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 charining little missives, yclept Valentines, cross and intercross each other at every street and turning. The weary and all forspent 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 the heart-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. Else we might easily imagine, upon some other system which might have prevailed for anything which our pathology knows to the contrary, a lover addressing his mistress, in perfect simplicity of feeling, "Madam, my liver and fortune are entirely at your disposal;" or putting a delicate question, "Amanda, have you a midriff to 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 ru ral sounds, exceed in interest a knock at the door. It "gives a very echo to the throne where hope is seated." sues seldom answer to this oracle within. that just the person we want to see comes. 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 !-delightful eternal commonplaces, which "having been, will always be;" which no schoolboy nor schoolman can write away; having your 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 But its isIt is so seldom But of all the "Lovers all, 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. e-street. All Valentines are not foolish; and I shall not easily forget thine, my kind friend (if I may have leave to call you so) E. B. E. B. lived opposite a young maiden, whom he had often seen, unseen, from his parlour window in CShe 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 designng, 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 halfway. 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 Caïster, with mottoes and fanciful devices, such as beseemed, in short, a work of magic. Iris dipped the woof. This on Valentine's eve he commended to the all-swallowing indiscriminateing orifice (oh 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 de lighted her. It was more like some fairy present; a Godsend, 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 of old Bishop Valentine and his true church. IMPERFECT SYMPATHIES. I am of a constitution so general, that it consorts and sympathizeth with all things. I have no antipathy, or rather idiosyncrasy, in anything. Those national repugnances do not touch me, nor do I behold with predjudice the French, Italian, Spaniard, or Dutch.-Religio Medici. the THAT the author of the Religio Medici, mounted upon airy stilts of abstraction, conversant about notional and conjectural essences-in whose categories of being the possible took the upper hand of the actual-should have overlooked the impertinent individualities of such poor concretions as mankind, is not much to be admired. It is rather to be wondeled at, that in the genus of animals he should have condescended to distinguish that species at all. For myself, earthbound and fettered to the scene of my activities, "Standing on earth, not rapt above the sky," I confess that I do feel the differences of mankind, national or individual, to an unhealthy excess. I can look with no indifferent eye upon things or persons. Whatever is, is to me a matter of taste or distaste; or when once it becomes indifferent, it begins to be disrelishing. I am, in plainer words, a bundle of prejudices-made up of likings and dislikings-. the veriest thrall to sympathies, apathies, and antipathies. In a certain sense, I hope it may be said of me that I am a lover of my species. I can feel for all indifferently, but I cannot feel towards all equally. The more purely English word that expresses sympathy will better explain my meaning. I can be a friend to a worthy man, who upon another account cannot be my mate or fellow. I cannot like all people alike.* * I would be understood as confining myself to the subject of imperfect sympathies. To nations or classes of men there can be no direct antipathy. I have been trying all my life to like Scotchmen, and am obliged to desist from the experiment in despair. They cannot like me and, in truth, I never knew one of that nation who attempted to do it. There is something more plain and ingenuous in their mode of proceeding. We know one another at first sight. There is an order of imperfect intellects, (under which mine must be content to rank,) which in its constitution is essentially anti-Caledonian. The owners of the sort of faculties I allude to, have minds rather suggestive than comprehensive. They have no pretences to much clearness or precision in their ideas, or in their manner of expressing them. Their intellectual wardrobe (to confess fairly) has few whole pieces in it. They are content with fragments and scattered pieces of truth. She presents no full front to them -a feature or a side face at the most. Hints and glimpses, germs and crude essays at a system, is the utmost they pretend to. They beat up a little game peradventure—and leave it to knottier heads, more robust constitutions, to run it down The light that lights them is not steady and polar, but mutable and shifting: waxing, and again waning. Their conversation is accordingly. They will throw out a random word in or out of season, and be content to let it pass for what it is worth. They cannot speak always as if they were upon their oath--but must be understood, speaking or writing, with some abatement. They seldom wait to mature a proposition, but e'en bring it to market in the green ear. They delight to impart their defective discoveries as they arise, without waiting for their full development. They are no systematizers, and would but err more by attempting it. Their minds, as I said before, are suggestive merely. The brain of a true Caledo There may be individuals born and constellated so opposite to another ina vidual nature, that the same sphere cannot hold them. I have met with my moral antipodes, and can believe the story of two persons meeting (who never saw one another before in their lives) and instantly fighting. "We by proof find there should be Can neither find a blemish in his fame, Yet notwithstanding hates him as a devil." These lines are from old Heywood's "Hierarchie of Angels," and he sub oins a curious story in confirmation, of a Spaniard who attempted to assassin ate a King Ferdinand of Spain, and, being put to the rack, could give no other reason for the deed than an inveterate antipathy which he had taken to the first sight of the king. "The cause which to that act compell'd him, Was, he ne'er loved him since he first beheld him." nian (if I am not mistaken) is constituted upon quite a different plan. Hs Minerva is born in panoply. You are never admitted to see his ideas in their growth-if, indeed, they do grow, and are not rather put together upon principles of clockwork. You never catch his mind in an undress. He never hints or suggests anything, but unlades his stock of ideas in perfect order and completeness. He brings his total wealth into company, and gravely unpacks it. His riches are always about him. He never stoops to catch a glittering something in your presence, to share it with you, before he quite knows whether it be true touch or not. You cannot cry halves to anything that he finds. He does not find, but bring. You never witness his first apprehension of a thing. His understanding is always at its meridian-you never see the first dawn, the early streaks. He has no falterings of self-suspi cion. Surmises, guesses, misgivings, half intuitions, semiconsciousnesses, partial illuminations, dim instincts, embryo conceptions, have no place in his brain or vocabulary. The twilight of dubiety never falls upon him. Is he orthodoxhe has no doubts. Is he an infidel-he has none either. Between the affirmative and the negative there is no border land with him. You cannot hover with him upon the confines of truth, or wander in the maze of a probable argument. He always keeps the path. You cannot make excursions with him-for he sets you right. His taste never fluctuates. His morality never abates. He cannot compromise, or understand middle actions. There can be but a right and a wrong. His conversation is as a book. His affirmations have the sanctity of an oath. You must speak upon the square with him. He stops a metaphor like a suspected person in an enemy's coun try. "A healthy book !" said one of his countrymen to me, who had ventured to give that appellation to John Buncle—“ did I catch rightly what you said? I have heard of a man in health, and of a healthy state of body, but I do not see how that epithet can be properly applied to a book." Above all, you must beware of indirect expressions before a Caledonian. Clap an extinguisher upon your irony, if you are unhappily blessed with a vein of it. Remember you are upon your oath. I have a print of a graceful female, after Leonardo da Vinci, which I was showing off to Mr. After he had examined it minutely, I ventured to ask him how he liked MY BEAUTY—(a foolish name it goes by among my friends)—when he very gravely assured me, that "he had considerable respect for my character and talents." (so he was pleased to say,) "but had not given himself much thought about the degree of my personal pretensions." The misconception staggered me, but |