VALENTINE'S DAY.

[Communicated by a Lady.]

On the fourteenth of February it is customary, in many parts of Hertfordshire, for the poor and middling classes of children to assemble together in some part of the town or village where they live, whence they proceed in a body to the house of the chief personage of the place, who throws them wreaths and true lovers' knots from the window, with which they entirely adorn themselves. Two or three of the girls then select one of the youngest amongst them (generally a boy), whom they deck out more gaily than the rest, and, placing him at their head, march forward in the greatest state imaginable, at the same time playfully singing,

Good morrow to you, Valentine;
locks as I do mine,

Curl
your
Two before and three behind,
Good morrow to you, Valentine.

This they repeat under the windows of all the houses they pass, and the inhabitant is seldom known to refuse a mite towards the merry solicitings of these juvenile serenaders. I have experienced much pleasure from witnessing their mirth. They begin as early as six o'clock in the morning.

On a Valentine's day, being at Uswick, about six miles from Bishop's Stortford, I was awakened from sleep by the laughing voices of a troop of these children. I hastily dressed myself, and threw open the window: it was rather sharp and frosty: the yet sleepless trees were thickly covered with rime, beautifully sparkling in the faint sunbeams, which made their way through the thin_vapours of the moist atmosphere. "To-morrow is come," lisped one of the little ones who stood foremost in the throng; "to-morrow is come," said he, as soon as I appeared; and then, joyfully clapping his hands, all joined in the good morrow, which they continued to repeat till their attention was called off by the welcome sound of the falling halfpence on the crisp frozen grass-plot before the house. Away ran some of them under the trees, some down the walks, while others, who appeared to be of a less lively temper, or, perhaps, less avariciously inclined, remained timidly smiling in their old station, and blushing when I urged them to follow the rest, who were collecting the scattered dole under the old apple tree. Some were on their knees, others absolutely lying down

with out-stretched hands, and faces on which were depicted as much earnestness as if the riches of the Valley of Diamonds which Sinbad tells of were before them; while the biggest girls were running round and round, hallooing with all their might, and in vain attempting to beat off the boys, who were greedy graspers of the money. They all returned with flushed faces towards the house, and repeated their "to-morrow is come; and, once more, I was going to say the "golden" drops saluted their delighted ears: again they scrambled, and again I threw, till my stock of half-pence being exhausted, and having nothing further to behold, I closed the window, and attended the welcome summons of my maid, who just then entered the room with the agreeable news "the breakfast is ready, miss, and there is a nice fire in the parlour." "Farewell then, pretty children," I cried, "and the next year, and the next, may you still have the same smiling faces, and the same innocent gaiety of heart; and may I, on the morning of the next fourteenth of February, be half as pleasantly employed as in listening to your cheerful 'good-morrows."

M. A.

The Valentine Wreath.
Rosy red the hills appear
With the light of morning,
Beauteous clouds, in æther clear,
All the east adorning;

White through mist the meadows shine:
Wake, my love, my Valentine !
For thy locks of raven hue,
Flowers of hoar-frost pearly,
Crocus-cups of gold and blue,
With Mezereon sprigs combine
Rise, my love, my Valentine!
O'er the margin of the flood,
Pluck the daisy peeping;
Through the covert of the wood,
Hunt the sorrel creeping;
With the little celandine
Crown my love, my Valentine.
Pansies, on their lowly stems
Scatter'd o'er the fallows;
Hazel-buds with crimson gems,
Green and glossy sallows;
Tufted moss and ivy-twine,
Deck my love, my Valentine.
Few and simple flow'rets these ;
Yet, to me, less glorious
Garden-beds and orchard-trees!
Since this wreath victorious
Binds you now for ever mine,
O my Love, my Valentine.

Montgomery.

St. Asaph in Wales, Feb. 15. 1809. "Mr. STOKES, Sir,

"On the receipt of this, please to call and get nine shillings, a balance due to me from Mr. Warner, at 16. Cornhill Lottery office, which he will give you, and for which send constantly, every week, 18 of the Mirror Newspapers, directed fair and well, in good writing, to Mr. Kinley, of Crossack, Ballasalla, Isle of Mann.

All

"Mrs. Kinley likes your newspaper the best of any, because you often insert accounts of shocking accidents, murders, and other terrible destructions, which so lamentably happen to mankind. As such, Your newspaper is a warning voice, and an admonition for people to watch for their own welfare, and to be aware. newspapers who are filled with dirty, foolish, sinfull accounts of mean, ill, unprofitable things, which stuff the minds of readers with devilish wickedness, ought to be avoided as devilish, and as soul-destroying doctrine. But a newspaper ought to be next unto the blessed godly gospel of our holy Lord and master, Jesus Christ himself, who continually taught and established the word and works of grace and eternal life, through the holy sanctification of the Holy Ghost, the most holy, blessed, gift of God, the Almighty Abba Father of

our holy Lord Jesus Christ. When I was in the Isle of Mann, I paid threepence a-week for one of your papers; and I let Mrs. Kinleys have it, and, as she has several young sons, your paper would be a blessing to them. And I beg, on Saturday next, you will not fail to begin and send a newspaper every week, and dont miss in any one week, for I want to have them filed, and to have a complete set of them, as I have a great number of the Mirror papers, and I hope to be a constant customer; as such, I beg you will, next Saturday, begin and send a Mirror newspaper every week, and give a good direction on them, and set Mr. Kinley's name quite plain upon the frank, as they are bad, and very bad, readers of writing, at the house where the letters and papers are left at Ballasalla.

