SAINT VALENTINE'S DAY. "Good morrow! 'tis St. Valentine's Day."-Shakspeare.

Of all the Saints, the most worshipped is Valentine; the saint of all young amorists, whom men and birds fondly honour. An old poet thus charmingly invokes this tutelar spirit:

"Hail, Bishop Valentine, whose day this is!
All the air is thy diocese,

And all the chirping choristers,
And other birds are thy parishioners:

Thou marry'st every year

The lyrique lark, and the grave whispering dove:
The sparrow that neglects his life for love;
The household bird, with the red stomacher;
Thou mak'st the blackbird speed as soon

As doth the goldfinch, or the halcyon."-Donne. Such is the rural celebration of the day. Now, some poetical observer of Nature first referred the custom of lovers sending billets doux to the pairing of birds, on this day; and however puerile the notion itself may be, it is certain that about the 14th of February, "the bird-month," or sooner or later in the spring, many birds cease their gregarious association, and meet only in pairs for incubation and rearing their young. Hence the vulgar belief, that the first two single persons who meet in the morning of St. Valentine's Day, may have a chance of becoming married to each other. We see nothing improbable in this origin of the practice of “choosing a Valentine." The entire month presents a succession of indications of the renovation of Nature: the flower-buds are generally disclosed on the elder-trees; the hazel begins to put forth its long flowers; and the leaves of the gooseberry and currant-bushes become visible. The little crocus, with its sparkling yellow flowers, and the snowdrop, of pearly whiteness, become frequent; and the polyanthuses and hepaticas enliven the garden in mild seasons. The daisy, towards the end of the month, is found in sheltered fields. Immediately after the frost is moderated, the sap ascends in trees. In anticipation of the coming fine weather, several species of birds now begin their songs; among which may be regarded the wren, the hedge-sparrow, and the thrush. Now, the songs of birds are reasonably enough thought to be the effect of pleasurable sensations; because most birds sing only during fair weather; and the supposition that these early songs are the "Valentines" of birds, is not a whit less rational than Buffon's gallant idea, that the male bird sings to cheer his mate during the period of incubation. Prettier still for our own purpose is Rousseau's fancy that birds "confabulate," and more favourable to this theory of vernal courtship. Be this as it may, a provincial accent can be distinguished among the birds of different counties; and hence it is that the chaffinches of Essex are so much more valued than others. The same difference has been remarked in individual birds, which could be readily recognised both by their voice, and the character of their notes. Wilson, the American ornithologist, well remarks, that birds differ as widely as men in tone, energy, and expression. "There was one thrush," he adds, "with whose notes I was so familiar, that I could recognise him the moment I entered the woods. He serenaded the forest with notes as clear as those of the nightingale." We have said that most birds sing only in fair weather; but some will sing in wet weather-and this, perchance, may be melancholy" as a lover's lute:" "As some lone bird at day's departing hour, Sings in the sunbeam of the transient shower, Forgetful though its wings be wet the while."-Boules. The calendarial observance of Saint Valentine's Day is thus explained. It appears to have been 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, substi tuted, in the present instance, the names of particular saints instead of those of the women; and as the festival of Lupercalia had commenced about the middle of February, they appear to have chosen Valentine's Day for celebrating the new feast, because it occurred nearly at the same time. Valentine was a presbyter of the church, who suffered martyrdom under Claudius II. at Rome, A.D. 271. There is, however, no occurrence related in his legendary life which associates him, in the slightest degree, with the amatory observance of this day; but Wheatley, in his Illustrations of the Common Prayer, informs us, that he his love and charity, that the custom of choosing Valenwas a man of most admirable parts, and so famous for tines upon his festival, (which is still practised,) took its rise from thence." Alack! how many fair hearts have been martyred on this identical day!

