napkins in their red wine and waved them out of the window. The mob had strong beer given them, and for a time halloed as well as the best, but taking disgust at some healths proposed, grew so outrageous that they broke all the windows, and forced themselves into the house; but the Guards being sent for, prevented further mischief." The " Weekly Chronicle" of February 1, 1735, stated that the damage was estimated at some hundred pounds," and that the Guards were posted all night in the street, for the security of the neighbourhood.'

Many of the anthems said to have been sung at the meetings of the Club are preserved. A certain Benjamin Bridgewater was the most distinguished laureate of this heartless and disgusting society. But considerable doubt has of late been thrown upon the validity of_the testimony which imputes to Englishmen so coarse and brutal a celebration of an unhappy anniversary. Mr. Timbs sums up a rather long but interesting account of this Club, by stating his conclusion that the whole affair of the celebration of 1735 was a hoax, kept alive by the pretended Secret Secret History and sensibly confesses

that there is no more reason for believing in the existence of a Calves' Head Club in 1734-5 than there is for believing it exists at present.'

The King's Head Club was a society instituted for affording to court and government support, and to influence Protestant zeal: it was designed by the unscrupulous Shaftesbury: the members were a sort of Decembrists of their day: but they failed in their aim, and ultimately expired under the ridicule of being called " Hogs in Armour."' The members met at the King's Head Tavern, near Temple Bar. They acquired also the name of the Green Ribbon Club, from the favour by which they were to be recognised upon their days of 'street engagements.' were provided with silk armour for defence; and for offence they carried a certain pocket weapon called the Protestant flail, made of lignum vitæ, on the lucus a non lucendo principle, on account of its deathdealing potency. This implement is known in modern times as a life-preserver. The King's Head Club is illustrious, amongst its lesser glories, for having given the word mob, contracted from mobile vulgus, to the English language.

They

that kind of observation which 'with extensive view,

Surveys mankind from China to Peru.'

Of course it has fallen to me, in the operation, to remark many an anxious toil and eager strife, as Dr. Johnson has done before me-many a passion of hope and fear, of desire and hate, of ambition and of love. The conclusion of the whole matter -so far, that is, as I am concerned, for I do not wish to commit the old bear to any proposition half so amiable-has been that love is, after all, the master passion, vanquishing honour, laughing at death, and, about this time of year especially, writing innumerable letters. The catholicity of love and of lovemaking is the only absolute one; and I back it for the only true and genuine eirenicon. The memory of St. Valentine is touchingly and appropriately honoured even by those who have no idea of the red-letter days of a Christian calendar. Fluttering Cupids daintily hold in their softest fetters the gallant mandarin who sees the gentle Venus, hominum Divumque voluptas, reflected in the adorable and elliptical eyes of his celestial charmer. Dragged along by the silken cords, we behold in our mind's eye the representatives of all populations, from the Patagonian to the Esquimaux, from the Maori to the Fox Islander, from the Hottentot to the extra-civilized races of Europe.

How the impish progeny of the Queen of Love ring out their joyous glee and let fall their tinkling laughter at the heterogeneous but unanimous procession which marshals itself on the artist's brain and peoples his quaint and fertile invention! First with a becoming and national, but only outward, insouciance, marches Young England, male and female; after whom, separated only by the elegant natives of the Flowery Land, who have been introduced already, proceed, with more outward demonstrations of affection, the representatives of a rather more elderly

VOL. XI.-NO. LXII.

