Apollonia,A. D.249.St. Nicephorus,A. D.260.St. Theliau, Bishop,A. D.580.St. Ansbert, Abp. of Rouen,A. D.695.St. Attracta or Tarahataof Ireland.St. HerardorEberhard.

Roman Narcissus.Narcissus Romanus.Dedicated toSt. Apollonia.

St. Scholastica,A. D.543.St. Coteris, 4th Cent.St. Williamof Maleval,A. D.1157.St. Erlulph, Scotch Bishop.

Mezereon.Daphne Mezereon.Dedicated toSt. Scholastica.Silky Fork Moss.Mnium heteomallum.Dedicated toSt. Coteris.

St. Saturninus Dativus, &c.of Africa,A. D.304.St. Severinus,A. D.507,The Empress Theodora,A. D.867.

Red Primrose.Primula Verna rubra.Dedicated toSt. Theodora.

St. Benedictof Anian,A. D.821.St. Meletiusof Antioch.A. D.381.St. Eulaliaof Barcelona.St. Anthony Cauleas,A. D.896.

HILARY TERMends.

Noble Liverwort.Anemone hepatica.Dedicated toSt. Eulalia.

St. Catherine de Ricci.A. D.1589.St. Licinius, Bishop,A. D.618.St. Polyeuctus,A. D.257.St. Gregory II.Pope.St. Martinianus.St. ModomnocorDominickof Ossory, 6th Cent.St. Stephen, Abbot, 6th Cent.Roger, Abbot,A. D.1175.

Polyanthus.Primula polyantha.Dedicated toSt. Catherine de Ricci.

VALENTINE’S DAY.

St. Valentine.St. Maro,A. D.433.St. Abraames,A. D.422.St. Augentius, 5th Cent.St. Conran, Bishop of Orkney.

Of this saint, so celebrated among young persons, little is known, except that he was a priest of Rome, and martyred there about 270.

It was a custom with the ancient Roman youth to draw the names of girls in honour of their goddess Februata-Juno on the 15th of February, in exchange for which certain Roman catholic pastors substituted the names of saints in billets given the day before, namely, on the 14th of February.

Postman on donkey

Wherecanthe postman be, I say?He ought tofly—on such a day!Ofalldays in the year, you know,It’s monstrous rude to be soslow:The fellow’s soexceedingstupid—Hark!—therehe is!—oh! thedearCupid!

Two hundred thousand letters beyond the usual daily average, annually pass through the twopenny post-office in London on St. Valentine’s Day. “Two hundred thousand twopences,” said an old gentleman as he read this in a March newspaper, “are four hundred thousand pence,”—and he was going to cast up the amount—“Why, papa,” said his daughter, “that’s just the number of young folks there must be in love with each other—that’s the way to reckon.” “Ah, my child, that’snotthe way to reckon; you have taken something into theaccountthat has nobusinessthere: all Valentine-writers are not in love, nor are all lovers Valentine-writers; and remember, my dear girl, that as smiles on the face sometimes conceal cruel dispositions, so there are some who write Valentines, and trifle with hearts for the mere pleasure of inflicting pain.” “I will show you what Imean,” said the old gentleman, and taking a paper from a drawer, he held up this exemplification:

Bear eating heart

Just then an unmarried gentleman, “of acertainage,” entered the room. On becoming acquainted with the topic, he drew from his pocket a small packet, and said, with a merry smile, “Here wasmyValentine.” It contained a rib of some small animal completely enveloped with white satin ribbon, ornamented by a true lover’s knot at each end, and another in the middle. Father and daughter both had a laugh at the “old bachelor,” and he, laughing with them, put into the young lady’s hand the poetical address that accompanied hisrib:

Go contemplate this lovely sign!Haste thee away to reason’s shrine,And listen to her voice;No more illusive shades pursue,To happiness this gives the clue,Make but a prudent choice.’Till Adam had a partner given,Much as fair Eden bloom’d like heaven,His bliss was incomplete;No social friend those joys to share,Gave the gay scene a vacant air!She came—’twas all replete.And could not genuine Paradise,The most extensive wish suffice,Its guiltless lord possest?No—not without a kindred mate;How then in this degen’rate state,Can man, alone be blest?But now the Muse withdraws her aid;Enough, thy folly to upbraid;Enough to make thee wise:No more of pensive hours complain,No more, that all life’s joys are vain,If thou this hint despise.Feb. 13, 182—.A Friend.

Go contemplate this lovely sign!Haste thee away to reason’s shrine,And listen to her voice;No more illusive shades pursue,To happiness this gives the clue,Make but a prudent choice.

’Till Adam had a partner given,Much as fair Eden bloom’d like heaven,His bliss was incomplete;No social friend those joys to share,Gave the gay scene a vacant air!She came—’twas all replete.

