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FOR SALE.

South Carolina Bill for Seven Shillings and Sixpence, dated 1775.-A Five Dollar Confederate Note. -A Six (Spanish Milled) Dollar Note, 1777, and Two other U.S. Fractional Currency Notes.-What offers?-145, Care of the Manager.

Queen Anne; Privy Council Letter to the Duke of Bedford, 1705; signed by Seven Lords.-What offers?-147, Care of the Manager.

A Block Print, in colours, of SS. Nicholas and Catherine.-What offers ?-148, Care of the Manager.

MS. 4to vol. of Sermons, bound in old calf, The Rev. Mr. Mathew Henry's Sermons on the Covenant, from that text, 2 Sam. xxiii. 5. Contains 1,850 pages, neatly and closely written, and bears date 1690. Believed not to have been published. From the Collection of the Rev. John Meffen.-What offers ?149, Care of the Manager.

Roll of Coroners, Constables, &c., 3rd Phil. et Marie.-What offers ?-150, Care of the Manager.

A Curious and Interesting Collection of Papers to be sold, either complete or in sections as follow:(1) Privy Council Letter to the Duke of Northumberland, 1775, signed by Lords of Council.-(2) Presentment of the Grand Jury against the use of Silver in Taverns, &c., 1695, signed by Members of the Jury. -(5) Letter of Samuel Freeman, who was sold to a planter, dated Maryland, April 21, 1775.-(6) Two Indentures of Covenanted or Indented Servants, 1683-9.-(7) Papers in reference to Fitzgerald and the Jacobite Psalm, with autograph of Lord Lucas, 1695.-(9) Declaration of Fidelity to the Common wealth, 1651.-(10) Collection of Papers referring to the search for Papists, 1640.-(11) Papers relating to Thomas and Nicholas Titchborne, recusants, 1598. -(12) A very important Historical Document relating to Wyatt's Rebellion, February, 1554.-For prices of above apply to W.E. Morden, 30, The Parade, Lee.

Medieval Seals.-A small but representative Collection of Impressions of Medieval Seals, comprising Royal, Baronial, and other personages, Cities, Boroughs, Abbeys, Priories, Colleges, Cathedrals, Bishops, &c., all in a fine state of preservation. Will exchange for books; heraldic or archæological works preferred.-155, Care of the Manager.

A copy of that exceedingly rare and only edition in Welsh of the Book of Mormon, price 30s.-156, Care of the Manager.

4to, Gothic letter, printed by Joh. Froschauer, 1496, clean and tali copy, perfect, £1 10.-Charles I., Historical account of Civil War, by Dr. G. Bates, curious frontispiece, fine copy, 8s., 1685.-Cromwell, Flagellum, or Life and Death, Birth and Burial of O. Cromwell, the late Usurper, by S. T., Gent. (James Heath), portrait, 1st edition, 1663, rare, 10s, calf gilt.-Butler's Hudibras, annotations by Z. Grey, 2 vols., portrait and plates by Hogarth, scarce, calf gilt, 1764, 16s.-Macaulay's History, 8 vols., 265.— Ruskin, Modern Painters, 5 vols., cloth, leaves not cut open, exceptionally fine copy, 1st edition, 32 guineas. -Stones of Venice, third edition, with author's autograph, 6 guineas.-J. Lucas, Claremont House, Cawley Road, South Hackney, London.

The Cabinet of Genius (containing splendid mezzotint frontispieces and characters, 43 in all, and 10 views of Yorkshire and elsewhere), adapted to the most popular poems, &c.; with the poems at large. London, 1787, 4to size, price 30s.-H. Thornton, Carolgate, Retford.

Bronze Celt, with loop for fastening haft; Seventeenth Century Token.-William Duffield, "The Cock," Bishopsgate Without.-What offers ?-157, Care of the Manager.

Parkyn's Monastic and Baronial Remains, 2 vols., morocco, gilt edges, £1; or exchange.-94, High Street, Cowes.

