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! And all the chirping choristers, Thou marry'st every year The lyrique lark, and the grave whispering dove: 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! 66 "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: Resemble th' image of their godly light. Nor to the fire; for they consume not ever: "Of this world's theatre, in which we stay, My Love, like the spectator, idly sits, I wail, and make my woes a tragedy. Delights not in my mirth, nor rues my smart; 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, { was a sport practised in the homes of the gentry in Eng- "Seynte Valentine, of custom yeere by yeere, Takyng theyre choyse as theyr sort doth falle, The custom appears to have been formerly an expensive one; for, with the Valentine was usually sent some costly present, as richly-embroidered gloves. Fynes Morrison, (1617) records this practice. It seems, however, to have been soon afterwards discontinued; for Dudley, Lord North, writing to his brother says, "a lady of wit and qualitie, whom you well know, would never put herself to the chance of a Valentine, saying that she could never couple herself but by choyce. The custom and charge of Valentines is not ill left (off), with many other such costly and idle customs, which, by a tacit general consent, we lay down as obsolete." We should, however, have mentioned, that Brand quotes a passage from Moresin, which tends to show that in ancient times, at the festival of St. Valentine, men made presents to the women, as the women did to the men at other seasons. A vestige of this custom remains to our time, in Devonshire; where, on St. Valentine's Day, a young woman occasionally thus addresses the first young man she meets: "Good morrow, Valentine, I go to-day, To wear for you what you must pay, A pair of gloves next Easter-day." There are also some early poetical Valentines preserved in the works of Charles Duke of Orleans, father of Louis XII. of France: he was taken prisoner at the battle of Agincourt, and remained in England twenty-five years, and called his mistress his Valentine. In the royal library of MSS. in the British Museum, is a magnificent volume containing his writings whilst in England: it belonged to Henry VIII., for whom it was copied from olden MSS.; it is illuminated, and one painting represents the Duke seated at a writing-table, in the White Tower of London. Chaucer refers to the rural tradition of birds choosing" And new gloves are generally sent on Easter-eve by the their mates on this day; and Shakspeare says: "St. Valentine is past; Begin these wood-birds but to couple now." Shakspeare also testifies the custom of looking out of a window for a Valentine, or desiring to be one, by making Ophelia sing: "Good morrow! 'tis St. Valentine's Day, Hence, Dr. Jamieson, the etymologist, states the term Valentine to be restricted to "persons," whereas the billets are so denominated. Herrick, in his Hesperides, has the following: "To his Valentine, on St. Valentine's Day. When I shall couple with my Valentine." young man whom any fair damsel may have selected to make her such a present, by thus inviting him to do it. It is not, however, very common to send the gloves, unless there is a little sweethearting in the case."* Misson, the lively French traveller, who visited England tom at that period: "On the eve of the 14th of February, early in the last century, thus minutely describes the cusSt. Valentine's Day, a time when all living nature inclines to couple, the young folks in England, and Scotland too, by a very ancient custom, celebrate a little festival that tends to the same end. 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 Another pretty allusion to this tradition of the Bird- give balls and treats to their fair mistresses, wear their month, is the following from Boileau: "To Dorinda, on Valentine's Day. Shall only you and I forbear To meet and make a happy pair? billets several days upon their bosoms and sleeves, and this little sport often ends in love." This account, by the way, favours Dr. Jamieson's interpretation, of the persons and not the billets being the Valentines: the latter is certainly the case in our time; but here, as in many other changes, we have the shadow for the substance. Gay, the poet of pastoral life, has left us an illustration of some rural ceremonies common on the morning of this day in his time: "Last Valentine, the day when birds of kind I early rose, just at the break of day, Before the sun had chased the stars away; Afield I went, amid the morning dew To milk my kine, (for so should housemaids do.) In spite of fortune, shall our true love be." The following pretty custom at Midsummer, that season In one of Poor Robin's early Almanacks, date 1676, of superstition, is nearly akin to the Valentine. It is a under February 14, we find: "Now Andrew, Antho Ny, and William, For Valentines draw, Prue, Kate, Jilian," relic of the Druidical times, and is thus related in the Connoisseur, No. 50: "Our maid Betty tells me, that if I go backwards, without speaking a word, into the garden, * Mrs. Bray's Description of Devon. 