hand

Spurned at the bribe which won Themistocles,

And how, since they were young who now were old,
He held the reins of state so wise and pure,
He showed like Zeus among his fellow men;
And firing with the subject, told with pride
How great was Athens-mistress of the seas,
And who had reared her power but Pericles?
And who could save her still but Pericles ?
And who was truer Greek than Pericles ?
Till, when their tongues were silent-not because
They had no other glorious deeds to tell,

But that their harps were strung too high for words-
They heard the sweet calm voice saying "O Friends
When you lie helpless here as I do now,
The chiefest solace of your end will be
Not in the memory of battles won,
Or wider empire, or the fame of men,
For men are but the ministers of God;
Defeat or victory, disgrace or fame

Lie in bis knees, to measure as he will.
Be it your only glory, as 'tis mine,

Never in life's long struggle to have caused
Sorrow to one Athenian." So he spake
Words dying, not unworthy of his life.

"A POOR THING, SIR, BUT MINE OWN."

I AM not an early riser. It is with great difficulty that even in the country, and the summer time, I can induce myself to leave bed for that glorious bathe-the bathe before breakfast -judge, then, if in the month of February Fill-dyke, I am likely to drag myself from a cosy doze, in order to plunge, half-dressed, into morning-chapel, which resembles the Severn indeed, in being cold and damp, but is anything but refreshing. Accordingly,

this morning I was still in the land of dreams, when my two most particular friends-no, I am wrong, my most particular friend is lazier than I am, for whereas I, without some superlatively good or bad reason, always rise at nine o'clock, he is generally to be seen hurrying, breakfastless, to lecture at ten— but am I writing about my friend or about Valentines ?-my friends, I say, burst into my bedroom, flourishing sundry effusions in which "heart" rhymed to "dart," and triumphing over me as a lovelorn and forsaken anchorite. My first impulse was naturally to shy my boots at them, my next to expel them from the room and bolt the door, assuring them through it that my letters always came by the afternoon post, which stroke of policy put an end to their insolent triumph. All day I was the victim of Valentines, and in the evening chapel, as I looked out the second lesson which I had to read, my eye was caught by the words "Valentine, Bishop and Martyr."

Excuse this egotistical preamble; it is always interesting to watch the rise of great ideas, and everybody praises Edgar Poe's account of the Genesis, as he is pleased to call it, of the Raven," which, by the way, is all humbug, while my prologue is unmistakeably true.

66

Well, as I had heard of nothing but these Valentines all day; had been shown, in confidence, scores of execrable verses, and even in chapel could not escape the influence of the Saint, it is no great wonder that when I sported my oak for the evening I began to think of this great institution and its originator. Do you ever, O respected Editor or favorable Reader, lie on your back in the summer grass, and make shapes of the clouds that flit overhead, leaving the field in varying masses of light and shadow-an amusement I know to horrify Tom Brownians or Brownites, (I really don't know which way the sect forms its termination,) who think you ought to be playing cricket, and making yourself ten times as hot as before, yet not wholly unpleasant or unprofitable to a contemplative man, unless, indeed, there be ants in the grass.-Alas! that ever-recurring amari aliquid. Or, failing the sun and the hot day, do you ever look

into the fire and see entire Winter's Tales in it, as I did this evening just before sitting down to write. And I said "Tell me, O red hot caves and tongues of flame, who was Valentine, where was his bishopric, and why was he martyred, and wherefore do boy and girl celebrate his anniversary by sending wonderful pieces of stationery to one another, with verses such as we see on the mottoes of crackers ?"

But the fire gave no answer, so I looked till I shaped out a phantasmagoria in it for myself. Methought that when Cyril of Alexandria preached celibacy, and persecution against wedded clergy, some of his emissaries reached the diocese of good Bishop Valentine (where it was, I know not; but it must have been in the tropics, if it were as hot as the fire wherein I saw it.) Now, Bishop Valentine "he had the passions of his kind," and had wedded a fair Wife, whereat the emissaries of Cyril were wroth, and roused the people so that they came thronging round his house. Forth stepped the swarthy Alexandrians, and said—. "Bishop, thou has dishonoured crozier and mitre; therefore either put away thy wife and place her in a nunnery, or give up thy bishopric." But he said, "I will do neither; for honour and love to me are more than life." So saying he drew his beautiful wifetrue as her husband in that hour-close to his side, and walked down before the crowd in full episcopal array; and that sight enraged the persecutors, so they slew them both. Long after, when the Church of the West had succeeded to the Church of the East, he was canonized, and still we commemorate in fitting wise the death of him to whom love was more than life.- -Pass the slides of the lantern, and what do I see? A Bishop in lawn tied to a stake like a Red Indian, while Cupids are flitting round and discharging their poisoned arrows at him! This is certainly a more appropriate slide than the first for the run of Valentines, only it has no story attached to it, and places his lordship in unbecoming and Pagan company. However, you shall have your choice of the two, as that great work the Latin Grammar generously says " Utrum horum mavis accipe."

