

1827.] [ 2(53 ] 



VILLAGE SKETCHES I 



No. VI. 

 The Two Valentines. 



VALENTINE'S Day is one of great stir and emotion in our little village. 

 In large towns especially in London the wicked habit of quizzing has 

 entirely destroyed the romance and illusion of that tender anniversary. But 

 we in the country are, for the most part, uninfected by " over-wiseness," 

 or ' over-niceness," (to borrow two of Sir Walter Raleigh's quaint but 

 expressive phrases), and are content to keep the gracious festival of love- 

 making and Ullets-doux> as simply and confidirfgly as our ancestors of 

 old. I do not mean to say, that every one of our youths and maidens pair 

 on that day, like the <e goldfinch, bullfinch, greenfinch, and all the finches 

 of the grove." Heaven forbid ! Nor that the spirit of fun hath so utterly 

 evaporated from us, that we have no display of innocent trick or harmless 

 raillery on that licensed morn : all that I contend for is, that, in our 

 parts, some truth may be found lurking amidst the fictions of those annual 

 rhymes that many a village beaux hath so broken the ice of courtship 

 and that many a village belle hath felt her heart throb, as she glanced 

 at the emblematic scroll, and tried to guess the sender, in spite of the 

 assumed carelessness, the saucy head-tossings, and the pretty poutings 

 with which she attempted to veil her real interest. In short, there is 

 something like sincerity amongst us, even in a Valentine ; as witness the 

 number of wooings began on the Fourteenth of February, and finished in 

 that usual end of courtships and comedies a wedding before Whitsun- 

 tide. Our little lame clerk, who keeps a sort of catalogue raisonnee of 

 marriages, as a companion to the parish-register, computes those that 

 issue from the bursting Valentine-bag of our postman, at not less than 

 three and a half per annum that is to say, seven between two years. 



But besides the matches which spring, directly or indirectly, from the 

 billets commonly called Valentines there is another superstition connected 

 with the day, which has no small influence on the destinies of our country 

 maidens. They hold, that the first man whom they espy in the morning 

 provided that such man be neither of kin to them, nor married, nor an 

 inmate of the same house is to pass for their Valentine during the day ; 

 and, perhaps (for this is the secret clause which makes the observation 

 important), to prove their husband for life. It is strange how much faith 

 they put in this kind of sortes vitgilianOB this turning over the living leaf 

 of destiny ; and how much pains they will take to cheat the fates, and see 

 the man they like best first in spite of the stars ! One damsel, for instance, 

 will go a quarter of a mile about, in the course of her ordinary avocations, 

 in order to avoid a youth whom she does not fancy ; another shall sit 

 within doors, with her eyes shut, half the morning, until she hears the 

 expected voice of the favourite swain ; whilst, on their part, our country 

 lads take care to place themselves each in the way of his chosen she ; and 

 a pretty lass would think herself overlooked, if she had not three or four 

 standing round her door, or sauntering beneath her window, before 

 sunrise. 



Now, one of the prettiest girls in our parish is, undoubtedly, Sally 

 North. Pretty is hardly the proper phrase Sally is a magnificent girl ; 

 tall, far above the common height of woman, and large in proportion 

 but formed with the exactest symmetry, and distinguished by the firm, 



