The literature of kissing

CONTENTS.

THE KISS IN HISTORY. — THE KISS IMPRIMIS. — SIGNIFICANCE AMONG THE HEBREWS. — DIVERSITIES IN THE BIBLE. — SALUTATION. — VALEDICTION. — RECONCILIATION. — SUBJECTION. — APPROBATION. — ADORATION. — TREACHERY. — AFFECTION. — SYMBOLICAL EXPRESSION AMONG THE GREEKS AND ROMANS. — ANCIENT HISTORY AND POETRY COMMINGLED. — TRACES IN ENGLISH HISTORY. — MEMORABLE KISSES. — MY FIRST KISS. — THE GUERDON. — FREAKS AND PHASES OF LOCAL CUSTOM. — THE KISS OF PEACE. — ROYAL FEET-WASHING AND KISSING. — THE CUSTOM OF KISSING HANDS. — UNDER THE MISTLETOE. — SCANDINAVIAN TRADITION. — THE MISTLETOE. — THE MISTLETOE IN AMERICA. — THE BLARNEY STONE. — THE BLARNEY STONE. — KISSING THE POPE’S TOE. — A KISS FOR A VOTE. — FRENCH CHEAPENING AND DEGENERACY. — KISSING DANCES. — KISSING HANDS IN AUSTRIA. — TEMPLAR INTERDICTION. — POMPEIAN TOKENS. — ARABIAN SALUTATION. — THE OLD ROMAN CODE. — WEDDING-CEREMONY IN TURKEY. — KISSING IN CHINA. — NEW YEAR’S DAY IN NEW AMSTERDAM. — KISS-ME-QUICK. — HUSKING-FROLICS. — TAKING TOLL AT THE BRIDGE. — A BRAVE ICELAND GIRL. — PARAGUAYAN COMPULSION. — A NEW YORK DRUMMER’S PREDICAMENT. — A DANGEROUS GAME. — A QUESTION OF TASTE. — THE LATTER-DAY KISS OF PEACE. — NATIONAL DIFFERENCES. — DETECTIVE UTILITY.

Milton tells us in “Paradise Lost,” Book IV., how the pioneer lover saluted the mother of the human race in the bowers of Eden:

Originally, in Oriental life, the act of kissing had a symbolical character whose import was, in many respects, of greater breadth than that of the custom in our day. Acts, as Dr. Beard, the German theologian, remarks, speak no less—sometimes far more—forcibly than words. In the early period of society, when the foundation was laid of most even of our Western customs, action constituted a large portion of what we may term human language, or the means of intercommunication between man and man; because then words were less numerous, books unknown, the entire machinery of speaking being in its rudimental and elementary state, less developed and called into play; to say nothing of that peculiarity of the Oriental character (if, indeed, it be not a characteristic of all nations in primitive ages) which inclined men to general taciturnity, with occasional outbreaks of fervid, abrupt, or copious eloquence. In this language of action, a kiss, inasmuch as it was a bringing into contact of parts of the body of two persons, was naturally the expression and the symbol of affection, regard, respect, and reverence; and if deeper source of its origin were sought for, it would, doubtless, be found in the fondling and caresses with which the mother expresses her tenderness for her babe. That the custom is of very early date, and very varied in its form among the Hebrews, may be seen in numerous familiar citations from Holy Writ.

David ... fell on his face to the ground, and bowed himself three times; and they [David and Jonathan] kissed one another, and wept one with another, until David exceeded.—1 Samuel xx. 41.

Greet all the brethren with a holy kiss.—1 Thess. v. 26.

Salute one another with a holy kiss.—Romans xvi. 16.

[See also Exod. xviii. 7; 1 Cor. xvi. 20; 1 Pet. v. 14.]

The Lord grant you that ye may find rest, each of you in the house of her husband [Naomi to her daughters-in-law]. Then she kissed them; and they lifted up their voice, and wept.—Ruth i. 9.

So Joab came to the king, and told him: and when he had called for Absalom, he came to the king, and bowed himself on his face to the ground before the king: and the king kissed Absalom.—2 Samuel xiv. 33.

Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and ye perish from the way, when his wrath is kindled but a little.—Psalm ii. 12.

Every man shall kiss his lips that giveth a right answer.—Prov. xxiv. 26.

——All the knees which have not bowed unto Baal, and every mouth which hath not kissed him.—1 Kings xix. 18.

[See also Hosea xiii. 2.]

And stood at his feet behind him weeping, and began to wash his feet with tears, and did wipe them with the hairs of her head, and kissed his feet, and anointed them with the ointment.—Luke vii. 38.

Now he that betrayed him gave them a sign, saying, Whomsoever I shall kiss, that same is he: hold him fast.

And forthwith he came to Jesus, and said, Hail, Master; and kissed him.—Matt. xxvi. 48, 49.

The kisses of an enemy are deceitful.—Prov. xxvii. 6.

[See also Prov. vii. 13.]

When Laban heard the tidings of Jacob his sister’s son, he ran to meet him, and embraced him, and kissed him, and brought him to his house.—Gen. xxix. 13.