And could not genuine Paradise,The most extensive wish suffice,Its guiltless lord possest?No—not without a kindred mate;How then in this degen’rate state,Can man, alone be blest?

But now the Muse withdraws her aid;Enough, thy folly to upbraid;Enough to make thee wise:No more of pensive hours complain,No more, that all life’s joys are vain,If thou this hint despise.

Feb. 13, 182—.

A Friend.

“Well now, this is capital!” exclaimed the laughing lass. “Aftersucha Valentine, youmusttake the hint, my dear sir, it’s really a shame that so good-natured a man should remain a bachelor. I recollect, that when I could only just run about, you used to besokind to me; besides, how you dandled and played with me! and since then, how you have read to me and instructed me till I grew up! Such a man is the very man to be married: you are every way domestic, and it’ssettled; youmustget married.”—“Well, then, willyouhave me?” he inquired, with a cheerful laugh. “Ihave you? No! Why, you are too old; but not too old to find a wife: there are many ladies whom we know, of your age, wholly disengaged; but you don’t pay them anyparticularattention.” Her father interposed; and the gentleman she addressed playfully said, “It is a little hard, indeed, that I should have these fine compliments and severe reproaches at the same time: however,” taking her by the hand, “you will understand, that itispossible Imayhave paidparticularattention to a lady at an age when the affections are warmer; I did; and I reconciled myself to rejection by courting my books and the pleasures of solitude—

Hast thou been ever wakingFrom slumbers soft and light,And heard sweet music breakingThe stillness of the night;When all thy soul was blendingWith that delightful strain,And night her silence lendingTo rivet fancy’s chain;Then on a sudden pausing,Those strains have ceas’d to playA painful absence causingOf bliss that died away!So from my soul has vanish’dThe dream of youthful days;So Hope and Love are banish’d,AndTruthher pow’r displays.”

Hast thou been ever wakingFrom slumbers soft and light,And heard sweet music breakingThe stillness of the night;

When all thy soul was blendingWith that delightful strain,And night her silence lendingTo rivet fancy’s chain;

Then on a sudden pausing,Those strains have ceas’d to playA painful absence causingOf bliss that died away!

So from my soul has vanish’dThe dream of youthful days;So Hope and Love are banish’d,AndTruthher pow’r displays.”

The origin of so pleasant a day, the first pleasant day in the year, whether its season be regarded, or the mode of its celebration, requires some little investigation; nor must some of its past and present usages be unrecorded here.

St. Valentine’s Morning.Hark! through the sacred silence of the nightLoud chanticleer doth sound his clarion shrill,Hailing with song the first pale gleam of lightWhich floats the dark brow of yon eastern hill.Bright star of morn, oh! leave not yet the waveTo deck the dewy frontlet of the day;Nor thou, Aurora, quit Tithonus’ cave,Nor drive retiring darkness yet away.Ere these my rustic hands a garland twine,Ere yet my tongue endite a single song,For her I mean to hail my Valentine,Sweet maiden, fairest of the virgin throng.Dodsley’s Miscell.

St. Valentine’s Morning.

Hark! through the sacred silence of the nightLoud chanticleer doth sound his clarion shrill,Hailing with song the first pale gleam of lightWhich floats the dark brow of yon eastern hill.Bright star of morn, oh! leave not yet the waveTo deck the dewy frontlet of the day;Nor thou, Aurora, quit Tithonus’ cave,Nor drive retiring darkness yet away.Ere these my rustic hands a garland twine,Ere yet my tongue endite a single song,For her I mean to hail my Valentine,Sweet maiden, fairest of the virgin throng.

Hark! through the sacred silence of the nightLoud chanticleer doth sound his clarion shrill,Hailing with song the first pale gleam of lightWhich floats the dark brow of yon eastern hill.

Bright star of morn, oh! leave not yet the waveTo deck the dewy frontlet of the day;Nor thou, Aurora, quit Tithonus’ cave,Nor drive retiring darkness yet away.

Ere these my rustic hands a garland twine,Ere yet my tongue endite a single song,For her I mean to hail my Valentine,Sweet maiden, fairest of the virgin throng.

Dodsley’s Miscell.

Attend we uponElia. Hark, how triumphantly that noble herald of the college of kindness proclaims the day!

“Hail to thy returning festival, old Bishop Valentine! Great is thy name in the rubric, thou venerable arch-flamen of Hymen! Immortal Go-between! who and what manner of person art thou? Art thou but a name, typifying the restless principle which impels poor humans to seek perfection in union? or wert thou indeed a mortal prelate, with thy tippet and thy rochet, thy apron on, and decent lawn sleeves? Mysterious personage! like unto thee, assuredly, there is no other mitred father in the calendar.—Thou comest attended with thousands and ten thousands of little Loves, and the air is

Brush’d with the hiss of rustling wings;

singing Cupids are thy choristers, and thy precentors; and instead of the crosier, the mystical arrow is borne before thee.

