I must have laid out if we had not been Valentines." He afterwards adds, "I find that Mrs. Pierce's little girl is my Valentine, she having drawn me; which I was not sorry for, it easing me of something more that I must have given to others; But here I do first observe the fashion of drawing of mottos as well as names; so that Pierce, who drew my wife, did also draw a motto, and this girl drew another for me. What mine was I forgot; but my wife's was, most courteous and most fair;' which, as it may be used, or an anagram upon each name, might be very pretty. One wonder I observed to-day, that there was no music in the morning to call up our new married people, which is very mean methinks."]

From the following lines in Bishop Hall's Satires, iv. 1, it would seem that Valentine has been particularly famous for chastity :

"Now play the Satyre whoso list for me,

Valentine self, or some as chaste as hee."

From Douce's manuscript notes I learn that Butler, in his Lives of the Saints, says, "To abolish the heathen, lewd, superstitious custom of boys drawing the names of girls, in honour of their goddess Februata Juno, on the 15th of February, several zealous pastors substituted the names of Saints in billets given on that day." See his Account of St. Valentine. And in vol. i., Jan. 29, he says, that "St. Frances de Sales severely forbad the custom of Valentines, or giving boys in writing the names of girls to be admired and attended on by them; and to abolish it, he changed it into giving billets with the names of certain Saints, for them to honour and imitate in a particular manner. But quære this custom among the Romans above referred to.

دو

Herrick, in his Hesperides, p. 61, speaking of a bride,

says,

"She must no more a-maying;

Or by Rose-buds divine

Who'l be her Valentine?"

Misson, in his Travels in England, translated by Ozell, p. 330, says, "On the Eve of the 14th of February, St. 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 batchelors 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 her's. By this means each has two Valentines: but the man sticks faster to the Valentine that is fallen to him, than the Valentine to whom he is fallen. Fortune having thus divided the company into so many couples, the Valentines give balls and treats to their mistresses, wear their billets several days upon their bosoms or sleeves, and this little sport often ends in love. This ceremony is practised differently in different counties, and according to the freedom or severity of Madam Valentine. There is another kind of Valentine, which is the first young man or woman that chance throws in your way in the street or elsewhere on that day.

[In Norfolk it is the custom for children to "catch” each other for Valentines; and if there are elderly persons in the family who are likely to be liberal, great care is taken to catch them. The mode of catching is by saying "Good morrow, Valentine;" and if they can repeat this before they are spoken to, they are rewarded with a small present. It must be done, however, before sun-rise; otherwise, instead of a reward, they are told they are sun-burnt, and are sent back with disgrace. Does this illustrate the phrase sun-burned in Much Ado About Nothing?]

[In Oxfordshire the children go about collecting pence, singing

"Good morrow, Valentine,

First 'tis yours, then 'tis mine,

So please give me a Valentine."]

In Poor Robin's Almanack, for 1676, that facetious observer of our old customs tells us opposite to St. Valentine's Day, in February,

"Now Andrew, Anthony, and William,
For Valentines draw Prue, Kate, Jilian."

[The same periodical, for the year 1757, has the following verses on this day :

This month bright Phoebus enters Pisces,
The maids will have good store of kisses,
For always when the sun comes there,
Valentine's Day is drawing near,

And both the men and maids incline
To chuse them each a Valentine;
And if a man gets one he loves,
He gives her first a pair of gloves;
And, by the way, remember this,
To seal the favour with a kiss.
This kiss begets more love, and then
That love begets a kiss again,

Until this trade the man doth catch,
And then he does propose the match;
The woman's willing, tho' she's shy,
She gives the man this soft reply,
'I'll not resolve one thing or other,
Until I first consult my mother.'
When she says so, 'tis half a grant,
And may be taken for consent."

