so) E. B.-E. B. lived opposite a young maiden, whom he had often seen, unseen, from his parlour window in C-e-street. She was all joyousness and innocence, and just of an age to enjoy receiving a Valentine, and just of a temper to beat 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 c uld 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—(0, 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 super stitions, and chiefly by some commuta tions 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 urterly 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 respecting this 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 cheerfui 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: Seynte Valentine. Of custome yeere by yeere And chose theyr choyse, by grete affeccioun ; Chaucer imagines "Nature the vicare of the Almightie Lord," to address the happiest of living things at this season, Foules, take hede of my sentence I pray, By my statute and through my governaunce, Saint Valentine, thou art full high on loft, 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 strains Accost their feathered loves; While each fond mate, with equal pains, With cheerful hop from spray to spray In social blise together stray, Then all the jocund scene declines, Nor woods nor meads delight; Th' instructive moral tell; Old John Dunton's "British Apollo" sings a question and answer: Why, Valentine's a day to choose “Question. In chusing valentines (ac Through Spring's gay scenes each happy pair cording to custom) is not the party chu Their fluttering joys pursue; Its various charms and produce share, Their sprightly notes from every shade sing (be it man or woman) to make a present to the party chosen?' “Answer. We think it more proper tc say, drawing of valentines, since the most customary way is for each to take his or her lot. And chance cannot be termed choice. According to this me thod, the obligations are equal, and therefore it was formerly the custom mutually to present, but now it is customary only for the gentlemen." This drawing of valentines is remarked in Poor Robin's Almanac for 1676, under St. Valentine's day : "Now Andrew, Antho- Prue, 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 Eng.and 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 valen tine 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, 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 day Sylvanus Urban, in 1779, was informed ivy VOL. I. 113 I A correspondent communicates to the Every-Day Book a 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 neigh 66 bourhood 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 t In Scotland these valentin: the women. gifts were reciprocal, as indeed they are still in some parts. Hurdis calls this The day Saint Valentine, 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 got there. Its place of settlement becomes a place of sentiment; nobody can liberate the starveling, and it will stay 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 eighthorse 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 any body should see, and for a mile or two on the road, ponders on the "two hearts made one," as a most 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 forbear Fut, ah! when i the proffer nake, A better might have been selected from Invocation of St. Valentine. Seize her yet treat the nymph divine 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, Mark'd you her cheek that blooms and glows A living emblem of the rose ? Mark'd you her vernal lip that breathes Mark'd you her face, and did not there, Sense, softness, sweetness, all appear! Mark'd you her form, and saw not you A 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 known The 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. A VALENTINE. I glory in the name of friend, And now, while each fond sighing youth Heed not the fop, who loves himself, The drunkard heed with cold disdain; |