LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume XXIII, Issue 2175, 14 February 1881, Page 3

LITERATURE.

ST. VALENTINE’S DAY. [Communicated.] Who Bt. Valentino, was and wherefore ‘jhe anniversary of hia martyrdom has been selected as the day on which an interchange of tokens of affection, admiration, and sometimes, alas I spite, malice and envy should take place, is well known to the majority of our readers. No donbt It was a wise thing of the Fathers of the Ohnroh in the very earliest days of Christianity, to convert a pagan festival, which was debased by scenes and acts of the grossest immorality into a religious observance, instituted in solemn memory of a martyred priest of Borne, and to change dissolute and disorderly proceedings into a simple and innocent interchange of tender amenities between the sexes.

The festival in memory of St. Valentine, who was martyred on the 14th of February, was substituted for the Lupercalia, held about the same time, and as it was a feast, at which rejoicings and amusements, though of a more harmless kind, were indulged in—the people, though wedded to their observances, were satisfied. For a few centuries, the day was kept as one of public festivity, but by degrees, with some other celebrations of a similar character, it fell into disuse. From early Boman days it was a practice, when the birds began to mate, for young men and maids to assemble in various houses on the eve of St. Valentine, and being equal in number, their names were written on little strips, the maidens’ billets being placed in one urn, and the yonng men’s in another. Each drew a strip bearing a name, and the owner of that name was the Valentine of the person who had selected it from the promiscuous collection. As it rarely happened that a youth and maiden drew the other’s name, so a young girl had her chosen Valentine, and she herself was the chosen valentine of a different young man to the one she had picked out. The engagement was held to subsist for one year, but, as may be imagined, was not as a matter of chance “selection,” always of a satisfactory kind either to youth or maiden ; and their constancy to the chosen object was not always of the most marked character. The desire to know a future husband through a chance valentine in the last two cental iea—and for anything we know to the contrary may be now—was for a young girl to write the names of half a dozen yonng gentlemen known to her, each acceptable to her as a husband, on very small pieces of paper, roll them up, and enclose them in little balls of bread, moistened to the consistency of paste. On St. Valentine’s morning these bread pellets, with the names enclosed, were dropped all at tho same moment into a large basin filled with clear water. The first that rose to the surface and dissolved, displayed the billet, gave the name of the valentine, and also the spouse elect; the marriage being—it was superstitiously held—an event certain to take place before the year wa* out. Another device to learn who would ha the future husband was to procure five bay leaves, one of each the young and anxious maiden pinned at the separata corners of her pillow and the fifth in tbe centre when she retired for the night, that night being the eve of St. Valentine Having extinguished her light and achieved the feat of getting i nto bed backwards, she would recline her hesd on the pillow and on the centre bay leaf. Before wooing slumber she would request her Valentine and fntnre husband to present himself before her in her first sleep—* not in grand apparel, nor in fine array, hut in the old clothes he wore every day.’ H she dreamed ‘ a yonng man * appeared to her in the aforesaid old clothes, he was tbe Valentine to be accepted, and also tbe husband elect. If she did not dream of any such elegible investment, she was bound to arise from her couch as soon as she awoke in the morning, proceed to her chamber window, and the first male who passed the house was her Valentine for that day and year. This compulsory chance selection was rarely, if honestly performed, or if done at all, not without fear or trembling, ns the edds were greatly in favor of the milkman or chimney sweep being the first individual to greet her eyes at that hour. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries Valentine's Day was a very popular festival, and presents, some of a very valuable kind, were sent to the chosen Valentine. Pepys tells us that ‘the Cuke of York being once tbe Valentine of Miss Stuart, afterwards Dncfaess of York (a celebrated beauty, about whom the Count de Gr&mmont has much to say In his memoirs), did give her a jewel of about £BOO, and my Lord Mandeville on the following year a ring worth £3OO ’ Presents were not always confined to jewels, but articles of attire—that is to say, mantles, girdles, gloves, and even shoes adorned with diamond buckles were bestowed. Most of the old poets had something to say in praise of St. Valentine. The Monk Lydgate (1460), addressing the consort of Henry V., in reference to this time of affectionate greeting, poetised thus «Seynte Valentine, of custom yeere by yeere, Men have an usance, in this regioun, To loke and serche Cnpide’s kalendere, And chose their choyse of grete affeooionn.’

Before this period Valentine addresses in verse were sent to chosen mistresses of the affection notably by Charles Duke, of Orleans, who was one of the distinguished captives at the Battle of Aginoourt. Since that remote period verse of all kind—some excellent in its way, but for the moat part vile doggerel—has been, and continue to be written and sent to the elect, accompanied by pictorial floral and lace embellishments ; and so, we imagine, will continne to bo written and sent, delighting the eye and throbbing the heatto o) the recipients, especially if they are young misses in their teens.

