closed grub, the animal which she is destined not to know, can hardly be the object of a particular affection, if we deny the influence of instinct. There is nothing, therefore, left to her, but that of which her nature seems incapable, an abstract anxiety for the general preservation of the species; a kind of patriotism; a solicitude, lest the butterfly race should cease from the creation. Lastly; the principle of association will not explain the discontinuance of the affection when the young animal is grown up. Association, operating in its usual way, would rather produce a contrary effect. The object would become more necessary by habits of society: whereas birds and beasts, after a certain time, banish their offspring; disown their acquaintance; seem to have even no knowledge of the objects which so lately engrossed the attention of their minds, and occupied the industry and labour of their bodies. This change, in different animals, takes place at different distances of time from the birth; but the time always corresponds with the ability of the young animal to maintain itself; never anticipates it. In the sparrow tribe, when it is perceived that the young brood can fly and shift for themselves, then the parents forsake them for ever; and, though they continue to live to gether, pay them no more attention than they do to other birds in the same flock. I believe, the same thing is true of all gregarious quadrupeds. In this part of the cases, the variety of resources, expedients, and materials, which animals of the same species are said to have recourse to, under different circumstances, and when differently supplied, makes nothing against the doctrine of insects. The thing which we want to account for, is the propensity. The propensity being there, it is probable enough that it may put the animal upon different actions, according to different exigencies. And this adaptation of resources may look like the effect of art and consideration, rather than of instinct; but still the propensity is instinctive. For instance, suppose what is related of the woodpecker to be true, that in Europe she deposits her eggs in cavities, which she scoops out in the trunks of soft or decayed trees, and in which cavities the eggs e concealed from the eye, and in some sort, safe from the hand of man; but that, in the forests of Guinea and the Brazils, which man seldom frequents, the same bird hangs her nest to the twigs of tall trees; thereby placing them out of the reach of monkies and snakes; i. e. that in each situation she prepares against the danger which she has most occasion to apprehend; suppose, I say, this to be true, and to be alleged, on the part of the bird that builds these nests, as evidence of reasoning and distinguishing precautions, still the question returns, whence the propensity to build at all? Nor does parental affection accompany generation by any universal law of animal organization, if such a thing were intelligible. Some animals cherish their progeny with the most ardent fondness, and the most assiduous attention; others entirely neglect them; and this distinction always meets the constitution of the young animal, with respect to its wants and capacities. In many, the parental care extends to the young animal; in others, as in all oviparous fish, it is confined to the egg, and even, as to that, to the disposal of it in its proper element. Also, as there is generation without parental affection, so is there parental instinct, or what exactly resembles it, without generation. In the bee tribe, the grub is nurtured neither by the father nor the mother, but by the neutral bee. Probably the case is the same with the ants. I am not ignorant of the theory which resolves instinct into sensation; which asserts, that what appears to have a view and relation to the future, is the result only of the present disposition of the animal's body, and of pleasure or pain experienced at the time. Shakspeare, also, alludes to the same notion in his Midsummer Night's Dream. The ceremony of this day, however, has been attributed to various sources, besides the tradition mentioned. The legend itself of St. Valentine, a Presbyter of the church, who was beheaded under the Emperor Claudius, contains nothing which could give origin to the custom; notwithstanding the inference drawn by Wheatly, in his Illustration of the Common Prayer, that "from the great love and charity of that Saint, the custom of choosing Valentines upon his festival (which is still practised) took its rise." For were not all Saints famous for their love and charity? And surely the writer does not mean that we should, understand the word love, as implying gallantry? Another opinion, that because ghosts were formerly thought to walk on the night of this day, or about this time, that gallantry had, at the Reformation, taken up an idea which superstition had been compelled to drop, is equally unsatisfactory; since we have unquestionable authority from the Paston Cor respondence, that the custom of choosing Valentines was common in the reign of Edward IV. Margaret Brew, in a letter printed in Sir John Fenn's collection of these curious documents, dated February, 1476, addresses it to her "Right well-beloved Valentine John Paston, Esq." The letter itself contains the genuine dictates of the heart of a young lady deeply in love, and apprehensive that her father will pot give her such a fortune on her marriage as the gentleman who paid his addresses to her expected, she therefore fears the continuance of his affection, but assures him of hers : "Ryght reverende and worshipful, and my right well-beloved Voluntyne, I recomainde me unto you full heretely, desyring to here of your wellfare, which I beseche ALMYGHTY God long for to preserve unto hys plesur, and your