“In other words, this is the day on which those charming little missives, ycleped Valentines, cross and intercross each other at every street and turning. The weary and all for-spent twopenny postman sinks beneath a load of delicate embarrassments, not his own. It is scarcely credible to what an extent this ephemeral courtship is carried on in this loving town, to the great enrichment of porters, and detriment of knockers and bell-wires. In these little visual interpretations, no emblem is so common as theheart,—that little three-cornered exponent of all our hopes and fears,—the bestuck and bleeding heart; it is twisted and tortured into more allegories and affectations than an opera-hat. What authority we have in history or mythology for placing the head-quarters and metropolis of god Cupid in this anatomical seat rather than in any other, is not very clear; but we have got it, and it will serve as well as any other thing. Else we might easily imagine, upon some other system which might have prevailed for any thing which our pathology knows to the contrary, a lover addressing his mistress, in perfect simplicity of feeling, ‘Madam, myliverand fortune are entirely at your disposal;’ or putting a delicate question, ‘Amanda, have you amidriffto bestow?’ But custom has settled these things, and awarded the seat of sentiment to the aforesaid triangle, while its less fortunate neighbours wait at animal and anatomical distance.

“Not many sounds in life, and I include all urban and all rural sounds, exceed in interest aknock at the door. It ‘gives a very echo to the throne where Hope is seated.’ But its issues seldom answer to this oracle within. It is so seldom that just the person we want to see comes. But of all the clamorous visitations, the welcomest in expectation is the sound that ushers in, or seems to usher in, a Valentine. As the raven himself was hoarse that announced the fatal entrance of Duncan, so the knock of the postman on this day is light, airy, confident, and befitting one that ‘bringeth good tidings.’ It is less mechanical than on other days; you will say, ‘That is not the post, I am sure.’ Visions of Love, of Cupids, of Hymens, and all those delightful, eternal common-places, which ‘having been, will always be;’ which no schoolboy nor schoolman can write away; having their irreversible throne in the fancy and affections; what are your transports, when the happy maiden, opening with careful finger, careful not to break the emblematic seal, bursts upon the sight of some well-designed allegory, some type, some youthful fancy, not without verses—

Lovers all,A madrigal,

or some such device, not over abundant in sense—young Love disclaims it,—and not quite silly—something between wind and water, a chorus where the sheep might almost join the shepherd, as they did, or as I apprehend they did, in Arcadia.

“All Valentines are not foolish, and I shall not easily forget thine, my kind friend (if I may have leave to call youso) E. B.—E. B. lived opposite a young maiden, whom he had often seen, unseen, from his parlour window inC——e-street. She was all joyousness and innocence, and just of an age to enjoy receiving a Valentine, and just of a temper to bear the disappointment of missing one with good humour. E. B. is an artist of no common powers; in the fancy parts of designing, perhaps inferior to none; his name is known at the bottom of many a well-executed vignette in the way of his profession, but no further; for E. B. is modest, and the world meets nobody half-way. E. B. meditated how he could repay this young maiden for many a favour which she had done him unknown; for, when a kindly face greets us, though but passing by, and never knows us again, nor we it, we should feel it as an obligation; and E. B. did. This good artist set himself at work to please the damsel. It was just before Valentine’s day three years since. He wrought unseen, and unsuspected, a wondrous work. We need not say it was on the finest gilt paper with borders—full, not of common hearts and heartless allegory, but all the prettiest stories of love from Ovid, and older poets than Ovid (for E. B. is a scholar.) There was Pyramus and Thisbe, and be sure Dido was not forgot, nor Hero and Leander, and swans more than sang in Cayster, with mottoes and fanciful devices, such as beseemed,—a work in short of magic. Iris dipt the woof. This on Valentine’s eve he commended to the all-swallowing indiscriminate orifice—(O, ignoble trust!)—of the common post; but the humble medium did its duty, and from his watchful stand, the next morning, he saw the cheerful messenger knock, and by and by the precious charge delivered. He saw, unseen, the happy girl unfold the Valentine, dance about, clap her hands, as one after one the pretty emblems unfolded themselves. She danced about, not with light love, or foolish expectations, for she had no lover; or, if she had, none she knew that could have created those bright images which delighted her. It was more like some fairy present; a God-send, as our familiarly pious ancestors termed a benefit received, where the benefactor was unknown. It would do her no harm. It would do her good for ever after. It is good to love the unknown. I only give this as a specimen of E. B., and his modest way of doing a concealed kindness.