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 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, 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. 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, 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 was a sport practised in the homes of the gentry in Eng- "Seynte Valentine, of custom yeere by yeere, And chose their choyse by grete affectioun, Takyng theyre choyse as theyr sort doth falle, There are also some early poetical Valentines preserved in the works of Charles Duke of Orleans, father of Louis XII. of France: he was taken prisoner at the battle of Agincourt, and remained in England twenty-five years, and called his mistress his Valentine. In the royal library of MSS. in the British Museum, is a magnificent volume containing his writings whilst in England: it belonged to Henry VIII., for whom it was copied from olden MSS.; it is illuminated, and one painting represents the Duke seated at a writing-table, in the White Tower of London. Chaucer refers to the rural tradition of birds choosing their mates on this day; and Shakspeare says: "St. Valentine is past; Begin these wood-birds but to couple now." Shakspeare also testifies the custom of looking out of a window for a Valentine, or desiring to be one, by making Ophelia sing: "Good morrow! 'tis St. Valentine's Day, Hence, Dr. Jamieson, the etymologist, states the term Valentine to be restricted to "persons," whereas the billets are so denominated. Herrick, in his Hesperides, has the following: The custom appears to have been formerly an expensive one; for, with the Valentine was usually sent some costly present, as richly-embroidered gloves. Fynes Morrison, (1617) records this practice. It seems, however, to have been soon afterwards discontinued; for Dudley, Lord North, writing to his brother says, a lady of wit and qualitie, whom you well know, would never put herself to the chance of a Valentine, saying that she could never couple herself but by choyce. The custom and charge of Valentines is not ill left (off), with many other such costly and idle customs, which, by a tacit general consent, we lay down as obsolete." We should, however, have mentioned, that Brand quotes a passage from Moresin, which tends to show that in ancient times, at the festival of St. Valentine, men made presents to the women, as the women A vestige of this custom did to the men at other seasons. remains to our time, in Devonshire; where, on St. Valentine's Day, a young woman occasionally thus addresses the first young man she meets: "Good morrow, Valentine, I go to-day, To wear for you what you must pay, A pair of gloves next Easter-day." "And new gloves are generally sent on Easter-eve by the young man whom any fair damsel may have selected to make her such a present, by thus inviting him to do it. It is not, however, very common to send the gloves, unless there is a little sweethearting in the case."* Misson, the lively French traveller, who visited England tom at that period: "On the eve of the 14th of February, early in the last century, thus minutely describes the cusSt. Valentine's Day, a time when all living nature inclines to couple, the young folks in England, and Scotland too, by a very ancient custom, celebrate a little festival that tends to the same end. 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 Bird-give balls and treats to their fair mistresses, wear their billets several days upon their bosoms and sleeves, and this little sport often ends in love." This account, by the way, favours Dr. Jamieson's interpretation, of the persons and not the billets being the Valentines: the latter is certainly the case in our time; but here, as in many other changes, we have the shadow for the substance. Gay, the poet of pastoral life, has left us an illustration of some rural ceremonies common on the morning of this day in his time: "To his Valentine, on St. Valentine's Day. Oft have I heard both youth and virgins say, Birds choose their mates and couple too this day; But by their flight I never can divine, When I shall couple with my Valentine." Another pretty allusion to this tradition of the month, is the following from Boileau: "To Dorinda, on Valentine's Day. Look how, my dear, the feathered kind, Bill, and seem to teach us two, To meet and make a happy pair? "Last Valentine, the day when birds of kind To milk my kine, (for so should housemaids do.) In one of Poor Robin's early Almanacks, date 1676, of superstition, is nearly akin to the Valentine. It is a under February 14, we find: "Now Andrew, Antho Ny, and William, For Valentines draw, Prue, Kate, Jilian," relic of the Druidical times, and is thus related in the Connoisseur, No. 50: "Our maid Betty tells me, that if go backwards, without speaking a word, into the garden, * Mrs. Bray's Description of Devon. 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, 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 |