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[Illustration: THE VALENTINE.
Engraved expressly for Graham’s Magazine by W. E. Tucker.]

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                           GRAHAM’S MAGAZINE.
              VOL. XXXVI.      February, 1850.      No. 2.


                           Table of Contents

                    Fiction, Literature and Articles

          February
          Patrick O’Brien
          The Young Artist
          Love’s Influence
          The Two Portraits
          Myrrah Of Tangiers
          The Wilkinsons
          Fanny Day’s Presentiment
          Gems From Moore’s Irish Melodies. No. II.—The Last
            Rose of Summer
          The Revealings of a Heart
          Life of General Joseph Warren
          Editor’s Table
          Review of New Books

                       Poetry, Music, and Fashion

          Wit And Beauty
          A Household Dirge
          The Pirate
          Sonnets.—at Twilight
          Song
          Night Thoughts
          Ballads of the Campaign in Mexico
          A Spanish Romance
          To A. R.
          The Pale Thinker
          The Evil Eye
          Fancies About a Portrait
          The Dream of Youth
          Le Follet
          Wissahikon Waltz

       Transcriber’s Notes can be found at the end of this eBook.

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                           GRAHAM’S MAGAZINE.

        VOL. XXXVI.     PHILADELPHIA, February, 1850.     NO. 2.

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                               FEBRUARY.


                 The flowers which cold in prison kept
                 Now laugh the frost to scorn.
                                RICHARD EDWARDS. 1523.

AMONG the ancient manuscripts in the British Museum there is one of
Saxon origin, written by Ethelgar, a writer of some note in the tenth
century. Commenting on the months, he speaks of February, which he calls
_Sprout kele_, because colewort, a kind of cabbage, which was the chief
sustenance of the husbandmen in those days, began to yield wholesome
young sprouts during this month. Some centuries after, this name was
modernized by the Romans, who offered their expiatory sacrifices at this
season of the year, and called _Februalia_. Frequently during this month
the cold is abated for a short time, and fine days and hasty thaws take
the place of rigid frost. From this peculiarity, this month has often
been called by ancient writers by the expressive name of “_February fill
dike_.”

Clare’s verses are sweetly descriptive of this changing season—

        The snow has left the cottage top;
          The thatch moss grows in brighter green;
        And eaves in quick succession drop,
          Where pinning icicles have been;
        Pitpatting with a pleasant noise,
          In tubs set by the cottage door;
        While ducks and geese, with happy joys,
          Plunge in the yard-pond brimming o’er.

        The sun peeps through the window pane;
          Which children mark with laughing eye:
        And in the wet street steal again,
          To tell each other Spring is nigh:
        Then, as young Hope the past recalls,
          In playing groups they often draw,
        To build beside the sunny walls
          Their spring-time huts of sticks and straw.

        And oft in pleasure’s dreams they hie
          Round homesteads by the village side,
        Scratching the hedgerow mosses by,
          Where painted pooty shells abide;
        Mistaking oft the ivy spray
          For leaves that come with budding Spring,
        And wondering in their search for play
          Why birds delay to build and sing.

        The mavis-thrush with wild delight
          Upon the orchard’s dripping tree,
        Mutters, to see the day so bright,
          Fragments of young Hope’s poesy:
        And dame oft stops her buzzing wheel
          To hear the robin’s note once more,
        Who tootles while he pecks his meal
          From sweet-briar hips beside the door.

The frost often returns after a few days, and binds Nature with his iron
hand. In Great Britain, where the Spring is much earlier than with us,
February is remarkable