herts desyr." The style of the whole, though obsolete, is extremely tender, and could not be easily exceeded by a Valentine of the present day. She tells him "if it pleases him to here of her wellfare, she is not in good helth of body, nor herte, nor shall be tyll she hears from hym.' And finishes by desiring him to destroy her letter when he has read it, as she would on no account have any one know what she has written to him. Lydgate, the monk of Bury, in some Wharton also, in his Histry of English Poetry, has given us a specimen of a curious French Valentine, composed byGower, the contemporary of Chaucer. Charles Duke of Orleans, father of Louis XII. when a prisoner in England, composed some verses in honour of this festival, and other allusions are made to it by early writers, sufficient to prove the origin of the custom to be long anterior to the period stated. Some have asserted this to have been an observance peculiar to Carnival time, which occurred anciently at this season of the year, when it was usual for vast numbers of Knights to visit the Courts of Europe, where they entertained the ladies with pageantry and tournaments. Each lady, at these magnificent feats, selected, we are told, a Knight who engaged to serve her for a whole year, and to perform whatever she chose to command. One of the never-failing consequences of the engagement was an injunction to employ his muse in the celebration of his mistress; and hence the custom of writing and sending verses and love-letters on this day. Menage, in his Etymological Dictionary, has accounted for the term Valentine, by stating that Madame Royale, daughter of King Henry IV. of France, having built a palace near Turinwhich in honour of the Saint, then in high esteem, she called the Valentine at the first entertainment which she gave in it, was pleased to order that the ladies should receive their lovers for the year by lots, reserving to herself the privilege of being independent of chance, and of choosing her own partner. At the various balls which this gallant Princess gave during the year, it was directed that each lady should receive a nosegay from her lover, and that, at every tournament, the Knight's trappings for his horse should be furnished by his allotted mistress, with this previso, that the prize obtained should be her's. This custom, says Menage, occasioned the parties to be called Valentines. A writer of the early pat of the seventeenth century tells us, that at this festival the men used to make the women presents, as, upon another oc casion, the women used to do to the men; but that presents were to that day made reciprocally in Scotland. To which Pennant, in his tour to that country, adds, that in February young persons draw Valentines, and from thence collect their future fortunes in the nuptial state. In the British Apollo (1708) we read Why Valentines, a day to choose The question with an answer close?— And couple like the winged kind. And in the same work, vol. ii. (1709), is this further illustration of the sub ject: "Quest. In choosing Valentines (according to custom) is not the party choosing (be it man or woman) to make a present to the party chosen? "Answ. We think it more proper to say drawing Valentines, since the most customary way is for each to take his or her lot; and chance cannot be termed choice. According to this method, the obligations are equal, and therefore it was formerly the custom mutually to present; but now it is customary only for the gentleman." Grose explains Valentine to mean the first woman seen by a man, or man seen by a woman, on St. Valentine's Day, the 14th of February. Perhaps Mr. Douce's conjecture, in his Illustrations of Shakspeare, that the custom of Valentines is a relict of paganism, is the most probable. "It was the practice of ancient Rome," observes that gentleman, during a great part of the month of February, to celebrate the Lupercalia, which were feasts in honour of Pan and Juno, whence the latter deity was named Februata, Februalis, and Februella. On this occasion, amidst a variety of cere monies, the names of every young wo man 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, endeavoured to eradicate the vestiges of Pagan superstitions, and chiefly by some commutation of their forms, substituted, in the present instance, the names of particular saints, instead of those of the woman; and, as the festival of the Lupercalia commenced about the middle of February, they appear to have chosen St. Valentine's Day for celebrating the new feast, because it occurred nearly at the same time. This is in part Butler's opinion in his Lives of the Saints. It should seem, however, that it was utterly impossible to extirpate altogether any ceremony to which the common people had been much accustomed; a fact which it were easy to prove in teacing the origin of various other popular superstitions; and, accordingly, the outline of the ancient ceremonies was preserved, but modified by some adaptation to the Christian system. It is reasonable to suppose that the above practice, of choosing mates would gradually become reciprocal in the sexes; and that all persons so chosen, would be called Valentines, from the day on which the ceremony took place." The modes of ascertaining the Valentine for the year, were nearly the same formerly as at present; they consisted either in drawing lots on Valentine's Eve, or in considering the person whom you met early in the following morning as the destined object. In the former case, the names of a certain number of the fair sex were, by an equal number of the other, put into a vase, which, for the time, was termed their Valentine, and was considered as predictive of their future fortune in marriage; in the second, there was usually some little contrivance