England. The drill-sergeant has fallen back upon the once despised glories of the goose-step, and seems to rejoice in parading the affection of his well-preserved elect. Follows an Arcadian, sentimentally haranguing his lady-love in the chastely-ornamental style of Claude Melnotte, and eloquently descanting about that chateau of his that, on the shore of some lake in lovely Spain, towers up into the eternal summer. Merrily, and taking pleasure pleasantly, trips to dance-music the gay army subaltern of la grande nation. Then a nondescript pair, whose passion is that of romance and disguise, who exchange the ever-fresh and kindling vow in the worn-out language of the formal past, and tread meanwhile a stately measure. Follow a crest-fallen couple who have dared the impious experiment of electing friendship to the place of love, one of whom, the spectator rejoices to observe, is justly being tweaked as to the nose for his audacity. The pet god is not more amiable when indulged than vengeful when his patience has been too much or too impudently tried. Next after these rebuked and punished wretches, a lady of Elizabethan time and dignity receives with a gratified hauteur and with a guarded mouth the addresses of the gallant who pays a half-Mephistophelean homage in the shape of a kiss on the coyly-surrendered hand; whilst the knight, whose motto is 'God and the Ladies,' sighs to think of the vows that come between him- ! self and a more particular selection. The squire is happier with his pillioned demoiselle; and Hodge and the grenadier perform to the best of their willing ability the almost double duty which three capricious and capering beauties demand at their hands and hearts. The Elizabethan gentleman in the wake of these is about, we fancy, to contract a mésalliance; and the tar walks stoutly off with a lady who must have furtively wandered from the neighhourhood of a court, and who doubtless enjoys the despair of the barrister

I

who in pleading his own cause has become the most unhappy and hopeless of suitors.

All these, however, are the mere phantoms of the artist's brain; but what shall we say of the fortunate pair whose forms in all but flesh and blood occupy the centre of his ornamental lozenge?

What shall we say? It is a diflicult question for any writer or reader to answer who is conscious of the necessity of remaining true to an allegiance that has been pledged elsewhere. Turn over the page quickly, fair lady or gallant gentleman, unless, indeed, you have the good fortune to be the identical ones represented in all the intensity of pictorial bliss; in which case, as nobly and ungrudgingly as we may, we will wish each of you joy, and pray that every succeeding day may be a renewal of love and a commemoration of this day of St. Valentine.

What memories does not the name of the dear old saint call up-what memories, not all undashed with regret! For, alas! it is so very easy for the best things to degenerate into the worst! As I walk through the streets in these latter days of January I see in the windows of every print-shop flaring and absurd parodies of the tenderest of passions, monstrosities of inhumanity intended to burlesque the most sacred and the most universal of mortal or immortal affections-coarse and flaunting vulgarities of form and colour, matched by doggrel verses offensive and ribald beyond the furthest stretch of license. Only here and there amongst the hideous caricatures there is erected some chaste, retiring, and half-exposed altar of Hymen, from which the fumes of incense are with difficulty seen to ascend to the delight of a group of fluttering Cupids, and to the edification of a pair of lovers in the act of blessing each other by the interchange of mutual vows of eternal union and constancy.

My earlier memories of the feast of St. Valentine are of a different order. In a primitive and secluded district, where life seemed to win a solemnity even from its monotony, the claims of the most popular of

The

the saints were not so set at nought. The stately drama was the business of the celebration; the farce, if there was one, was an afterpiece which followed, as the Christmas hilarity followed the morning sermon. I fish up from the imperishable stores of memory the recollection of the mystery that hovered over the actions, the sayings, the inuendoes of my compeers for many days before St. Valentine gave his sanction to those hearty declarations which it were a forlorn hope to suppose could be quite anonymous. kind of valentine I best remember in those days was one cut out of paper into many curious patterns, and folded afterwards into as many shapes as the ingenuity of waiters has since devised for metropolitan dinner-napkins. Triangular, oblong, square, diamond, circular, polygonal, worked out by the cunning shears to the similitude of most elaborate lace-work, and made vocal by some quaint and ardent rhyme-such were the bait with which we angled for the favour of our chosen fair, and with which, O rapture! we occasionally succeeded in captivating them for a couple of days. The arbiter elegantiarum in these matters, without whom nothing could be done, or at least done well, was a cheerful lady who, having slighted the opportunity of taking that ebb in her affairs which led on to matrimony, devoted much of her genial old maidenhood to the delectation of the youth of both sexes. Her services, her taste, her nimble wit and pliant shears, were called into requisition whenever an assault more determined than usual was to be made on some too-obdurate charmer's heart. I know not where now abides the spirit of that vestal priestess of Venus; whether it haply floats about me as I write these lines, or whether, still incarnate, it initiates the youth of the antipodes -whither, obedient to some noble impulse, she went to end her days— into the same mysteries that, twenty years ago, were so piquant and engaging to the youngsters of my native village. Peace be to her, wherever she may be; yea, peace must be with her as a condition of