This is still one of the best observed of our popular festivals, and the extraordinary length to which the custom of Valentine letter-writing is carried may be gathered from the following enumeration of the letters which passed through the London post-office on St. Valentine's Day, 1847, vastly exceeding the usual average, and principally owing to this practice. "Monday being the celebration of St. Valentine's day, an extraordinary number of letters passed through the post-office. Not less than 150,000 letters of all descriptions, besides 20,000 newspapers, were delivered at nine in the morning by the general post letter-carriers, while in the London district office the numbers stood thus :-At the ten o'clock delivery 25,000, and during the successive turns' of the duty, 175,000 were stamped, assorted, and delivered, forming a total of 200,000 district letters during the day. Independently of these numbers, not less than 12,000 letters and 5,000 newspapers were received by the midday mails and delivered throughout the metropolis, and at night not fewer than 120,000 newspapers were despatched, and 60,000 letters; the grand total, therefore, of letters and newspapers passing through the post-office stands as follows:-Letters 422,000; newspapers, 145,000."

In an old English ballad, the lasses are directed to pray

cross-legged to St. Valentine for good luck. In some parts of England the poorer classes of children array themselves fantastically, and visit the houses of the wealthy, singing, — "Good morning to you, Valentine,

Curl your locks as I do mine,
Two before and three behind,
Good morrow to you, Valentine."]

COLLOP, OR SHROVE MONDAY.

IN the North of England, the Monday preceding Shrove Tuesday, or Pancake Tuesday, is called Collop Monday. Eggs and collops compose a usual dish at dinner on this day, as pancakes do on the following, from which customs they have plainly derived their names. It should seem that on Collop Monday they took their leave of flesh in the papal times, which was anciently prepared to last during the winter by salting, drying, and being hung up. Slices of this kind of meat are to this day termed collops in the north, whereas they are called steaks when cut off from fresh or unsalted flesh; a kind of food which I am inclined to think our ancestors seldom tasted in the depth of winter. A writer in the Gentleman's Magazine asserts that most places in England have eggs and collops (slices of bacon) on Shrove Monday.

My late learned friend, the Rev. Mr. Bowles, informed me that in the neighbourhood of Salisbury, in Wiltshire, the boys go about before Shrove-tide, singing these rhymes :

"Shrove-tide is nigh at hand,

And I am come a shroving;
Pray, Dame, something,
An apple or a dumpling,

Or a piece of truckle cheese

Of your own making,
Or a piece of pancake."

At Eton school it was the custom, on Shrove Monday, for the scholars to write verses either in praise or dispraise of Father Bacchus, poets being considered as immediately under his protection. He was therefore sung on this occasion in all kinds of metres, and the verses of the boys of the

seventh and sixth, and some of the fifth forms, were affixed to the inner doors of the College. Verses are still written and put up on this day, but I believe the young poets are no longer confined to the subject of writing eulogiums on the god of wine. It retains, however, the name of Bacchus.

In the Ordinary of the Butchers' Company at Newcastleupon-Tyne, dated 1621, I find the following very curious clause: " Item, that noe one Brother of the said Fellowship shall hereafter buy or seeke any Licence of any person whatsoever to kill Flesh within the Towne of Newcastle in the Lent season, without the general consent of the Fellowship, upon payne for every such defaute to the use aforesaide, £5.” They are enjoined, it is observable, in this charter, to hold their head meeting-day on Ash-Wednesday. They have since altered it to the preceding Wednesday.

Sir Thomas Overbury, in his Characters, 1615, speaking of a Franklin, says, that among the ceremonies which he annually observes, and that without considering them as reliques of Popery, are Shrovings. [The passage is sufficiently curious to deserve a quotation: "He allowes of honest pastime, and thinkes not the bones of the dead anything brused, or the worse for it, though the country lasses daunce in the churchyard after evensong. Rocke Monday, and the wake in summer, shrovings, the wakefull ketches on Christmas Eve, the hoky or seed cake, these he yearely keepes, yet holdes them no reliques of Popery."]

SHROVE-TIDE, OR SHROVE TUESDAY;

CALLED ALSO

FASTERN'S, FASTEN, OR FASTING EVEN, AND PANCAKE TUESDAY.

SHROVE-TIDE plainly signifies the time of confessing sins, as the Saxon word shrive, or shift, means confession. This season has been anciently set apart by the church of Rome for a time of shriving or confessing sins. This seemingly no bad preparative for the austerities that were to follow in