A time when young gentlemen let off their excess of love by lack-a-daisical missives to their chosen fair; praising in anonymous verses their to-other-eyes-undiscoverable-but-to-their-vision- brilliantly-resplendent charms--poetizing red hair into "auburn ringlets,"--making skim-milk-colored eyes, "orbs, the hue of heaven's own blue,"--causing scraggy, freckled necks to become "fair and graceful as Juno's swans," and deifying squat, dumpy young ladies into "first-rate angels." A time when innumerable people take unauthorised liberties with the name of a venerable Roman, long since defunct, laying themselves under all sorts of obligations, payable in friendship,--pledging any amount of love, and running up tremendous bills of affections, making no solid man responsible therefor, but only signing the all-over-christendom-once-a-year-universally-forged cognomen "Valentine." Most of these communications are amatory, some sickish, some nauseating, some satirical, some caustic, some abusive; for it seems to be a time which many a man takes advantage of to revenge some fancied slight from scornful lady, by sending her one of those scandalous nuisances, misnamed "comic Valentines;" because he thinks there will be so many of the foul birds upon the wing that his own carrion fledgling cannot be traced to its filthy nest. Bull Dogge, who is looking over my shoulder, remarks, that the man who would insult a lady, by sending an anonymous letter, would steal the pennies from a blind man, and then coax his dog away to sell to the butcher boys. And Bull Dogge is right. A time when the penny postman is looked for with more interest than if he bore the glad tidings so anxiously expected, "Sebastopol not taken,"--Laura Matilda in the parlor, to whom he brings but one, looks with envious eyes upon Biddy in the kitchen who gets two. A time when men who haven't got a wife wish they had, and those who are provided with that article of questionable usefulness wish they had another; when maids wish for one husband, and matrons for half a dozen. A time when nunneries and monasteries go into disrepute, and the accommodating doctrines of Mahomet, and the get-as-many-wives-as-you- can-support-and-keep-them-as-long-as-they-don't-fight principles of Mormonism, are regnant in the land. And above all, a time when independent bachelors like the deponent, are beset with so many written laudations of the married state, by unknown females, that every single blessed man in all the land wishes he could take a short nap and wake up with a good-looking wife and nine large-sized children. On the morning of this traditional pairing-off day, the postman brought me seventeen letters, all unpaid, and all from "Valentine." Retired to my room--closed the curtains--lit the gas--placed before me a mug of ale and two soda crackers, and proceeded to open and examine the documents.