Notes and Queries, from Aug. 14, 1880 to Dec. 31, 1881.-Gloucestershire Notes and Queries, from commencement, 12 Nos. (vol. i.).- Miscellanea Genealogica et Heraldica, from Aug. 1880 to Dec., 1881.-ANTIQUARY, from commencement to Dec., 1881.-Athenæum, 60 Nos. during 1880 and 1881; price 155.-158, Care of the Manager.

Douglas' Baronage of Scotland, will exchange for something else.-Walter F. Lyon, 5, Park Row, Albert Gate, S.W.

WANTED TO PURCHASE.

Dorsetshire Seventeenth Century Tokens, also Old Maps, Cuttings, Scraps, &c., relating to Dorset.J. S. Udal, Inner Temple, London.

Armorial Book-plates purchased or exchanged.Dr. Howard, Dartmouth Row, Blackheath.

Wanted. History of Surrey, Manning and Bray, 3 vols. folio, complete sets or any odd volumes.Tradesmen's Tokens (Seventeenth Century) of Surrey. George C. Williamson, Guildford.

Seventeenth Century Tokens of the Town and County of Nottingham.-J. Toplis, Arthur Street, Nottingham.

Seventeenth Century Tokens of Lancashire, at 25. each, or will exchange with collectors of other Counties.-N. Heywood, 3, Mount Street, Manchester.

Wanted. - Gentleman's Magazine for 1784, 1786, 1841 (Part I.), 1843 to 1860.-Plates relating to Yorkshire, from the Gentleman's Magazine.-Six Views of Picturesque Scenery in Yorkshire, by G. Nicholson.-Seventeenth Century Tokens of Settle Tradesmen.-Views, &c., of Jervaulx Abbey.-T. Brayshaw, Settle, Yorkshire.

Hull Views and Hull Seventeenth Century Tokens. Wanted-Roman Coins.-Also Akerman's and

St. Romanus for such as are possessed; Valentine for the falling sickness; St. Vitus for mad men," &c. ("On St. Vitus's Dance" see p. 90 of 1836 edition of Burton, and Hecker's Epidemics of the Middle Ages).

Brand quotes from a French almanack of 1672: "Du 14 Fevrier, qui est le propre jour Sainct Valentin on souloit dire

Saignée du jour Sainct Valentin
Faict du sang net soir et matin;
Et la saignée du jour devant
Garde de fièvres en tout l'an."

Ben Jonson protests against the saint's degradation by the popular associations of his day: Bishop Valentine, he says, in The Tale of a Tub

Left us example to do deed of charity,

To feed the hungry, clothe the naked, visit
The weak and sick, to entertain the poor,
And give the dead a Christian funeral;
These were the works of piety he did practise,
And bade us imitate; not look for lovers;
Or handsome images to please our senses.

It is not the popular aspect of the saint that is in Hall's mind when in the fourth book, t. i. of his Virgidemia he writes :

Now play the satyr whoso list for me,
Valentine self, or some as chaste as he.

2. But whatever other aspects Saint Valentine may have been regarded in, whatever other functions he may have discharged, it is certainly as the Saint of Lovers that he was most commonly known, at least in England; (Simrock, in his Handbuch der deutsche Mythologie speaks of England, North France, and the Netherlands, as the special "Valentine" districts); and we will now explain how this association came about.

:

Briefly, it came about in this way it was the popular belief that in or near the middle of February (let it be remembered that in the "Old Style" this would fall later in the year, i.e., nearer the spring-time than now)-birds paired; and it was thought that human beings should follow the example of the feathered and should likewise pair.

In the spring a young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love.

Saint Valentine's Day falling just then, the mediæval mind, in the habit of assigning all departments of life to superintending saints, naturally connected this pairing season with the name of Saint Valentine.

Let us first illustrate the popular belief just mentioned, and then speak of the observances and fashions that came to prevail in human society.

In his Assembly of Fowls, Chaucer describes, as the name of the poem indicates, a great gathering of birds; every bird, he says, was present:

For this was on Saint Valentine's Day,
When every fowl cometh to chose his make,
Of every kinde that men thinke may;
And that so huge a noise ganne they make,
That earth, and sea, and tree, and every lake
So full was, that unnethe was there space
For me to stand, so full was all the place.
And right as Alain in the Plaint of kind
Deviseth Nature of such array and face,
In such array men might her there find.
This noble Empress, full of alle grace,
Bad every fowl to take her owne place,
As they were wont alway fro year to year,
Saint Valentine's Day to stonden there.