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"True be it said, whatever man it said,

That Love with gall and honey doth abound; But if the one be with the other weighed, For every dram of honey therein found, A pound of gall doth over it redound."-Spenser. From the same poet too might we choose some exquisite Valentines-as the following:

"Long while I sought to what I might compare

Those powerful eyes, which lighten my dark spright:
Yet find I nought on earth to which I dare

Resemble th' image of their godly light.
Not to the sun; for they do shine by night:
Nor to the moon; for they are changed never:
Nor to the stars; for they have purer sight:

Nor to the fire; for they consume not ever:
Nor to the lightning; for they still persever :
Nor to the diamond; for they are more tender:
Nor unto crystal; for nought they seem sever:
Nor unto glass; such baseness mought offend her.
Then to the Maker's self they likest be,
Whose light doth lighten all that here we see."
Again:

"Of this world's theatre, in which we stay,

My Love, like the spectator, idly sits,
Beholding me, that all the pageants play,
Disguising diversly my troubled wits.
Sometimes I joy, when glad occasion sits,
And mark in mirth, like to a comedy:
Soon after, when my joy to sorrow flits,

I wail, and make my woes a tragedy.
Yet she, beholding me with constant eye,

Delights not in my mirth, nor rues my smart;
But when I laugh, she mocks; and when I cry,
She laughs, and hardens evermore her heart.
What then can move her? if nor mirth nor mone,
She is no woman, but a senseless stone."

The Valentine custom, however, appears to have changed, doux. Originally, young people drew lots on the eve of with time, from a lottery of hearts to the sending of billets Valentine's day: the names of a select number of each sex were put into separate vessels, when each person drew one, which was called their Valentine, and was looked upon as a good omen of their being man and wife afterwards. Brand assures us that he found "unquestionable authority to prove that the custom of choosing Valentines,

upon Midsummer Eve, and gather a rose, and keep it in a clean sheet of paper, without looking at it till Christmas day, it will be as fresh as in June; and if I then stick it in my bosom, he that is to be my husband will come and take it out." Mrs. Bray relates this custom to be still practised in Devonshire, with the variation, that the maiden who plucks the rose is to be blindfolded, and while the chimes are playing twelve. We heard the condition, in our “careless childhood," that the rose is to be gathered while the clock is striking twelve at mid-day.

We now come to certain vestiges of Valentine customs, which appear to have a classic origin. In some villages of Kent, the young maidens, from five or six to eighteen years of age, assemble to burn an uncouth effigy, which they term "a holly boy," and which they obtain from the boys; while in another part of the village, the boys burn an effigy, which they call an "ivy girl," and which they steal from the girls. These practices have been referred to some of the rustic incantations described by Theocritus, as the means of recalling a truant lover, or of warming a cold one, as in these lines:

“First Delphin injured me, he raised my flame,

And now I burn this bough in Delphin's name." Virgil, too, in his eighth Eclogue, alludes to the same charm:

:

"Next in the fire, the bays with brimstone burn, And whilst it crackles in the sulphur, say,

That I for Daphnis burn, thus Daphnis burn away." The holly bush being made to represent the person beloved, may also be borrowed from the ancients, as in Virgil:

"Thrice round the altar I the image draw." In some parts of Dorsetshire, too, the young folks purchase wax candles, light them, and let them remain burning all night in their bed-room. The latter may possibly be emblematic of mollifying the beloved one's heart :"As this devoted wax melts o'er the fire,

Let Myndian Delphis melt with soft desire."-Theocritus. Again, these burning bushes and candles may be taken from the Hymeneal torch, which is believed to have been borne at English weddings, as in the pagan rite. Herrick thus touchingly refers to the custom :

“Upon a maid that dyed the day she was married.
That morne which saw me made a bride,

That ev'ning witnessed that I dy'd,

These holy lights wherewith they guide

Unto the bed the bashful bride,

standing the early season. In Dorsetshire, it is customary in many places for the maids to hang up in the kitchen, on Valentine's day, a bunch of such flowers as they can obtain, neatly suspended by a true lover's knot of blue riband. Among these early love-flowers are the varieties of the chaste hyacinth, the narcissus of ancient fable, the Daphne mezereon,

"Though leafless, well attired, and thick beset,

With blushing wreaths, investing every spray."-Cowper. the" unmarried primrose" of the poets, "the polyanthus of unnumbered dyes," and the yellow crocus, which blows plentifully in our gardens about this time, and has been called Hymen's torch, and flower of St. Valentine. An old verse says:

"The crocus blows before the shrine,
At vernal dawn of St. Valentine."

