In the western counties, the children, decked with the wreaths and true-lover's knots presented to them, gayly adorn one of their number as their chief, and march from house to house, singing—

They commence in many places as early as six o'clock in the morning, and intermingle the cry, "To-morrow is come!" Afterwards they make merry with their collections. At Islip, Oxfordshire, England, I have heard the children sing the following, when collecting pence on this day—

And likewise the following—

Schoolboys have a very uncomplimentary way of presenting each other with these poetical memorials—

Far different from these is a stanza which is a great favorite with young girls on this day, offered indiscriminately, and, of course, quite innocently, to most of their acquaintances—

The mission of Valentines is one of the very few old customs not on the wane; and the streets of our metropolis practically bear evidence of this fact in the distribution of love-messages on our stalls and shop-windows, varying in price from a sovereign to one halfpenny. Our readers, no doubt, will ask for its origin, and there we are at fault to begin with. The events of St. Valentine's life furnish no clue whatever to the mystery, although Wheatley, in his "Illustration of the Common Prayer," absurdly disposes of the question in this way: "St. Valentine was a man of most admirable parts, and so famous for his love and charity, that the custom of choosing Valentines upon his festival, which is still practised, took its rise from thence." We see no explanation here in any way satisfactory, and must be contented with the hope that some of our antiquaries may hit on something more to the purpose.

It was anciently the custom to draw lots on this day. The names of an equal number of each sex were put into a box, in separate partitions, out of which every one present drew a name, called the Valentine, which was regarded as a good omen of their future marriage. It would appear from a curious passage quoted in the "Dictionary of Archaisms," that any lover was hence termed a Valentine; not necessarily an affianced lover, as suggested in "Hampson's Calendarium," vol. i. p. 163. Lydgate, the poet of Bury, in the fifteenth century, thus mentions this practice—

The divinations practised on Valentine's day are a curious subject. Herrick mentions one by rose-buds—

Perhaps the poet may here allude to a practice similar to the following, quoted by Brand: "Last Friday was Valentine day; and the night before I got five bay-leaves, and pinned four of them to the four corners of my pillow, and the fifth to the middle; and then, if I dreamt of my sweetheart, Betty said we should be married before the year was out. But, to make it more sure, I boiled an egg hard, and took out the yolk, and filled it with salt; and, when I went to bed, eat it shell and all, without speaking or drinking after it. We also wrote our lover's names upon bits of paper, and rolled them up in clay, and put them into water; and the first that rose up was to be our Valentine. Would you think it? Mr. Blossom was my man. I lay abed, and shut my eyes all the morning, till he came to our house, for I would not have seen another man before him for all the world." According to Mother Bunch, the following lines should be said by the girl on retiring to rest the previous night—

We believe the old custom of drawing lots on this eventful day is obsolete, and has given place to the favorite practice of sending pictures, with poetical legends, to objects of love or ridicule. The lower classes, however, seldom treat the matter with levity, and many are the offers of marriage thus made. The clerks at the post-offices are to be pitied, the immense increase of letters beyond the usual average adding very inconveniently to their labors. Such is Mr. Halliwell's account of Valentine's day.

In "Poor Robin's Almanack," 1676, the drawing of Valentines is thus alluded to—

Many curious customs are related by different writers in honor of this day; but, of all the quotations that could be made, none is more quaint and striking than the following from the Diary of the celebrated Pepys. On the 14th of February, 1667, is there entered: "This morning came up to my wife's bedside, I being up dressing myself, little Will Mercer to her Valentine, and brought her name written upon blue paper in gold letters, done by myself very pretty; and we were both well pleased with it. But I am also this year my wife's Valentine, and it will cost me £5; but that I must have laid out, if we had not been Valentines." He also adds: "I find that Mrs. Pierce's little girl is my Valentine, she having drawn me; which I was not sorry for, easing me of something more than I must have given to others. But here I do first observe the drawing of mottoes as well as names; so that Pierce, who drew my wife, did draw also a motto, and this girl drew another for me: what mine was I forget; but my wife's was most courteous, and most fair, which, as it may be used on an anagram upon each name, might be very pretty. One wonder I observed to-day, there was no music in the morning, to call up our new married friend (Peg Penn), which is very mean, methinks."

That Valentines were not confined to the lower classes in the days of Pepys, and were sometimes of a very costly description, may be judged from the following statement: "The Duke of York being once Mrs. Stuart's Valentine, did give her a jewel of about £800, and my Lord Mandeville, her Valentine this year, a ring of about £300."

And, in the following year, he notes down: "This evening my wife did with great pleasure show me her stock of jewels, increased by the ring she hath made lately, as my Valentine's gift this year, a Turkey stone set with diamonds; with this, and what she had, she reckons that she hath above £150 worth of jewels of one kind or other, and I am glad of it; for it is fit the wretch should have something to content herself with."

With regard to the origin of this festival in the calendar, there are many conflicting opinions. St. Valentine, who suffered martyrdom in the reign of the Emperor Claudius, was eminently distinguished for his love and charity; and the custom of choosing Valentines, or special loving friends on this day, is by some supposed to have thence originated. The following solution is, however, the more probable one. It was the practice in ancient Rome, during a great part of the month of February, to celebrate the Lupercalia, which were feasts in honor of Pan and Juno, whence the latter deity was named Februata, or Februalis. On this occasion, amidst a variety of ceremonies, the names of young women were put into a box, from which they were drawn by the men, as chance directed. The pastors of the early Christian church, who by every possible means endeavored to eradicate the vestiges of pagan superstitions, and chiefly by some commutations of their forms, substituted, in the present instance, the names of particular saints, instead of those of the women; and, as the festival of the Lupercalia had commenced about the middle of February, they appear to have chosen Valentine's day for celebrating the new feast, because it occurred nearly at the same time.