Valentine, a missive sent by one person to another of the opposite sex on February fourteenth, Saint Valentine's Day. It is not customary to sign a valentine. A great diversity of taste prevails. Some valentines are beautifully embellished and bear choice sentiments, poetical quotations, and the like. Others are coarse prints, mere caricatures, unworthy of the sender. Saint Valentine was a bishop of the early church. He was put to death at Rome in the reign of Claudius, February 14, 270. He was canonized as a martyr by the Roman Church. The day of his death was set apart in his honor. During the old time Feast of the Lupercalia, celebrated in honor of Juno, it was customary for Roman youths to draw tablets from an urn. On each table was inscribed the name of a maiden to whom he was supposed to devote himself for a year. This festival was held near the anniversary of the martyr's death, and was finally merged with it to the extent that the practice of choosing sweethearts for the ensuing twelve months became a common one on St. Valentine's Day. As a matter of fact there were several saints by the name of Valentine. One German authority enumerates fifty-two. A pretty story connected with one of them runs to the effect that he was a charitable man visiting the sick and the needy. When bedridden with old age he continued to send kindly messages to those he could no longer go to see. The German peasants were wont to call on their St. Valentine for relief in case of epilepsy. An opinion was prevalent, among the English peasantry at least, that birds chose their mates at this season. Both Shakespeare and Chaucer speak of St. Valentine's Day as a time when every bird chooses his mate.