adopted, in order that the favoured object, when such existed, might be first seen. To this custom Shakspeare refers, when he represents Ophelia, in her distraction, singing→ Good morrow, 'tis Saint Valentine's day, In the Connoisseur we find a curious species of divination, as practised on Valentine's Day, or Eve, which some of our fair youthful readers may not be displeased to be acquainted with: it is supposed to be a communication from a young lady to the author;→→→ "Last Friday was Valentine's day, and the night before I got five bay leaves, and pinned four of them to the four corners of my pillows, and the fifth to the middle; and then, if I dreamed 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, ate it, shell and all, without speaking or drinking after it. We also wrote our lovers' 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 a-bed, and shut my eyes all the morning, till he came to our house, for I would not have seen any other man before him for all the world." The practice of sitting cross-legged, and sending presents to the person chosen, has been continued to modern times: and we may add a trait, not now observed, perhaps, on the authority of an old English ballad, in which the lasses are directed to pray crosslegged to St. Valentine for good luck. THE POWER OF WINE. Are all reveal'd, are all confess'd; fellow, Quaffs nectar till they both are mellow. Seated before the blazing hearth, A cheerful glass, an hour well spent, Journal des Modes. CHARLES CLASSIC. VARIETIES. MR. FITZWILLIAM'S FAMILY. The founder of the present noble family of Fitzwilliam, was an Alderman of Bread-street, in the year 1506. Before his death he forgave all his debtors, and wrote upon the erased accounts of each "Amore DEI remitto!" Cardinal Wolsey was the chief mean of this worthy citizen acquiring his large fortunes. After the disgrace of the Cardinal, Mr. Fitzwilliam very hospitably entertained him at Milton, Northamptonshire, one of the fine seats of the present Earl. Henry VIII. was so enraged at this, that he sent for Mr. F. to Court, and said "How, ha! how comes it, ha!" that you dare entertain a traitor?" Fitzwilliam modestly replied, "I did it not from disloyalty, but gratitude." The angry monarch here interrupted him by How, ha!" (the usual ex-clamation of his rage.)-Mr. F. with the tear of gratitude in his eye, and the burst of loyalty in his bosom, continued "from gratitude, as he was my old master, and the mean of my greatest fortunes." Impetuous Harry was so much pleased with the answer, that he shook him heartily by the hand, and said, "Such gratitude, ha! shall never want a master; come into my service, worthy man, and teach my other servants gratitude, for few of them have any." He then knighted him on the spot. Mr. F. was immediately sworn in a Privy Counsellor. ACCOUNT OF THE URSA MAY LAYANUS. In a Zoological Memoir, communicated to the Linnean Society by Sir J. T. Raffles, is given an account of some animals in the Island of Sumatra, collected by that gentleman for the East India Company. The most popu larly curious of these is the Ursa May. layanus. This bear was caught young, and brought up in the nursery among the children. It appears to be a variety of the common bear and bear of India, It was perfectly tame, and in its habits exceedingly playful. Sir J. T. Raffles mentions that it was also a brute of taste, which it displayed at the dinner table, where it was a frequent visitor, by refusing to eat any fruit but Mango steens, or to drink any wine but Champagne; the only instance in which it was ever seen angry was, when there was none of the latter at the dessert. Bruin commonly messed in peace with a dog, a cat, and a lory. The dog was its favourite, and suffered to worry and tease, without offence or resentment. The strength of the animal, when full grown, was nevertheless very great; and it could tear up by the roots, from the garden, a plantain tree of such size as to be almost too large for its embrace. Extract from the Sufferings and Escape of James Scurry, who was detained a prisoner during ten years in the dominions of Hyder Ali and Tippoo Saib. young black doxies, we had the bazaar "We were one day informed, that each of us was to have a wife; for this piece of news we were extremely sorry, but there was no possibility of our preventing their designs. There were, at this time, a number of young girls, who had been driven with their relations out of the Carnatic, when Hyder infested that country. Some of these poor creatures were alloted for us; and one morning we were ordered to fall into rank and file, when those girls were placed one behind each of us, while we stood gazing at one another, wondering what they were about to do. At last, the durga gave the word, "To the right about face;" with the addition (in the Moorish language) of "take what is before you." This, when understood, some did, and some did not; but the refractory were soon obliged to comply. When this ceremony was completed, we were ordered back to our square, and, on our return with our LITERARY SCRAPS. No. I. OTHELLO.-The story on which this tragedy is founded is taken from Cynthio's novels, the seventh in the third decade: whence Shakspeare obtained the name of Othello cannot no w be ascertained, as no English translation of this work, so early as the time of Shakspeare, is known. There is a French translation of Cynthio, by Gabriel Chappreys, Paris 1584, which is, however, not a faithful one; but probably, through this medium the work came into English. There can be no doubt, but many small and interesting pamphlets have been irretrievably lost between his time and the present. If ever there was, then, one English translation of the above novel, it is now lost, and perhaps never more to be met with. |