“Good morrow to my Valentine, sings poor Ophelia; and no better wish, but with better auspices, we wish to all faithful lovers, who are not too wise to despise old legends, but are content to rank themselves humble diocesans with old Bishop Valentine, and his true church.”

Mr. Douce, whose attainments include more erudition concerning the origin and progress of English customs than any other antiquarian possesses, must be referred to upon this occasion. He observes, in his “Illustrations of Shakspeare,” concerning St. Valentine’s day, that “it was the practice in ancient Rome, during a great part of the month of February, to celebrate the Lupercalia, which were feasts in honour of Pan and Juno, whence the latter deity was named Februata, Februalis, and Februlla. On this occasion, amidst a variety of ceremonies, the names of young women were put into a box, from which they were drawn by the men as chance directed. The pastors of the early christian church, who by every possible means endeavoured to eradicate the vestiges of pagan superstitions, and chiefly by some commutations of their forms, substituted, in the present instance, the names of particular saints instead of those of the women, and as the festival of the Lupercalia had commenced about the middle of February, they appear to have chosen St. Valentine’s day for celebrating the new feast, because it occurred nearly at the same time. This is, in part, the opinion of a learned and rational compiler of the ‘Lives of the Saints,’ the Rev. Alban Butler. It should seem, however, that it was utterly impossible to extirpate altogether any ceremony to which the common people had been much accustomed: a fact which it were easy to prove in tracing the origin of various other popular superstitions. And accordingly the outline of the ancient ceremonies was preserved, but modified by some adaptation to the christian system. It is reasonable to suppose that the above practice of choosing mates would gradually become reciprocal in the sexes; and that all persons so chosen would be called Valentines, from the day on which the ceremony took place.”

Leaving intermediary facts to the curious inquirer, we come immediately to a few circumstances and sayings from grave authors and gay poets respectingthis festival, as it is observed in our own country. It is recorded as a rural tradition, that on St. Valentine’s day each bird of the air chooses its mate; and hence it is presumed, that our homely ancestors, in their lusty youth, adopted a practice which we still find peculiar to a season when nature bursts its imprisonments for the coming pleasures of the cheerful spring. Lydgate, the monk of Bury, who died in 1440, and is described by Warton to have been “not only the poet of his monastery, but of the world in general,” has a poem in praise of queene Catherine, consort to Henry V., wherein he says:

SeynteValentine. Of custome yeere by yeereMen have an usaunce, in this regioun,To loke and serche Cupides kalendere,And chose theyr choyse, by grete affeccioun;Such as benmovewith Cupides mocioun,Takyng theyre choyse as theyr sort doth falle:But I love oon whiche excellith alle.

Chaucer imagines “Nature the vicare of the Almightie Lord,” to address the happiest of living things at this season, the birds, thus:

Foules, take hede of my sentence I pray,And for your own ease in fordring of your need,As fast as I may speak I will me speed:Ye know well, how on St. Valentine’s dayBy my statute and through my governaunce,Ye doe chese your Makes, and after flie awayWith hem as Imoveyou with pleasaunce.*****Saint Valentine, thou art full high on loft,Which drivest away the long nightès black,Thus singen smallè foules for thy sake,Will have they causè for to gladden oft,Since each of them recovered hath his Make:Full blissful may they sing, when they awake.

*****

Saint Valentine, thou art full high on loft,Which drivest away the long nightès black,Thus singen smallè foules for thy sake,Will have they causè for to gladden oft,Since each of them recovered hath his Make:Full blissful may they sing, when they awake.

Our young readers are informed, that the word “make” in Chaucer, now obsolete, signified mate.

Jago, a poet, who, if he has not soared to greatness, has at least attained to the easy versification of agreeable, and sometimes higher feelings, has left us a few stanzas, which harmonize with the suppositions of Chaucer:

St. Valentine’s Day.The tuneful choir in amorous strainsAccost their feathered loves;While each fond mate, with equal pains,The tender suit approves.With cheerful hop from spray to sprayThey sport along the meads;In social bliss together stray,Where love or fancy leads.Through Spring’s gay scenes each happy pairTheir fluttering joys pursue;Its various charms and produce share,For ever kind and true.Their sprightly notes from every shadeTheir mutual loves proclaim;Till Winter’s chilling blasts invade,And damp th’ enlivening flame.Then all the jocund scene declines,Nor woods nor meads delight;The drooping tribe in secret pines,And mourns th’ unwelcome sight.Go, blissful warblers! timely wise,Th’ instructive moral tell;Nor thou their meaning lays despise,My charming Annabelle!

St. Valentine’s Day.

