Not a month had elapsed before I received another letter, sealed with such a signet as in size would rival the jewel sometimes seen pendent from the waistcoat pocket of a Jew broker on Saturday, and engraven with evidence of illustrious lineage, if quarterings be only half true. I did not break this magnificent seal, but I tore open the envelope, and I found that my antiquarian researches had been most flatteringly estimated by a gentleman with a double surname, which happened to be familiar to me. The communication was, of course, "private;" and it expressed the writer's knowledge, from hearsay, of the "value, merit, and ability" of my book, and the satisfaction it would afford my correspondent, to give it a "handsome an elaborate review in both the widely circulating and reviewing publications with which he had the honour of being connected." A copy of my work was to be sent to his own address, or to that of his bookseller: or, even a third course was obligingly opened to me—"he would send his man-servant to my publisher for the volume!" I sent the book, and the same day communicated with the head of the family who legally bore this very handsome name used by my correspondent, and he told me that he had just received 5l. worth of books from a great house in "the Row," which were obviously designed to be the response to an application from the gentleman with a large seal, who was "an impostor." This may be so; but I have received an acknowledgement for the receipt of my little work, so kind and courtly in its tone, that I do not even yet quite despair of one day reading the promised "handsome and elaborate review."
A SMALL AUTHOR.
FOLK LORE.
Valentine's Day—Superstition in Devonshire.
—The peasants and others believe that if they go to the porch of a church, waiting there till half-past twelve o'clock on the eve of St. Valentine's day, with some hempseed in his or her hand, and at the time above-named then proceed homewards, scattering the seed on either side, repeating these lines—
"Hempseed I sow, hempseed I mow,
She (or he) that will my true love be,
Come rake this hempseed after me;"—
his or her true love will be seen behind, raking up the seed just sown, in a winding-sheet. Do any of your readers know the origin of this superstitious custom?
J. S. A.