No popular respect will I omit
To do the honour on this happy day,
When every loyal lover tasks his wit
His simple truth in studious rhymes to pay,
And to his mistress dear his hopes convey.
Rather than know it I would still outrun
All calendars with Love's, whose date alway
Thy bright eyes govern better than the sun,
For with thy favour was my life begun:
And still I reckon on from smiles to smiles,
And not by Summers, for I thrive on none
But those thy cheerful countenance compiles.
Oh! if it be to choose and call thee mine
Love, thou art every day my Valentine!
e. HOOD-Sonnet. For the 14th of

February.

Oh! cruel heart! ere these posthumous

papers

Have met thine eyes, I shall be out of breath;

Those cruel eyes, like two funereal tapers, Have only lighted me the way to death. Perchance thou wilt extinguish them in

vapours,

When I an gone, and green grass covereth Thy lover, lost; but it will be in vainIt will not bring the vital spark again. f. HOOD A Valentine.

Hail to thy returning festival, old Bishop Valentine! Great is thy name in the rubric. Like unto thee, assuredly, there is no other mitred father in the calendar.

g. LAMB.

V.

Apollo has peeped through the shutter,
And awaken'd the witty and fair;
The boarding-school belle's in a flutter,
The twopenny post's in despair;
The breath of the morning is flinging
A magic on blossom and spray,

And cockneys and sparrows are singing
In chorus on Valentine's day.
PRED-14th of February.

h.

Saint Valentine is past;

Begin these wood-birds but to couple now? Midsummer Night's Dream. Act IV.

i.

To-morrow is Saint Valentine's day

All in the morning betime,

And I a maid at your window,
To be your Valentine.

J.

Hamlet. Act IV. Sc. 5.

Sc. 1.

The fourteenth of February is a day sacred to St. Valentine! It was a very odd notion, alluded to by Shakespeare, that on this day birds begin to couple; hence, perhaps, arose the custom of sending on this day letters containing professions of love and affection. k. NOAH WEBSTER.

Now all Nature seem'd in love
And birds had drawn their Valentines.
WOLTON.

1.

Virtue, the strength and beauty of the soul,
Is the best gift of Heaven; a happiness
That, even above the smiles and frowns of
fate,

Exalts great Nature's favourites; a wealth That ne'er encumbers, nor can be transferr'd.

C.

ARMSTRONG-Art of Preserving Health.
Bk. IV. Line 284.

Virtue is like a rich stone, best plain set.
d. BACON-Essay. Of Beauty.

Virtue is like precious odours, most fragrant when they are incensed or crushed.

e. BACON--Essay. Of Adversity.

There is no road or ready way to virtue; it is not an easy point of art to disentangle ourselves from this riddle or web of sin. f. Sir THOMAS BROWNE-Religio Medici. Sec. 55. Whilst shame keeps its watch, virtue is not wholly extinguished in the heart. BURKE-Reflections on the Revolution in France.

The only amaranthine flower on earth Is virtue: the only lasting treasure, truth. p. COWPER The Task. Bk. III.

Virtue alone is happiness below. q.

Line 268.

CRABBE-The Borough. Letter XVII. Virtue, dear Friend! needs no defence; The surest guard is innocence: None knew till guilt created fear What darts or poison'd arrows were.

r.

WENTWORTH DILLON (Earl of Roscom-
mom)--Translation.
The Twenty-
second Ode of 1st Book of Horace.
St 1.

A virtuous deed should never be delay'd,
The impulse comes from Heav'n, and he who

strives

It is a far greater virtue to love the true for itself alone, than to love the good for itself alone.

v. EMERSON-First Visit to England. The only reward of virtue is virtue.

20. EMERSON-Essay. Of Friendship.

Oh, Virtue! I have followed you through life, and find you at last but a shade. x. EURIPIDES.

Fooled thou must be, though wisest of the

wise:

Then be the fool of virtue, not of vice. From the Persian.

y.

Shall ignorance of good and ill
Dare to direct the eternal will?
Seek virtue, and, of that possest,
To Providence resign the rest.

Z. GAY-The Father and Jupiter. The virtuous nothing fear but life with shame,

And death's a pleasant road that leads to
fame.
GEO. GRANVILLE (Lord Lansdowne)-
Verses Written 1690.

aa.

Virtue is its own reward. bb. GAY-Epistle to Methuen. Line 42. His failings leaned to virtue's side. cc. GOLDSMITH-Deserted Village.

Line 164.

To be discontented with the divine discontent, and to be ashamed with the noble shame, is the very germ of the first upgrowth of all virtue.

dd.

CHAS. KINGSLEY-Health and Education. The Science of Health.