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And, when I get back to the Island, I will take one of your papers for myself, and will send you more cash in due time. But, at present time, begin on next Saturday, and don't fail, and direct quite plain, in good writing, for Mr. Kinley, of Crossack, Ballasalla, Isle of Mann.

N. B. Set two nn's in the word Mann, else they send it to the Isle of Mar, in a mistake.

"Observe well, you must begin this week, and never miss at all, to send a Mirror paper every week, to the Isle of Mann. Don't miss in any week at all. I have paid the postage of this single letter, and I particularly entreat you to get the nine shillings from Mr. Warner, for which please to begin on next Saturday, and don't neglect to send eighteen successive Mirror newspapers, with a very good direction to Mr. Kinley, of Crossack, Ballasalla, Isle of Mann, and I will send cash to you, from the Isle, in due time, for myself for more papers, at the end of the time.

Yours,

"E. T. HADWEN, Engineer, &c."

[Annexed.]

St. Asaph in Wales, Feb. 15, 1809. "Mr. Warner, of 16 Cornhill. "Esteemed and dear friend. Your's of 1st inst. I got when I came here, with a share in it. I find you to be very honest, honourable, upright, and just, and you have used me better than any other lottery office ever yet did before. Please to give the sum of nine shillings, the balance due to me, unto Mr. John Stokes, the pub

lisher of the Mirror newspaper, as I want him to send eighteen newspapers to the Isle of Mann for it; and so I beg you will let Mr. Stokes have that balance when he calls or sends; and so, wishing you every blessing for ever and ever, for our Lord Jesus Christ, his blessed, his holy blessed sake, I am, dear Mr. Warner, your entire, and eternal true honest friend,

“E. T. HADWEN, Engineer.

"I could like to have a share of No. 103,

one-sixteenth of it. If you have it, I beg you will save one-sixteenth of it for me, as I expect to be in London before the drawing is over, and I will take it when I come. You need not write to me about it, as I actually mean to call when I come, &c. And so I wish you a good farewell at the present time."

OLD LETTERS.

I know of nothing more calculated to bring back the nearly-faded dreams of our youth, the almost-obliterated scenes and passions of our boyhood, and to recal the brightest and best associations of those days

When the young blood ran riot in the veins, and

Boyhood made us sanguinenothing more readily conjures up the alternate joys and sorrows of maturer years, the fluctuating visions that have floated before the restless imagination in times gone by, and the breathing forms and inanimate objects that wound themselves around our hearts and became almost necessary to our existence, than the perusal of old letters. They are the memorials of attachment, the records of affection, the speaking-trumpets through which those whom we esteem hail us from afar; they seem hallowed by the brother's grasp, the sister's kiss, the father's blessing, and the mother's love. When we look on them, the friends, whom dreary seas and distant leagues divide from us, are again in our presence; we see their cordial looks, and hear their gladdening voices once more. The paper has a tongue in every character, it contains a language in its very silentness. They speak to the souls of men like a voice from the grave, and are the links of that chain which connects with the hearts and sympathies of the living an evergreen remembrance of the dead. I have one at this moment before me, which (although time has in a

degree softened the regret I felt at the loss of him who penned it) I dare scarcely look upon. It calls back too forcibly to my remembrance its noble-minded author the treasured friend of my earliest and happiest days-the sharer of my puerile but innocent joys. I think of him as he then was, the free-the spirited— the gay-the welcome guest in every circle where kind feeling had its weight, or frankness and honesty had influence; what he now is, and pale and ghastly and in an instant comes the thought of images of death are hovering round me. I see him whom I loved, and prized, and honored, shrunk into poor and wasting ashes. I mark a stranger closing his lids -a stranger following him to the grave— and I cannot trust myself again to open his last letter. It was written but a short time before he fell a victim to the yellow fever, in the West Indies, and told me, in the feeling language of Moore, that

Far beyond the western sea

Was one whose heart remember'd me.

On hearing of his death I wrote some stanzas which I have preserved-not out of any pride in the verses themselves, but as a token of esteem for him to whom they were addressed, and as a true transcript of my feelings at the time they were composed.

To those who have never loved nor lost a friend, they will appear trivial and of little worth; but those who have cherished and been bereft of some object of tenderness will recur to their own feelings; and, although they may not be able to praise the poetry, will sympathise with and do justice to the sincerity of my attachment and affliction.

Stanzas.

