made, thirds and mass were celebrated, and the candles, after the offering, were presented to the priest. The monks' candles signified the use of them in the parable of the wise virgins."

Other authorities tell us that there was on this day a general consecration of all the candles to be burnt in the Catholic churches throughout the whole year; and it is probable enough that all these customs may have prevailed at various times and in different places. It should also be mentioned that from Candlemas the use of tapers at vespers and litanies, which had continued through the whole winter, ceased until the ensuing All-Hallow Mass, which will serve to explain the old English proverb in Ray's Collection

"On Candlemas Day

Throw candle and candlestick away."

The ceremony of carrying Candlemas candles continued in England, till it was repealed for its Popish tendency by an order in council in the second year of King Edward VI. Still the many and various customs, that grew out of it, could not be extirpated by any legal enactments. They assumed a multitude of forms, the innate signification of which is now as much lost to us as that of the characters upon the Egyptian pyramids. Thus Hone tells us, from the communication of some unnamed individual, of a custom that prevailed in Lynne Regis, and which, so far as he knew, was confined to a single family-" The wood-ashes of the family being sold throughout the year as they were made, the person who purchased them annually sent a present at Candlemas Day of a large candle. When night came, the candle was lighted, and, assisted by its illumination, the inmates regaled themselves with cheering draughts of ale and sippings of punch, or some other animating beverage, until the candle had burnt out. The coming of the Candlemas candle was looked forward

to by the young ones as an event of some consequence, for of usage they had a sort of right to sit up all night and partake of the refreshments till all retired to rest, the signal for which was the self-extinction of the Candlemas candle."

The peculiar merits of this day are not yet exhausted. It was a favourite epoch for drawing prognostics of the weather, it being held on all hands that the second of February ought on no account to be fine; Aubrey quotes from some forgotten record,

"Si sol splendescat Maria purificante

Major erit glacies post festum quam fuit ante.”

Considering the general state of the weather in February, this was prophecying on the safe side of the question, and we need not be surprized therefore if we find others following in the same track. Bishop Hall informs us in a sermon upon Candlemas, "it hath been an old -I say not how true-note, that hath been wont to be set on this day, that if it be clear and sun-shiny, it portends a hard weather to come; if cloudy and louring, a mild and gentle season ensuing." And Ray says,

In the "

"The hind had as lief see

his wife on the bier,

As that Candlemas Day

should be pleasant and clear."

Country Almanack" again, for 1676, we find

a similar doctrine advanced;

"Foul weather is no news;

hail, rain, and snow

Are now expected, and

esteemed no woe; Nay, 'tis an omen bad,

the yeomen say

If Phoebus shows his face

the second day” — i.e. of February.

But enough of Candlemas Day. Its tapers are burnt

out, and the joyful song of the birds, who are beginning to choose their mates, announce that Valentine Day is come, the whole burthen of which seems with us to have fallen on the unlucky postman. He now finds that love is no such light matter, whatever other folks may think, for is he not transformed for the nonce into Cupid's messenger, albeit his blue coat and red collar have nothing very etherial in them?

Saint Valentine ?-all we know of this holy personage is that he was a priest at Rome, where he was martyred about 270, and had in consequence the honour of being assigned a niche in the record of Saints, his post being the 14th of February. Enquiries have been made, but hitherto in vain, to discover what the good bishop had done that should entitle him to have this day above all others appropriated to him. We have only, however, to suppose that his martyrdom took place on the 14th, and the whole mystery is solved, all the other peculiarities of the day being merely accidents, that had nothing to do with his individual character, and which would have as readily attached to any one else, who had met with the good fortune of being sainted at that particular season.

The origin of this custom has been sought for in the Lupercalia of the Romans, and with much apparent reason, as will be evident when we come to enquire into the old mode of celebrating Valentine's Day, which, as we shall presently see, had but little in common with the modern habit of sending silly letters by the penny post. In ancient Rome a festival was held about the middle of

February, called the Lupercalia, in honour of Pan and Juno, whence the latter obtained the epithet of Februata Februalis, and Fabrulla. Upon this occasion the names of young women were put, amidst a variety of ceremonies, into a box, from which they were drawn by the men as chance directed, and so rooted had this, like many other

customs, become amongst the people, that the pastors of the early Christian church found themselves unable to eradicate it. They therefore, instead of entering into a fruitless struggle, adopted their usual policy on such occasions, and since they could not remove what they held to be an unsightly nuisance, they endeavoured, as a skilful architect would do, to convert it into an ornament. Thus they substituted the names of Saints for those of women, a change that would not seem to have been generally, or for any long time, popular, since we read that at a very remote period the custom prevailed of the young men drawing the names of the girls, and that the practice of adopting mates by chance-lots soon grew reciprocal between the sexes. In fact Pan and Juno vacated their seats in favour of Saint Valentine, but the Christian bishop could not escape having much of the heathen ritual fastened upon him. We must not, however, imagine that Valentine's Day, any more than Epiphany or Candlemas, was celebrated with one uniform mode of observance; the customs attendant upon it varied considerably according to the place and period. In many parts of England, and more particularly in London, the person of the opposite sex, who is first met in the morning, not being an inmate of the house, was taken to be the Valentine, a usage that is noticed by the poet, Gay,

66

I early rose just at the break of day
Before the sun had chas'd the stars away;
A-field I went, amid the morning dew,

To milk my kine (for so should housewives do)
The first I spied, and the first swain we see

In spite of fortune our true love shall be."

That the lasses went out to seek for their makes, or mates, i. e. Valentines, is also shown in poor Ophelia's broken snatches of a song;

"Good morrow! 'tis St. Valentine's day

All in the morning betime,

And I a maid at your window

To be your valentine."

In the Gentlemen's Magazine for 1779, a correspondent under the name of Kitty Curious, relates an odd ceremony that she has been witness to in some humble village in Kent. The girls from five or six to eighteen years old were assembled in a crowd, burning an uncouth effigy, which they called a holly-boy, and which they had stolen from the boys, while in another part of the village the boys were burning what they called an ivy girl, which they had stolen from the girls. The ceremony of each burning was attended with huzzas and other acclamations according to the receipt of custom in all such cases. The Monday before Shrove Tuesday was in old times called Collop Monday, "collop" being a term for slices of dried or salted meat, as "steak" signifies a slice of fresh The etymology is too uncertain to make it worth while to quote the different accounts of it, but upon this day it was customary to feast upon eggs and collops, and, as Lent was approaching, our ancestors used to cut up their meat in slices, and preserve it, till the season of fast was over, by salting, or drying it. In some parts the day seemed to have been kept as the vigil, or eve, of Shrove Tuesday, and in the neighbourhood of Salisbury, we are told, the boys went about from door to door, singing thus; "Shrove-tide is nigh at hand,

meat.

And I am come a shroving;

Pray, dame, something,

An apple, or a dumpling,

Or a piece of truckle cheese

Of your own making,

Or a piece of pancake."

The observance of this day originated, if we may be

* Brand and Hone, who have both quoted these lines, pass over the truckle-cheese in silence, as if it involved no difficulty; nor can I offer any certain explanation of the etymology. The epithet truckle,