VALENTINE'S DAY.
Seynte Valentine. Of custome, yeere by yeere,
Men have an usaunce, in this regioun,
To loke and serche Cupide's kalendere,
And chose theyr choyse, by grete affeccioun;
Such as ben move with Cupide's mocioun,
Taking theyr choyse as theyr sorte doth falle;
But I love oon whyche excellith alle.
LYDGATE'S Poem of Queen Catherine, consort to Henry V., 1440.
In some villages in Kent there is a singular custom observed on St. Valentine's day. The young maidens, from five or six to eighteen years of age, assemble in a crowd, and burn an uncouth effigy, which they denominate a "holly boy," and which they obtain from the boys; while in another part of the village the boys burn an equally ridiculous effigy, which they call an "ivy girl," and which they steal from the girls. The oldest inhabitants can give you no reason or account of this curious practice, though it is always a sport at this season.
Numerous are the sports and superstitions concerning the day in different parts of England. In some parts of Dorsetshire the young folks purchase wax candles, and let them remain lighted all night in the bedroom. I learned this from some old Dorsetshire friends of mine, who, however, could throw no further light upon the subject. In the same county, I was also informed it was in many places customary for the maids to hang up in the kitchen a bunch of such flowers as were then in season, neatly suspended by a true lover's knot of blue riband. These innocent doings are prevalent in other parts of England, and elsewhere.
Misson, a learned traveller, relates an amusing practice which was kept up in his time:—"On the eve of St. Valentine's day, the young folks in England and Scotland, by a very ancient custom, celebrated a little festival. An equal number of maids and bachelors assemble together; all write their true or some feigned name separately upon as many billets, which they rolled up, and drew 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 falls to him, than to the Valentine to whom he has fallen. Fortune having thus divided the company into so many couples, the Valentines give balls and treats to their fair mistresses, wear their billets several days upon their bosoms or sleeves, and this little sport often ends in love."
In Poor Robin's Almanack, 1676, the drawing of Valentines is thus alluded to:
"Now Andrew, Antho-
Ny, and William,
For Valentines draw
Prue, Kate, Jilian."
Gay makes mention of a method of choosing Valentines in his time, viz. that the lad's Valentine was the first lass he spied in the morning, who was not an inmate of the house; and the lass's Valentine was the first young man she met.
Also, it is a belief among certain playful damsels, that if they pin four bay leaves to the corners of the pillow, and the fifth in the middle, they are certain of dreaming of their lover.
Shakspeare bears witness to the custom of looking out of window for a Valentine, or desiring to be one, by making Ophelia sing:—
Good morrow! 'tis St. Valentine's day,
All in the morning betime,
And I a maid at your window.
To be your Valentine!
In London this day is ushered in by the thundering knock of the postman at the different doors, through whose hands some thousands of Valentines pass for many a fair maiden in the course of the day. Valentines are, however, getting very ridiculous, if we may go by the numerous doggrels that appear in the print-shops on this day. As an instance, I transmit the reader a copy of some lines appended to a Valentine sent me last year. Under the figure of a shoemaker, with a head thrice the size of his body, and his legs forming an oval, were the following rhymes:—
Do you think to be my Valentine?
Oh, no! you snob, you shan't be mine:
So big your ugly head has grown,
No wig will fit to seem your own
Go, find your equal if you can,
For I will ne'er have such a man;
Your fine bow legs and turned-in feet,
Make you a citizen complete."
The fair writer had here evidently ventured upon a pun; how far it has succeeded I will leave others to say. The lovely creature was, however, entirely ignorant of my calling; and whatever impression such a description would leave on the reader's mind, it made none on mine, though in the second verse I was certainly much pleased with the fair punster. I wish you saw the engraving!
W.H.H.
The first page or frontispiece embellisment of the present Number of the MIRROR illustrates one of the most recent triumphs of art; and the above vignette is a fragment of the monastic splendour of the twelfth century. Truly this is the bathos of art. The plaster and paint of the Colosseum are scarcely dry, and half the work is in embryo; whilst Kirkstall is crumbling to dust, and reading us "sermons in stones:" we may well say,
"Look here, upon this picture, and on this."
Kirkstall Abbey is situated a short distance from Leeds, in the West Riding of Yorkshire. Its situation is one of the most picturesque that the children of romance can wish for, being in a beautiful vale, watered by the river Aire. It was of the Cistercian order, founded by Henry de Lacy in 1157, and valued at the dissolution at 329l. 2s. 11d. Its rents are now worth 10,253l. 6s. 8d. The gateway has been walled up, and converted into a farm-house. The abbot's palace was on the south; the roof of the aisle is entirely gone; places for six altars, three on each side the high altar, appear by distinct chapels, but to what saints dedicated is not easy, at this time, to discover. The length of the church, from east to west, was 224 feet; the transept, from north to south, 118 feet. The tower, built in the time of Henry VIII., remained entire till January 27, 1779, when three sides of it were blown down, and only the fourth remains. Part of an arched chamber, leading to the cemetery, and part of the dormitory, still remain. On the ceiling of a room in the gatehouse is inscribed,
Mille et Quingentos postquam compleverit Orbis
Tuq: et ter demos per sua signi Deus
Prima sauluteferi post cunabula Christi,
Cui datur omnium Honor, Gloria, Laus, et Amor.
The principal window is particularly admired as a rich specimen of Gothic beauty, and a tourist, in 1818, says, "bids defiance to time and tempest;" but in our engraving, which is of very recent date, the details of the window will be sought for in vain. "Shrubs and trees," observes the same writer, "have found a footing in the crevices, and branches from the walls shook in undulating monotony, and with a gloomy and spiritual murmur, that spoke to the ear of time and events gone by, and lost in oblivion and dilapidation. At the end, immediately beneath the colossal window, grows an alder of considerable luxuriance, which, added to the situation of every other object, brought Mr. Southey's pathetic ballad of 'Mary the Maid of the Inn,' so forcibly before my imagination,[5] that I involuntarily turned my eye to search for the grave, where the murderers concealed their victim." He likewise tells us of "the former garden of the monastery, still cultivated, and exhibiting a fruitful appearance;" cells and cavities covered with underwood; and his ascent to a gallery by a winding turret stair, whence, says he, "the monks of Kirkstall feasted their eyes with all that was charming in nature. It is said," adds he, "that a subterraneous passage existed from hence to Eshelt Hall, a distance of some miles, and that the entrance is yet traced."