We read, too, 66 as crocuses are often blue, so is our love often constant; as they are oftener yellow, so love is more frequently jealous; as the cloth of gold is mostly striped with red, so doth an advantageous affection, which bringeth the gold, generalle begette the stripes of repentance, and the purple dye of remorse." Here our floral illustrations must end, lest they extend through two thousand years. For a woman to compose a garland was always considered an indication of her being in love. Aristophanes says:"The wreathing garlands in a woman is

The usual symptom of a love-sick mind." Notwithstanding the simplicity of these "unreproved pleasures," they have long been discarded from the drawing-room, and consigned to the hall "below stairs;" the celebration has lost its rural character, and passed into the artificial life of towns, where it is too often made the vehicle of ill-natured satire, and personal ridicule. Nevertheless, a Valentine may often laugh the receiver out of his follies, when a more serious reproof might render him obstinate in absurdity. Some twenty years ago, St. Valentine had his temples and votaries in town in great numbers. The stationers' shops, on the 14th of February, were sacred to him; and, (adorned like so many altars dedicated to worshippers of that second religion, Love, were all flames, Hymeneal torches, flutter-winged Cupids, lovers, loves, &c.; and, not to prevaricate with a pun, every pane had a pleasure in it for every taste, where the satirical rogues might have their merry muscles tickled with some impossible caricature of some improbable garret beau, or an antiquated spinster ogling a Cupid with one eye, and with the other a red ensign on half-pay, who seemed to be dying with the most passionate impatience for her sixty thousand in the funds; and the serious and sentimental, and purely amorous, might look themselves blind as Love himself at Venuses in bowers, all red paint and roses, and no green leaves; or they might sigh over a young Hebe in petticoats, with the colour that was intended for her cheeks running in an accidental smear over the tip of her nose, as if she had drunk too much of the immortal nectar. The young misses, too, who were beginning to feel an interest in the tender passion, might pine, surreptitiously, over a superfine young gentleman, in pink pantaloons and yellow boots, till her sighs, clouding the window-pane, concealed him in an ambrosial veil from her gaze. And then the postman, who disdained on this day to be called a " penny postman," was as heavy with verse as the most wordy of the Lake poets; his knock was full-informed with passion, and its eager sound was echoed in every heart under thirty, wherever it was heard; a great fluttering was heard among the maids and the misses; there was much giggling in parlour and hall; much hurried reading behind street-doors; many hearts were broken

upon Midsummer Eve, and gather a rose, and keep it in a clean sheet of paper, without looking at it till Christmas day, it will be as fresh as in June; and if I then stick it in my bosom, he that is to be my husband will come and take it out." Mrs. Bray relates this custom to be still practised in Devonshire, with the variation, that the maiden who plucks the rose is to be blindfolded, and while the chimes are playing twelve. We heard the condition, in our "careless childhood," that the rose is to be gathered while the clock is striking twelve at mid-day.

We now come to certain vestiges of Valentine customs, which appear to have a classic origin. In some villages of Kent, the young maidens, from five or six to eighteen years of age, assemble to burn an uncouth effigy, which they term "a holly boy," and which they obtain from the boys; while in another part of the village, the boys burn an effigy, which they call an "ivy girl," and which they steal from the girls. These practices have been referred to some of the rustic incantations described by Theocritus, as the means of recalling a truant lover, or of warming a cold one, as in these lines:

First Delphin injured me, he raised my flame, And now I burn this bough in Delphin's name." Virgil, too, in his eighth Eclogue, alludes to the same charm:

"Next in the fire, the bays with brimstone burn, And whilst it crackles in the sulphur, say,

That I for Daphnis burn, thus Daphnis burn away." The holly bush being made to represent the person beloved, may also be borrowed from the ancients, as in Virgil:

"Thrice round the altar I the image draw." In some parts of Dorsetshire, too, the young folks purchase wax candles, light them, and let them remain burning all night in their bed-room. The latter may possibly be emblematic of mollifying the beloved one's heart :"As this devoted wax melts o'er the fire,

-

Let Myndian Delphis melt with soft desire."-Theocritus. Again, these burning bushes and candles may be taken from the Hymeneal torch, which is believed to have been borne at English weddings, as in the pagan rite. Herrick thus touchingly refers to the custom :—

"Upon a maid that dyed the day she was married.