Of one thing I am certain,—that Valentines arose in England.

I don't know why I am certain, and if you ask, will answer as Mr. Leech's inimitable miner did to the clergyman-" D'ye want to hargue, yer beggar?" But the one day being set apart to write love-letters on is so thoroughly English-just as we set a day apart for letting off fireworks and fighting the town, as we eat pancakes on one particular day and roast beef on another-surely the custom could not have come from the East, where every flower is a love-letter more gorgeous than even a five-shilling Valentine; nor from the South, where billet-doux are as plentiful and as little cared for as the flowers of the Orient. At all events we can lay claim to them as far back as Shakspeare's time. Don't you remember Ophelia's song?

"Good morrow, it is St. Valentine's day

All in the morning betime;

And I a maid at your window,

To be your Valentine."

(By the way, I really should have been up to morning chapel to-day if my scout had called me in that way. I'll certainly tell him to do it next Fourteenth of February.) It seems that in the time of Ophelia young ladies were in the habit of being their own post-women-a laudable practice, unfortunately discontinued, except, perhaps, in Arcadia, where Phyllis brings her Corydon an artless tribute every morning. Yet no: in the happy groves and lawns of Arcady Phyllis cannot write, Corydon cannot read, and each is too secure or too careless of each other's affection to need a reassuring billet-doux. Happy Arcadia !

The excitement created by these things is something extraordinary. I remember that at K. S., Sherborne, there was a good deal of chaff on this particular morning, and at College there is a tremendous rush round the letter-carrier; great is his pride who receives some weak but well-meant versicles, loud the jeers at the man who gets an epistle with an uncomplimentary vignette, describing his personal imperfections with an unkind exaggeration.

But it is in the female breast that Valentines hold sway supreme. I never was in a girl's school on the Fourteenth

Heaven forbid, we have heard of Orpheus, but I have been told * * However, I am no Clodius, to spy into the mysteries of the Bona Dea. Any gentleman wishing to form an idea of the scene had better read "Letters left at the pastrycook's." There is a shop in the High-street where a young lady, by her smiles and good looks, induces a great part of the artless youth of Oxford to spend much time and much money; as I was there on Saturday night purchasing (why should I disguise it, perhaps you, too, Mr. Editor, would be none the worse for a trip to Anticyra,) Valentines, the presiding deity affably entered into conversation with me, and said that she expected to stay till eleven o'clock serving them out. I thought how many would return to the fair dispenser, and wondered, as Bulwer might say, "What will she do with them ?" Curlpapers? No, she wears bands. I give it up then, for I trust she will not use them for pipe lights. She told me, too, that sixteen ladies were that morning in the shop clamorously demanding to be served with Valentines, and refusing to wait their turns. Ah, soft and fair, though noisy brood of cygnets, was it one of you that sent me that donkey in a scholar's gown! Could I but think so, I should feel pleasure mixed with pain; pain that a lady should think me a donkey, pleasure that she should acknowledge my existence at all.

Valentines may be divided into four classes-the Daub, the Comic, the Florid, and the Poetical. N.B.-This classification may be depended upon, having been obtained by diligent study of shop windows in the provinces and in the city of Oxford. The Daub commonly represents a tailor, very thin and very ragged, who is beneath addressed as Mr. Snip; or a hump-backed, nutcracker, nose-and-chinned cobbler, cognomine Lapstone; or a scolding wife, with a vermillion bottle labelled "Rum." The Comic is much in favour in Oxford, and is circulated through every sect with original verses—the more insulting the more comic. The different stages of the Florid must be known to everybody. It is a wonderful piece of goods; I never saw the Alhambra, but I should think it must be like a highly ornamented Valentine. As for the Poetical Valentine, I have never come across it. I have

B