Farewell! farewell! for thee arise

The bitter thoughts that pass not o'er;
And friendship's tears, and friendship's sighs,
Can never reach thee more ;
For thou art dead, and all are vain
To call thee back to earth again;
And thou hast died where stranger's feet
Alone towards thy grave could bend;
And that last duty, sad, but sweet,

Has not been destined for thy friend:
He was not near to calm thy smart,
And press thee to his bleeding heart.
He was not near, in that dark hour

When Reason fled her ruined shrine,
To soothe with Pity's gentle power,

And mingle his faint sighs with thine;
And pour the parting tear to thee,
As pledge of his fidelity.

He was not near when thou wert borne
By others to thy parent earth,
To think of former days, and mourn,

In silence, o'er departed worth;
And seek thy cold and cheerless bed,
And breathe a blessing for the dead.
Destroying Death! thou hast one link

That bound me in this world's frail chain : And now I stand on life's rough brink,

Like one whose heart is cleft in twain ;
Save that, at times, a thought will steal
To tell me that it still can feel.

Oh! what delights, what pleasant hours
In which all joys were wont to blend,
Have faded now-and all Hope's flowers

Have withered with my youthful friend.
Thou feel'st no pain within the tomb-
'Tis theirs alone who weep thy doom.
Long wilt thou be the cherished theme

Of all their fondness-all their praise;
In daily thought and nightly dream,

In crowded halls and lonely ways; And they will hallow every scene Where thou in joyous youth hast been. Theirs is the grief that cannot die,

And in their heart will be the strife That must remain with memory,

Uncancelled from the book of life. Their breasts will be the mournful urns Where sorrow's incense ever burns.

But there are other letters, the perusal of which makes us feel as if reverting from the winter of the present to the spring-time of the past. These are from friends whom we have long known and whose society we still enjoy. There is a charm in contrasting the sentiments of their youth with those of a riper age, or, rather, in tracing the course of their ideas to their full development; for it is seldom that the feelings we entertain in the early part of our lives entirely change -they merely expand, as the full-grown tree proceeds from the shoot, or the flower from the bud. We love to turn from the formalities and cold politeness of the world to the "Dear Tom" or "Dear Dick" at the head of such letters. There is something touching about it-something that awakens a friendly warmth in the heart. It is shaking the hand by proxy-a vicarious "good morrow." have a whole packet of letters from my friend G, and there is scarcely a dash or a comma in them that is not characteristic of the man. Every word bears the impress of freedom-the true currente calamo stamp. He is the most convivial of letter-writers-the heartiest of epistlers. Then there is N- who always seems

I

to bear in mind that it is "better to be brief than tedious;" for it must indeed be an important subject that would elicit from him more than three lines: nor hath his riba whit more of the cacoethes scribendi about her-one would almost suppose they were the hero and heroine of an anecdote I remember somewhere to have heard, of a gentleman who, by mere chance, strolled into a coffee-house, where he met with a captain of his acquaintance on the point of sailing to New York, and from whom he received an invitation to accompany him. This he accepted, taking care, however, to inform his wife of it, which he did in these terms:

"Dear Wife,

I am going to America.
Yours truly,"

Her answer was not at all inferior either in laconism or tenderness :"Dear Husband,

A pleasant voyage.
Yours, &c."

There are, again, other letters, differing in character from all I have mentionedfragments saved from the wreck of early love-reliques of spirit-buoying hopes— remembrancers of joy. They, perchance, remind us that love has set in tears-that hopes were cruelly blighted-that our joy is fled for ever. When we look on them we seem to feel that

-No time
Can ransom us from sorrow.

We fancy ourselves the adopted of Misery-Care's lone inheritors. The bloom has passed away from our lives.*

In looking over the drawings of Mr. Chatfield, the artist, I found a fine fullsized portrait of Phebe Hassel, which that gentleman sketched at Brighton in her lifetime, and has obligingly copied for the engraving before the reader.

This remarkable female was well known in Brighton, where she sold fruit at a stall in the street, and, when more than a century old, frequently afforded proof, to any who offended her, of the determined spirit which animated her to extraordinary adventures in youth. The annexed extract from a private MS. Journal relates an interesting interview with her in her last illness.

"Brighton, Sep. 22, 1821. I have seen to-day an extraordinary character in the

No. 66, Judd Street, Brunswick Square.

person of Phebe Hassel, a poor woman stated to be 106 years of age. It appears that she was born in March 1715, and, at fifteen, formed a strong attachment to Samuel Golding, a private in the regiment called Kirk's Lambs, which was ordered to the West Indies. She determined to follow her lover, enlisted into the 5th regiment foot, commanded by general Pearce, and embarked after him. She served there five years without discovering herself to any one. At length they were ordered to Gibraltar. She was likewise at Montserrat, and would have been in action, but her regiment did not reach the place till the battle was decided.- Her lover was wounded at Gibraltar and sent to Plymouth; she then waited on the general's lady at Gibraltar, disclosed her sex, told her story, and was immediately sent home. On her arrival, Phebe went