But since the seventeenth century the festival may be said to have degenerated—that is to say, more properly descended to its proper scope and level. The lovers and loved who had passed their majority in those days looked anxiously on Valentino’s morn for a token of affection from the object of their still cherished, perhaps secret adoration. But now only young misses, and youths who have not one hair towards the expected moustache, are the principal senders and recipients of these gay communications. The scale even descends to the nursery, and baby, if she knows how, looks for her valentine as a right quite as much as her elder sifters.

Some change has, however, appeared of late years in these billets d’amour, and presents appear to be again coming into voguo, but there is not, in these more decorous days, the same kind of latitude extended to the reception of gifts as was allowed in the days of the “ Merry Monarch,” and young ladh s of the present day, or their mothers will for them, think twice before they permit themselves, or are permitted to accept a present of any value from an unacknowledged donor. Yet, if “ valentines ” do not keep themselves unknown, the whole amusement of the custom is at an end.

Much may, nay, often is, said against the custom ; but, as a pleasant innocent kind of flirting and juvenile love making, it would bo a pity if it fell into desuetude. Anything which promotes kindly and affectionate feeling between the younger portion of the community It must be desirable to maintain. And if a higher education leads the unmarried and still young adults to look upon these gay floral intercommunications as “nonsense.” it is to be hoped that the more j outhful of both sexes will for many genera tions to come, have preserved to them in all the sweetness of its kindiiness and the beauty of its embellisements, the festival of Bt. Valentine, ST. VALENTINE'S DAY. [“ Illustrated London Nows.”] A special day of interest to many in tho present month is the festival of Sli Valentino, although there is no recorded incident of his life that can have given rise to the various jocular customs associated with his anniversary. Whaterer, however, may be the histo rical origin of the celebration, whether heathen or Christian, there can be no doubt of its antiquity. According to an old tradition to which Chaucer refers, birds choose their mates on St. Valentine’s Day, and hence in the “ Midsummer Night’s Dream ” Theseus asks r — ... “ Good morrow, friends, St. Valentino is past; Begin these wood-birds but to couple now ? " JVom this notion, it has been suggested, arose the once popular practice of choosing valen-

tines, and also the common belief that the first two single persons who meet in the morning of St. Valentine’s Day hare • great chance of becoming married to each other. There are several allusions in " Pepy’s Diary ” to the draw* ing of Valentines; and in a pecuniary point of view the result of the lottery often caused an enormous outlay—lady Valentines being honoured not by anonymous verses, but by substantial gifts. It appeared that married and single were both liable to be chosen as a Valentine. When the Dube of York vu chosen bliss Stewart’s Valentine he gave her a jewel worth £BOO 5 and in 1667 Lord Man* deville, being that lady’s Valentine, presented her with a ring of the value of £3OO. Pour days afterwards Pepys had chosen Martha Batten for his Valentine he took her to the Exchange, and there “ upon a pair of ezn* broiderod and six pair of plain white gloves he laid out 405.” A remnant of this custom is kept up in Devonshire, where it is usual for a young woman thus to address the first man she meets on St. Valentine's Day: “ Good morrow Valentine, I go to-day To wear for you what yon must pay— A pair of gloves next Easter Day”— the person thus invited being expected to send the gloves on the day mentioned. Tha observance of St. Valentine’s Day has not been by any moans uniform, the custom* attendant upon it having varied considerably, according to the place and period. Thus, in Kent, the girls bum an uncouth image called “the hollyboy,” stolon from the boys ;"whilo in another part of the village boys burn an “ ivy girl,” stolon from the girls. In Northamptonshire it was customary for young people to “catch” their parents and each other on their first meeting on St. Valentine's morning ; and they could say, “ Good morrow, Valentine!” before they were spoken to, were entitled to a small present. Zn Peterborough and some of the villages in the northern part nf the country sweet phun buns were formerly made—called Valentin® buns—which were given by godfathers and godmothers to their godchildren on the Sunday preceding and Sunday following , St. Valentine’s Day. In Hampshire, in day* gone by, it was the practice for a boy to send a sash to his sweetheart on St. Valentine'* Day, who was bound tp return it by a bunch, of ribbons to ornament his hat at Whitsuntide. In Dorsetshire, on this day, the maid* suspended in the kitchen a nosegay of early flowers tied up with a true-love knot of bln® ribbon. In Hertfordshire, the boys and girls assembled very early in the morning under the windows of the principal inhabitant of the village, singing the following words:— Good morrow to you, Valentine, Curl your lochs as I do mine. Two before and three behind; Good morrow to yon, Valentine. Meanwhile, wreaths wore showered down upon, them from the windows, with which they adorned themselves. The girls then chose one of the youngest boys to take the lead, and, a procession being formed, they went from house to house singing the same song before each in turn. In Norwich and the neighborhood the celebration of St. Valentine’s Day is somewhat peculiar—where it is customary for Valentines to be received on St. Valentine’s Eve. The parcel containining the Valentino —generally some article of intrinsic worth—is placed on the doorstep, and, aloud rap being given at the door, the bearer runs away. Such presents are always sent anonymously, and frequently contains a few verses, ending thus :

If you’ll be mine, I’ll bo thine. And so good-morrow, Valentine.