time by giving to the son of Naples his innocent and fair Miranda. Fain would I have Valentine's Day the origin of love, or the completion, an epoch writ in bright letters in Cupid's calendar, a date whence to reckon our passion, a period to which to refer our happiness. As to its own history, what matters it whether a day so brave rise in the east or in the west? What care we if it had its birth in Roman superstition or Pagan gallantry? HERE IT IS. Let us not waste the morning in barren speculation, but enjoy the day. It is wiser, surely, to partake of the branching shelter of the summer elms, than to perplex our pleasures by for ever tracing the course of their roots. That is for the moles, the etymologists. Green leaves and azure skies for us! Once, it is said, our 66 vulgar ancestors" used to draw names on Valentine's eve, and such drawings were considered ominous: as thus-if Jacob Stiles drew the name of Sally Gates, or vice versà, Jacob and Sally were henceforward. considered "as good as" man and wife.-(Our present lottery, where we are tolerably sure of our blank, is bad enough, but this is the d-1.) -I can well fancy how the country couple would look, flying at first in the face of the augury: Sally mantling and blushing, half proud and half 'shamed, turning to her neighbour Blossom, and exclaiming, "nonsense!"-Jacob, on the other hand, at something between a grin and a blush, leering on his shouting companions, or expanding a mouth huge enough to swallow every writ ten Valentine in the village. I see him look, (for help,) from clown to clown; upwards and downwards; he whistles, he twirls his smock frock, he stands cross-legged, like the nephew of Mr. Robert Shallow, when the maiden Page invited him house-wards. 'Tis all in vain. The prophecy is upon them; and 'tis odds but the name of Gates will sink and be merged in some three or six months into the cognomen of Jacob. The diffusion of learning, and the "schools for all," have done a great deal of good. We are not I thank my stars, reduced now to these manual or verbal Valentines. We shut up our blushes, (with our verses,) in a sheet of foolscap, and trust them to the protection of the twopenny post. At C -(where I spent some years,) good Mrs. Baily used to go to "the box" at stated periods of the preceding evening, and relieve it from time to time of its too great burthen of love. You might see, towards dusk, girls, (in pairs,) or straggling youths, dropping their indiscretions into the yawning chasm; sometimes this was boldly done, but oftener timorously, and the quickened step of the amorist retreating from the letter-box, or passing, with an air of indifference, onwards, betrayed all he, (or she,) wished to conceal. Then, the next morning! There was an additional postman employedthe ordinary man, grey-headed, and sure, but slow, was deemed insufficient. The "London letters" were not delivered at the accustomed time: and on asking the maid-servant, she would reply, with a tinge on her cheek, that "she be Oh! well be lieved it was Valentine's Day." lieved. She was never mistaken. But the postman comes. "Three for Miss Lewis, four for Miss Carter, seventeen for Mr. "Hush! it will never be believed. It cannot be; it is a jest -a fable-a monstrous, impossible-It is the truth-or near it. Oh! those were careless days. They were-but they are gone. No Valentines come now, as Crockery would say. I must bid farewell to all those pleasant periodicals-the pierced hearts and the quaint rhymes, which showed my twopence well spent -O! farewell! Farewell the billing doves and the bent bow, The first Valentine I ever opened was at C—. I had but lately left school, and was then a fair, young-looking, active boy of seventeen. I had read all the poets, but the style of this loveletter puzzled me. It compared me to the rose, and the violet, and the curling hyacinth, (I had always been anxious that my hair should curl)— my eyes, I was informed, were like a diamond, and my teeth like pearl or ivory. It certainly seemed odd, odd, but agreeable. I was like the bishop who doubted the authenticity of Gulliver's Travels. To say the truth, I thought the writer must be somewhat partial. That she was generous was quite clear, from the expense of which she had been guilty. The Valentine was radiant,-all gold and gay colours, red, and yellow, and blue, and embossed, and glittering with devices, all of love. It was like a dream,-so fine. I had never seen any thing like it, except the last scene of a pantomime. I was like Belinda, when -if report say true, Her eyes first open'd on a billet-doux. In short, I was satisfied,-delighted-what is the word? enchanted! As I received the first Valentine at C, so also I wrote there my first Valentine, my first verse. The writing was disguised, the wax was dotted with a fork, the paper crumpled; and, so misused, the soft sheet of "Bath post" was committed to the letter-box. The next day how I laboured to arrive at a look of indifference. How I hoped and feared, and was perpetually hovering on a blush when the subject was mentioned. At last, I heard that "Miss had received a very pretty Valentine." Indeed?" Yes, and by no means a common one." Oh! heart, what rich and delicious palpitations were thine. I trod on air; I bounded like a fawn: I was wild with joy. I had sent my love-verse to my fair neighbour, (at the next door,) and about seven o'clock, I laid my "evening ear" to the thin partition wall, and actually heard part of the verses recited on the other side. That evening I sate and meditated high things, in the parlour which was after tenanted by a man of great renown,-Samuel Taylor Coleridge.-I wonder whether he ever wrote Valentines there! The advantage of Valentine-writing is, that it pleases giver and receiver, while it becomes both. It is not like a letter of business, -nor that which passeth between a dun and his debtor, or between master and servant, or editor and contributor— nor even between lovers on ordinary occasions, for sometimes there is a fretfulness even in those, a dispute to be made up. This, on the contrary, is a prize, a pleasure without alloy. Who would not have a Valentine? Is there any one so unprofitably wise as to decline it? Let him stay at home and be thankless. Let him rail at the quick-jarring knocker and the frequent bell. They can have no delights for him. Yet the chiming of the brass is musical to my ear, and the twanging of the wire harmonious. Oh! lads and lasses, and holy-day-loving sages, is not this a delightful day, this day of Bishop Valentine? His diocese is the air, and he, so saith good Dr. Donne, (mark, reader, what a fine line I reveal to thee,) -Marries every year The lyric lark, and the grave-whispering dove, and fills the winds with melody, and life with hope and satisfied love that never cloys. Bright Love! Methinks I could splinter a lance in his behalf, or mark out a measure of verse LOVE! he is a God Walking the divine earth, And where he hath trod |