ed creature, and can
I reproach her for it?"--For the communication of this letter, I am
indebted to my cousin Bridget.

[Footnote 1: Urn Burial.]

VALENTINE'S DAY

Hail to thy returning festival, old Bishop Valentine! Great is thy
name in the rubric, thou venerable Archflamen of Hymen! Immortal
Go-between! who and what manner of person art thou? Art thou but a
_name_, typifying the restless principle which impels poor humans to
seek perfection in union? or wert thou indeed a mortal prelate, with
thy tippet and thy rochet, thy apron on, and decent lawn sleeves?
Mysterious personage! like unto thee, assuredly, there is no other
mitred father in the calendar; not Jerome, nor Ambrose, nor Cyril;
nor the consigner of undipt infants to eternal torments, Austin, whom
all mothers hate; nor he who hated all mothers, Origen; nor Bishop
Bull, nor Archbishop Parker, nor Whitgift. Thou comest attended with
thousands and ten thousands of little Loves, and the air is

Brush'd with the hiss of rustling wings.

Singing Cupids are thy choristers and thy precentors; and instead of
the crosier, the mystical arrow is borne before thee.

In other words, this is the day on which those charming little
missives, ycleped Valentines, cross and intercross each other at every
street and turning. The weary and all forspent twopenny postman sinks
beneath a load of delicate embarrassments, not his own. It is scarcely
credible to what an extent this ephemeral courtship is carried on in
this loving town, to the great enrichment of porters, and detriment
of knockers and bell-wires. In these little visual interpretations,
no emblem is so common as the _heart_,--that little three-cornered
exponent of all our hopes and fears,--the bestuck and bleeding heart;
it is twisted and tortured into more allegories and affectations
than an opera hat. What authority we have in history or mythology
for placing the head-quarters and metropolis of God Cupid in this
anatomical seat rather than in any other, is not very clear; but we
have got it, and it will serve as well as any other. Else we might
easily imagine, upon some other system which might have prevailed
for any thing which our pathology knows to the contrary, a lover
addressing his mistress, in perfect simplicity of feeling, "Madam,
my _liver_ and fortune are entirely at your disposal;" or putting
a delicate question, "Amanda, have you a _midriff_ to bestow?" But
custom has settled these thing