The tuneful choir in amorous strainsAccost their feathered loves;While each fond mate, with equal pains,The tender suit approves.With cheerful hop from spray to sprayThey sport along the meads;In social bliss together stray,Where love or fancy leads.Through Spring’s gay scenes each happy pairTheir fluttering joys pursue;Its various charms and produce share,For ever kind and true.Their sprightly notes from every shadeTheir mutual loves proclaim;Till Winter’s chilling blasts invade,And damp th’ enlivening flame.Then all the jocund scene declines,Nor woods nor meads delight;The drooping tribe in secret pines,And mourns th’ unwelcome sight.Go, blissful warblers! timely wise,Th’ instructive moral tell;Nor thou their meaning lays despise,My charming Annabelle!

The tuneful choir in amorous strainsAccost their feathered loves;While each fond mate, with equal pains,The tender suit approves.

With cheerful hop from spray to sprayThey sport along the meads;In social bliss together stray,Where love or fancy leads.

Through Spring’s gay scenes each happy pairTheir fluttering joys pursue;Its various charms and produce share,For ever kind and true.

Their sprightly notes from every shadeTheir mutual loves proclaim;Till Winter’s chilling blasts invade,And damp th’ enlivening flame.

Then all the jocund scene declines,Nor woods nor meads delight;The drooping tribe in secret pines,And mourns th’ unwelcome sight.

Go, blissful warblers! timely wise,Th’ instructive moral tell;Nor thou their meaning lays despise,My charming Annabelle!

Old John Dunton’s “British Apollo” sings a question and answer:

Why, Valentine’s a day to chooseA mistress, and our freedom lose?May I my reason interpose,The question with an answer close?To imitate we have a mind,And couple like the winged kind.

Further on, in the same miscellany, is another question and answer:

“Question.Inchusingvalentines (according to custom) is not the party chusing (be it man or woman) to make a present to the party chosen?

“Answer.We think it more proper to say,drawingof valentines, since the most customary way is for each to take his or herlot. And chance cannot be termed choice. According to this method,the obligations are equal, and therefore it was formerly the custom mutually to present, but now it is customary only for the gentlemen.”

Thisdrawingof valentines is remarked in Poor Robin’s Almanac for 1676, under St. Valentine’s day:

“Now Andrew, Antho-ny, and William,For ValentinesdrawPrue, Kate, Jilian.”

Misson, a learned traveller, who died in England about 1721, describes the amusing practices of his time:—“On the eve of the 14th of February, St. Valentine’s day, the young folks in England and Scotland, by a very ancient custom, celebrate a little festival. An equal number of maids and bachelors get together, each writes their true or some feigned name upon separate billets, which they roll up, and draw by way of lots, the maids taking the men’s billets, and the men the maids’; so that each of the young men lights upon a girl that he calls his valentine, and each of the girls upon a young man which she calls hers. By this means each has two valentines: but the man sticks faster to the valentine that is fallen to him, than to the valentine to whom he is fallen. Fortune having thus divided the company into so many couples, the valentines give balls and treats to their mistresses, wear their billets several days upon their bosoms or sleeves, and this little sport often ends in love. This ceremony is practised differently in different counties, and according to the freedom or severity of madam Valentine. There is another kind of valentine, which is the first young man or woman that chance throws in your way in the street, or elsewhere, on that day.”

In some places, at this time, and more particularly in London, the lad’s valentine is the first lass he sees in the morning, who is not an inmate of the house; the lass’s valentine is the first youth she sees. Gay mentions this usage on St. Valentine’s day: he makes a rustic housewife remind her good man,—

I early rose just at the break of day,Before the sun had chas’d the stars away;A field I went, amid the morning dewTo milk my kine, (for so should house-wives do,)Thee first I spied, and the first swain we seeIn spite of Fortune shall ourtrue-lovebe.

So also in the “Connoisseur” there is mention of the same usage preceded by certain mysterious ceremonies the night before; one of these being almost certain to ensure an indigestion is therefore likely to occasion a dream favourable to the dreamer’s waking wishes.—“Last Friday was Valentine’s day, and, the night before, I got five bay-leaves, and pinned four of them to the four corners of my pillow, and the fifth to the middle; and then, if I dreamt of my sweetheart, Betty said we should be married before the year was out. But to make it more sure, I boiled an egg hard, and took out the yolk, and filled it with salt; and when I went to bed, ate it, shell and all, without speaking or drinking after it. We also wrote our lovers’ names upon bits of paper, and rolled them up in clay, and put them into water: and the first that rose up was to be our valentine. Would you think it, Mr. Blossom was my man. I lay a-bed and shut my eyes all the morning, till he came to our house; for I would not have seen another man before him for all the world.”

Shakspeare bears witness to the custom of looking for your valentine, or desiring to be one, through poor Ophelia’s singing

Good morrow! ’tis St. Valentine’s dayAll in the morning betime,And I a maid at your window,To be your valentine!