After a full description of a special strife as to with whom a certain "formel eagle" somewhat impatient, the poem continues shall pair, during which the other birds grow

thus:

And when this werk all brought was to an end,
To every fowl Nature gave his make
By even accord, and on their way they wend;
And, Lord! the bliss and joy that they make !
For each of them gan other in his winges take,
And with their neckes each gan other wind,
Thanking alway the noble goddess of kind.
But first were chosen fowles for to sing,
As year by year was alway their usance,
To sing a roundel at their departing,
To do Nature honour and pleasance :
The note, I trowe, maked was in France;
The wordes were such as ye may here find
The nexte verse, as I have now in mind.

Qui bien aime, a tarde oublie
Now welcome, summer, with thy sonne soft,
That hast this winter weather's overshake;
Saint Valentine, thou art full high on loft,
Which drivest away the longe nightes black-
Thus singen smale fowles for thy sake;
Well have they cause for to gladden oft;
Since each of them recovered hath his make,
Full blissful may they sing when they awake.
Again, in the Complaint of Mars and Venus,
Chaucer refers to this great bird festival :-
"The glade night is worth an heavy morrow,"
Saint Valentine, a fowl thus heard I sing
Upon your day, ere the sun gan up spring.
Yet sang this fowl: "I rede you all awake;
And ye that have not chosen in humble wise,
Withoute repenting choseth your make,

Yet at this feast renoveleth your service;
And ye that have full chosen as I devise,
Confirmeth it perpetually to dure,

And paciently taketh your aventure." In the Cuckoo and Nightingale, a poem that used to be attributed to Chaucer, but which is of later date, the writer, whoever it was, describes a bright May morning, with the birds "tripping out of their bowers," and rejoicing in the daylight:

They pruned them, and made them right gay,
And danceden and lepten on the spray,
And evermore two and two in fere.
Right so as they had chosen them to year,
In Feverere upon Saint Valentine's Day.

So in the Midsummer Night's Dream, on finding the lovers in the wood, Theseus

says:

Hail, Bishop Valentine! whose day this is
All the air is thy diocese,

And all the chirping choristers

And other birds are thy parishioners;
Thou marriest every year

The lyric lark and the grave whispering dove,
The sparrow that neglects his life for love,
The household bird with the red stomacher;
Thou mak'st the blackbird speed as soon
As doth the goldfinch or the halcyon;
The husband cock looks out, and straight is sped,
And mates his wife, which brings her feather-
bed.

This day more cheerfully than ever shine,
This day, which might inflame thyself, old
Valentine.

And Herrick, in lines to his Valentine on St. Valentine's Day :—

Oft have I heard both youth and virgins say
Birds chuse their mates, and couple, too, this day;
But by their flight I never can divine

When I shall couple with my Valentine.
And so, not to go on quoting for ever,
Cowper, in Pairing Time Anticipated;-

It chanced, then, on a winter's day,
But warm and bright, and calm as May,
The birds, conceiving a design
To forestall sweet Saint Valentine,
In many an orchard, copse, and grove,
Assembled on affairs of love,

And, with much twitter and much chatter,
Began to agitate the matter.

associated with the great festival of birds, It is clear, then, that St. Valentine became and, as we have said, this association was due to the accidental occurrence of his day about the time of the pairing season. How the human celebration was suggested by that of the birds, is well expressed by the writer of lines, "To Dorinda on Valentine's Day," to be found in a volume entitled Satyrs of Boileau imitated, with other Poems, 1696, quoted by Ellis in his edition of Brand's Popular Antiquities ;—

Look how, my dear, the feathered kind,

By mutual caresses joined,

Bill, and seem to teach us two

What we to love and custom owe.

Shall only you and I forbear

To meet and make a happy pair?
Shall we alone delay to live?

