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