Sylvanus Urban, in 1779, was informed by Kitty Curious, that on St. Valentine’s day in that year, at a little obscure village in Kent, she found an odd kind of sport. The girls from five or six to eighteen years old were assembled in a crowd, burning an uncouth effigy which they called a “holly boy,” and which they had stolen from the boys; while in another part of the village the boys were burning what they called an “ivy girl,” which they had stolen from the girls. The ceremony of each burning was accompanied by acclamations, huzzas, and other noise. Kitty inquired the meaning of this from the oldest people in the place, but she could learn no more than that it had always been a sport at that season.

A correspondent communicates to theEvery-Day Booka singular custom, which prevailed many years since in the west of England. Three single young men went out together before daylight on St. Valentine’s day, with a clapnet to catch an old owl and two sparrows in a neighbouring barn. If they were successful, and could bring the birds to the inn without injury before the females of the house had risen, they were rewarded by the hostess with three pots of purl in honour of St. Valentine, and enjoyed the privilege of demanding at any other house in the neighbourhood a similar boon. This was done, says our correspondent, as an emblem that the owl being the bird of wisdom, could influence the feathered race to enter the net of love as mates on that day, whereon both single lads and maidens should be reminded that happiness could alone be secured by an early union.

On this ancient festival, it was formerly the custom for men to make presents to the women. In Scotland these valentine gifts were reciprocal, as indeed they are still in some parts.

Hurdis calls this

The day Saint Valentine,When maids are brisk, and at the break of dayStart up and turn their pillows, curious allTo know what happy swain the fates provideA mate for life. Then follows thick dischargeOf true-love knots and sonnets nicely penned.

St. Valentine is the lover’s saint. Not that lovers have more superstition than other people, but their imaginings are more. As it is fabled that Orpheus “played so well, he moved old Nick;” so it is true that Love, “cruel tyrant,” moves the veriest brute. Its influence renders the coarsest nature somewhat interesting. A being of this kind, so possessed, is almost as agreeable as a parish cage with an owl inside; you hear its melancholy tee-whit tee-who, and wonder how it gotthere. Its place of settlement becomes a place of sentiment; nobody can liberate the starveling, and itwillstay there. Its mural notes seem so many calls for pity, which are much abated on the recollection, that there are openings enough for its escape. The “tender passion” in the two mile an hour Jehu of an eight-horse waggon, puzzles him mightily. He “sighs and drives, sighs and drives, and drives and sighs again,” till the approach of this festival enables him to buy “a valentine,” with a “halter” and a “couple o’ hearts” transfixed by an arrow in the form of a weathercock, inscribed

“I’ll be yours, if you’ll be mine,I am your pleasing Valentine.”

This he gets his name written under by the shopkeeper, and will be quite sure that it is his name, before he walks after his waggon, which he has left to go on, because neither that nor his passion can brook delay. After he is out of the town, he looks behind him, lest anybody should see, and for a mile or two on the road, ponders on the “two hearts made one,” as a most singular device, and with admired devotion. He then puts it in the trusty pocket under his frock, which holds the waggon bill, and flogs his horses to quicken their pace towards the inn, where “she,” who is “his heart’s delight,” has been lately promoted to the rank of under kitchen-maid,viceher who resigned, on being called “to the happy estate of matrimony” by a neighbouring carter. He gives her the mysterious paper in the yard, she receives it with a “what be this?” and with a smack on the lips, and a smack from the whip on the gown. The gods have made him poetical, and, from his recollection of a play he saw at the statute-fair, he tells her that “love, like a worm in the mud, has played upon his Lammas cheek” ever since last Lammas-tide, and she knows it has, and that she’s his valentine. With such persons and with nature, this is the season of breaking the ice.

St. Valentine, be it repeated, is the saint of all true lovers of every degree, and hence the letters missive to the fair, from wooers on his festival, bear his name. Brand thinks “one of the most elegant jeu-d’esprits on this occasion,” is one wherein an admirer reminds his mistress of the choice attributed by the legend to the choristers of the air on this day, and inquires of her—

Shall only you and I forbearTo meet and make a happy pair?Shall we alone delay to live?This day an age of bliss may give.But, ah! when I the proffer make,Still coyly you refuse to take;My heart I dedicate in vain,The too mean present you disdain.Yet since the solemn time allowsTo choose the object of our vows;Boldly I dare profess my flame,Proud to be yours by any name.

Shall only you and I forbearTo meet and make a happy pair?Shall we alone delay to live?This day an age of bliss may give.

But, ah! when I the proffer make,Still coyly you refuse to take;My heart I dedicate in vain,The too mean present you disdain.