That morne which saw me made a bride,

That ev'ning witnessed that I dy'd,

These holy lights wherewith they guide

Unto the bed the bashful bride,

Serv'd but as tapers for to burne,
And light my relics to their urne,
This epitaph which you here see,

Supply'd the epithalamie."-Hesperides.

We can readily understand the choice of the holly and ivy for the rural rites: the former is supposed to have been named from its frequent use in holy places; and, without going back to a classic age, we find the ivy inseparable from the sacred tree of our own island-the oak of the Druids. What plants could then be more typical of chaste love than these consecrated evergreens? their leafiness, too, at this bough-bare season, would well denote the freshness of youthful passion, and the readiness with which they burn be fancifully representative of the ardour of first love. The wax candles may, however, be a relic of Candlemas-tide, (just ended,) and its emblematical demonstrations of joy, by means of burning tapers and torches; which, observes a zealous, and kindly Catholic writer, "belong to almost every religion, which shows that it has its foundation in the nature of man."

Valentine-tide has, too, its floral observances, notwith

standing the early season. In Dorsetshire, it is customary in many places for the maids to hang up in the kitchen, on Valentine's day, a bunch of such flowers as they can obtain, neatly suspended by a true lover's knot of blue riband. Among these early love-flowers are the varieties of the chaste hyacinth, the narcissus of ancient fable, the Daphne mezereon,

"Though leafless, well attired, and thick beset,

With blushing wreaths, investing every spray."-Cowper. of unnumbered dyes," and the yellow crocus, which the "unmarried primrose" of the poets," the polyanthus blows plentifully in our gardens about this time, and has been called Hymen's torch, and flower of St. Valentine. An old verse says:

"The crocus blows before the shrine,

At vernal dawn of St. Valentine."

We read, too," as crocuses are often blue, so is our love often constant'; as they are oftener yellow, so love is more frequently jealous; as the cloth of gold is mostly striped with red, so doth an advantageous affection, which bringeth the gold, generalle begette the stripes of repentance, and the purple dye of remorse." Here our floral illustrations must end, lest they extend through two thousand years. For a woman to compose a garland was always considered an indication of her being in love. Aristophanes says:"The wreathing garlands in a woman is

The usual symptom of a love-sick mind." Notwithstanding the simplicity of these "unreproved pleasures," they have long been discarded from the drawing-room, and consigned to the hall "below stairs;" the celebration has lost its rural character, and passed into the artificial life of towns, where it is too often made the vehicle of ill-natured satire, and personal ridicule. Nevertheless, a Valentine may often laugh the receiver out of his follies, when a more serious reproof might render him obstinate in absurdity. Some twenty years ago, St. Valentine had his temples and votaries in town in great numbers. The stationers' shops, on the 14th of February, were sacred to him; and, adorned like so many altars dedicated to worshippers of that second religion, Love, were all flames, Hymeneal torches, flutter-winged Cupids, lovers, loves, &c.; and, not to prevaricate with a pun, every pane had a pleasure in it for every taste, where the satirical rogues might have their merry muscles tickled with some impossible caricature of some improbable garret beau, or an antiquated spinster ogling a Cupid with one eye, and with the other a red ensign on half-pay, who seemed to be dying with the most passionate impatience for her sixty thousand in the funds; and the serious and sentimental, and purely amorous, might look themselves blind as Love himself at Venuses in bowers, all red paint and roses, and no green leaves; or they might sigh over a young Hebe in petticoats, with the colour that was intended for her cheeks running in an accidental smear over the tip of her nose, as if she had drunk too much of the immortal nectar. The young misses, too, who were beginning to feel an interest in the tender passion, might pine, surreptitiously, over a superfine young gentleman, in pink pantaloons and yellow boots, till ber sighs, clouding the window-pane, concealed him in an ambrosial veil from her gaze. And then the postman, who disdained on this day to be called a "penny postman," was as heavy with verse as the most wordy of the Lake poets; his knock was full-informed with passion, and its eager sound was echoed in every heart under thirty, wherever it was heard; a great fluttering was heard among the maids and the misses; there was much giggling in parlour and hall; much hurried reading behind street-doors; many hearts were broken