This day an age of bliss may give.

And, again, in certain lines in The British
Apollo, also apud Ellis's Brand's Pop. Ant.:-
Why, Valentine's a day to choose
A mistress, and our freedom loose?
May I my reason interpose,

The question with an answer close?
To imitate we have a mind,

And couple like the winged kind.

We will add what Bailey says of Valentines: "(In England) about this time of the year (Feb. 14) the Birds chose their Mates; and probably thence came the custom of the young Men and Maidens choosing Valentines, or special loving friends on this day" (Eng. Dict., 13th ed., 1759).

3. We have now to consider in what manner the festival thus originated was kept -what rites and customs came to form part of its observance.

As the birds paired, so youths and maidens were to pair. A sort of alliance to last a year was to be formed, with more or less of hope that it would be more than temporarywould be for life. Persons standing in such a relation to each other were called Valentines. It was understood that they should exchange presents, or, at least-the custom altered in course of time-that the gentleman should make a present to the lady. Probably enough the presents were often accompanied with verses; and, in course of time, the verses went without the present-the verses became the present.

Our literature abounds in allusions to and mentions of this custom. We have already quoted from Chaucer's Assembly of Fowls, where, though he talks of birds, he has evidently human lovers in his mind; and a question of considerable interest for Chaucerian students is, what particular lady with her suitors is there denoted. Gower in his thirtyfourth Balade, speaks of the bird-gatherings with a like inner meaning. Lydgate, Charles Duc d'Orleans, the Paston Letters, Buchanan, Spenser, Pepys, Gay, Goldsmith, and endless other writers and documents refer to the custom; Shakespeare, Drayton, Donne, Ben Jonson, Herrick, we have already cited.

One of the oldest, if not the oldest, direct references is given by Mr. Halliwell-Phillipps, in his invaluable Dictionary of Archaic and Provincial Terms, from MS. Harl. 1735, f. 48:

Thow it be alle other wyn,
Godys blescyng have he and myn,
My none gentyl Volontyn,

Good Tomas the frere.

Friar Thomas was clearly one who was not thought by the writer to cut himself off from secular frivolities, or to be indifferent to creature comforts. These lines form a valentine in the modern acceptation of the term; and are, perhaps, the oldest specimen extant. Such as they are-valentines are not, as a rule, famous poetry-they seem to have been composed by one John Crophill, of Suffolk, who flourished temp. Henry IV. They are, therefore, older than the "Valentines" of Charles duc d'Orleans, which are mentioned and quoted from by Douce as the earliest specimens of this kind of writing (Illustrations of Shakespeare, pp. 471-2, ed. 1839).

Then found he many missing of his crew,

Which wont do suit and service to his might, Of whom what was becomen no man knew.

And he proceeds to investigate the cases of such defaulters, and especially of one Mirabella, in whom it is commonly thought the poet imaged a fair maiden who had turned a deaf ear to his own ardent vows.

Let us pass, for a moment, to those curious documents, The Paston Letters, which carry us back with such wonderful reality into the England and the eastern counties of the fifteenth century. In the third volume of Mr.Gardner's excellent edition, the publication of which is not the least of Professor Arber's many good services for English literature, there

are several references that concern the sub

ject of this Paper. About the close of 1476, or early in 1477, there begins to be entertained a marriage between Mistress Margery Brews and Mr. John Paston. Dame Elizabeth, Margery's mother, is anxious it should be accomplished. The young man's fervour seems to have been tempered by pecuniary considerations; he thought papa ought to do rather more than he was willing to do. The girl herself was evidently warmly attached to this calculating suitor; and for some time. the matter is in debate, often in danger of being broken off, but ending happily-ending in a marriage at least.

And Cosyn [writes my lady in February, 1477) choseth hym a mate; and if it like you to come on upon Friday is Sent Volentynes Day, and every bird Thursday at night and so purvey you that ye may abide there till Monday, I trusty to God that ye shall so speak to mine husband; and I shall pray that we

shall bring the matter to a conclusion. Next we have a letter from Margery herself -a fifteenth-century "love-letter." John had accepted my lady's invitation, and