Yet since the solemn time allowsTo choose the object of our vows;Boldly I dare profess my flame,Proud to be yours by any name.

A better might have been selected from the “Magazine of Magazines,” the “Gentleman’s,” wherein Mr. Urban has sometimes introduced the admirers of ladies to the admirers of antiquities—under which class ladies never come. Thence, ever and anon, as from some high barbican or watchtower old, “songs of loves and maids forsaken,” have aroused the contemplation from “facts, fancies, and recollections” regarding other times, to lovers “sighing like furnace” in our own. Through Sylvanus, nearly a century ago, there was poured this

Invocation of St. Valentine.Haste, friendlySaint! to my relief,My heart is stol’n, help! stop the thief!My rifled breast I search’d with care,And found Eliza lurking there.Away she started from my view,Yet may be caught, if thou pursue;Nor need I to describe her strive—The fairest, dearest maid alive!Seize her—yet treat the nymph divineWith gentle usage,Valentine!Then, tell her, she, for what was done,Must bringmyheart, and giveher own.

Invocation of St. Valentine.

Haste, friendlySaint! to my relief,My heart is stol’n, help! stop the thief!My rifled breast I search’d with care,And found Eliza lurking there.Away she started from my view,Yet may be caught, if thou pursue;Nor need I to describe her strive—The fairest, dearest maid alive!Seize her—yet treat the nymph divineWith gentle usage,Valentine!Then, tell her, she, for what was done,Must bringmyheart, and giveher own.

Haste, friendlySaint! to my relief,My heart is stol’n, help! stop the thief!My rifled breast I search’d with care,And found Eliza lurking there.

Away she started from my view,Yet may be caught, if thou pursue;Nor need I to describe her strive—The fairest, dearest maid alive!

Seize her—yet treat the nymph divineWith gentle usage,Valentine!Then, tell her, she, for what was done,Must bringmyheart, and giveher own.

So pleasant, so descriptive an illustration of the present custom, requires a companion equally amiable:

MY VALENTINE.Mark’d you her eye’s resistless glance,That does the enraptur’d soul entrance?Mark’d you that dark blue orb unfoldVolumes of bliss as yet untold?And felt you not, as I now feel,Delight no tongue could e’er reveal?Mark’d you her cheek that blooms and glowsA living emblem of the rose?Mark’d you her vernal lip that breathesThe balmy fragrance of its leaves?And felt you not, as I now feel,Delight no tongue can e’er reveal?Mark’d you her artless smiles that speakThe language written on her cheek,Where, bright as morn, and pure as dew,The bosom’s thoughts arise to view?And felt you not, as I now feel,Delight no tongue could e’er reveal?Mark’d you her face, and did not there,Sense, softness, sweetness, all appear?Mark’d you her form, and saw not youA heart and mind as lovely too?And felt you not, as I now feel,Delight no tongue could e’er reveal?Mark’d you all this, and you have knownThe treasured raptures that I own;Mark’d you all this, and you like me,Have wandered oft her shade to see,For you have felt, as I now feel,Delight no tongue could e’er reveal?High Wycombe.

MY VALENTINE.

Mark’d you her eye’s resistless glance,That does the enraptur’d soul entrance?Mark’d you that dark blue orb unfoldVolumes of bliss as yet untold?And felt you not, as I now feel,Delight no tongue could e’er reveal?Mark’d you her cheek that blooms and glowsA living emblem of the rose?Mark’d you her vernal lip that breathesThe balmy fragrance of its leaves?And felt you not, as I now feel,Delight no tongue can e’er reveal?Mark’d you her artless smiles that speakThe language written on her cheek,Where, bright as morn, and pure as dew,The bosom’s thoughts arise to view?And felt you not, as I now feel,Delight no tongue could e’er reveal?Mark’d you her face, and did not there,Sense, softness, sweetness, all appear?Mark’d you her form, and saw not youA heart and mind as lovely too?And felt you not, as I now feel,Delight no tongue could e’er reveal?Mark’d you all this, and you have knownThe treasured raptures that I own;Mark’d you all this, and you like me,Have wandered oft her shade to see,For you have felt, as I now feel,Delight no tongue could e’er reveal?

Mark’d you her cheek that blooms and glowsA living emblem of the rose?Mark’d you her vernal lip that breathesThe balmy fragrance of its leaves?And felt you not, as I now feel,Delight no tongue can e’er reveal?

Mark’d you her artless smiles that speakThe language written on her cheek,Where, bright as morn, and pure as dew,The bosom’s thoughts arise to view?And felt you not, as I now feel,Delight no tongue could e’er reveal?

Mark’d you her face, and did not there,Sense, softness, sweetness, all appear?Mark’d you her form, and saw not youA heart and mind as lovely too?And felt you not, as I now feel,Delight no tongue could e’er reveal?

Mark’d you all this, and you have knownThe treasured raptures that I own;Mark’d you all this, and you like me,Have wandered oft her shade to see,For you have felt, as I now feel,Delight no tongue could e’er reveal?

High Wycombe.

Every lady will bear witness that the roll of valentine poesy is interminable; and it being presumed that few would object to a peep in the editor’s budget, he offers a little piece, written, at the desire of a lady, under an engraving, which represented a girl fastening a letter to the neck of a pigeon:—

THE COURIER DOVE.“Va, porter cet écrit à l’objet de mon cœur!”Outstrip the winds my courier dove!On pinions fleet and free,And bear this letter to my loveWho’s far away from me.It bids him mark thy plume whereonThe changing colours range;But warns him that my peace is goneIf he should also change.It tells him thou return’st againTo her who sets thee free;And O! it asks the truant, whenHe’ll thus resemble thee!

THE COURIER DOVE.

“Va, porter cet écrit à l’objet de mon cœur!”

Outstrip the winds my courier dove!On pinions fleet and free,And bear this letter to my loveWho’s far away from me.It bids him mark thy plume whereonThe changing colours range;But warns him that my peace is goneIf he should also change.It tells him thou return’st againTo her who sets thee free;And O! it asks the truant, whenHe’ll thus resemble thee!

Outstrip the winds my courier dove!On pinions fleet and free,And bear this letter to my loveWho’s far away from me.

It bids him mark thy plume whereonThe changing colours range;But warns him that my peace is goneIf he should also change.

It tells him thou return’st againTo her who sets thee free;And O! it asks the truant, whenHe’ll thus resemble thee!

Lastly, from “Sixty-five Poems and Sonnets,” &c. recently published, he ventures to extract one not less deserving the honour of perusal, than either that he has presented:—

A VALENTINE.No tales of love to you I send,No hidden flame discover,I glory in the name of friend,Disclaiming that of lover.And now, while each fond sighing youthRepeats his vows of love and truth,Attend to this advice of mine—With caution choose aValentine.Heed not the fop, who loves himself,Nor let the rake your love obtain;Choose not the miser for his pelf,The drunkard heed with cold disdain;The profligate with caution shun,His race of ruin soon is run:To none of these your heart incline,Nor choose from them aValentine.But should some generous youth appear,Whose honest mind is void of art,Who shall his Maker’s laws revere,And serve him with a willing heart;Who owns fair Virtue for his guide,Nor from her precepts turns aside;To him at once your heart resign,And bless your faithfulValentine.Though in this wilderness belowYou still imperfect bliss shall find,Yet such a friend will share each woe,And bid you be to Heaven resign’d:While Faith unfolds the radiant prize,And Hope still points beyond the skies,At life’s dark storms you’ll not repine,But bless the day ofValentine.

A VALENTINE.

No tales of love to you I send,No hidden flame discover,I glory in the name of friend,Disclaiming that of lover.And now, while each fond sighing youthRepeats his vows of love and truth,Attend to this advice of mine—With caution choose aValentine.Heed not the fop, who loves himself,Nor let the rake your love obtain;Choose not the miser for his pelf,The drunkard heed with cold disdain;The profligate with caution shun,His race of ruin soon is run:To none of these your heart incline,Nor choose from them aValentine.But should some generous youth appear,Whose honest mind is void of art,Who shall his Maker’s laws revere,And serve him with a willing heart;Who owns fair Virtue for his guide,Nor from her precepts turns aside;To him at once your heart resign,And bless your faithfulValentine.Though in this wilderness belowYou still imperfect bliss shall find,Yet such a friend will share each woe,And bid you be to Heaven resign’d:While Faith unfolds the radiant prize,And Hope still points beyond the skies,At life’s dark storms you’ll not repine,But bless the day ofValentine.

Heed not the fop, who loves himself,Nor let the rake your love obtain;Choose not the miser for his pelf,The drunkard heed with cold disdain;The profligate with caution shun,His race of ruin soon is run:To none of these your heart incline,Nor choose from them aValentine.

But should some generous youth appear,Whose honest mind is void of art,Who shall his Maker’s laws revere,And serve him with a willing heart;Who owns fair Virtue for his guide,Nor from her precepts turns aside;To him at once your heart resign,And bless your faithfulValentine.

Though in this wilderness belowYou still imperfect bliss shall find,Yet such a friend will share each woe,And bid you be to Heaven resign’d:While Faith unfolds the radiant prize,And Hope still points beyond the skies,At life’s dark storms you’ll not repine,But bless the day ofValentine.

A gentleman who left his snuffbox at a friend’s on St. Valentine’s Eve, 1825, received it soon after his return home in an envelope, sealed, and superscribed—

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