Moreover he [Joseph] kissed all his brethren, and wept upon them.—Gen. xlv. 15.

And Joseph fell upon his father’s face, and wept upon him, and kissed him.—Gen. l. 1.

[See also Gen. xxxi. 55, xxxiii. 4, xlviii. 10; Exod. iv. 27; Luke xv. 20; Acts xx. 37.]

A Hebrew commentator on Genesis xxix. 11 says that the Rabbins did not permit more than three kinds of kisses, the kiss of reverence, of reception, and of dismissal.

With reference to the expression of reverence or worship in the foregoing quotations, it should be noted that to adore idols and to kiss idols mean the same thing. Indeed, the word adore signifies simply to carry the hand to the mouth, that is, to kiss it to the idol. We still kiss the hand in salutation. Various parts of the body are kissed to distinguish the character of the adoration paid. Thus, to kiss the lips is to adore the living breath of the person saluted; to kiss the feet or ground is to humble one’s self in adoration; to kiss the garments is to express veneration for whatever belongs to or touches the person who wears them. Pharaoh tells Joseph, “Thou shalt be over my house, and upon thy mouth shall all my people kiss,” meaning that they would reverence the commands of Joseph by kissing the roll on which they were written. “Samuel poured oil on Saul, and kissed him,” to acknowledge subjection to God’s anointed. In the Hebrew state, this mode of expressing reverence arose from the peculiar form of government under the patriarchal figure.

In Homer’s beautiful description of the parting of Hector from his wife and child upon returning to the field of battle, occurs a touching recital of paternal affection and solicitude (Iliad, vi.). The passage is so beautiful that we quote it at length:

The grief of the venerable Priam upon learning of the death of his favorite son, Hector, at the hands of Achilles, and his journey to the Grecian camp to beg of Achilles the body of Hector for burial, are portrayed with equal force (Iliad, xxiv.). The Trojan monarch, prostrating himself before the warrior,

In the course of his entreaty, which completely softens Achilles, the suppliant says:

Virgil gives us a picture similar to that of Hector when bidding farewell to his child. Æneas, having recovered from a dangerous wound, returns to the combat with Turnus, first bestowing his blessing upon his son Ascanius (Æneid, xii.):

Turning from the camp to the sweets of domestic life, we find in the same charming poet (Georg. ii. 523) these lines:

Xenophon says, in “Agesilaus” (v. 4), that it was a national custom with the Persians to kiss whomsoever they honored. And Herodotus (i. 134), in speaking of their manners and customs, says, “If Persians meet at any time by accident, the rank of each party is easily discovered: if they are of equal dignity, they salute each other on the mouth; if one is an inferior, they only kiss the cheek; if there be a great difference in situation, the inferior falls prostrate on the ground.” Respecting the mode of salutation between relatives, the following passage from the “Cyropædia” of Xenophon (i. 4) is worth transcribing:

“If I may be allowed to relate a sportive affair, it is said that when Cyrus went away, and he and his relations parted, they took their leave, and dismissed him with a kiss, according to the Persian custom,—for the Persians practise it to this day,—and that a certain Mede, a very excellent person, had been long struck with the beauty of Cyrus, and when he saw Cyrus’s relations kiss him, he stayed behind, and, when the rest were gone, accosted Cyrus, and said to him, ‘And am I, Cyrus, the only one of all your relations that you do not know?’ ‘What!’ said Cyrus, ‘are you a relation?’ ‘Yes,’ said he. ‘This was the reason, then,’ said Cyrus, ‘that you used to gaze at me; for I think I recollect that you frequently did so.’ ‘I was very desirous,’ said he, ‘to salute you, but I was always ashamed to do it.’ ‘But,’ said Cyrus, ‘you that are a relation ought not to have been so.’ So, coming up to him, he kissed him. The Mede, having received the kiss, is said to have, asked this question: ‘And is it a custom among the Persians to kiss relations?’ ‘It is so,’ said Cyrus, ‘when they see one another at some distance of time, or when they part.’ ‘Then,’ said the Mede, ‘it seems now to be time for you to kiss me again; for, as you see, I am just going away.’ So Cyrus, kissing him again, dismissed him, and went his way. They had not gone very far before the Mede came up with him again, with his horse all over in a sweat; and Cyrus, getting sight of him, said, ‘What! have you forgotten anything that you had a mind to say to me?’ ‘No, by Jove,’ said he, ‘but I am come again at a distance of time.’ ‘Dear relation,’ said he, ‘it is a very short time.’ ‘How a short one?’ said the Mede: ‘do you not know, Cyrus, that the very twinkling of my eyes is a long time to be without seeing you, you who are so lovely?’ Here Cyrus, from being in tears, broke out into laughter, bid him go his way and take courage, adding that in a little time he would be with him again, and that then he would be at liberty to look at him, if he pleased, with steady eyes and without twinkling.”

The kiss among the ancients was an essential implement in the armory of love. Virgil, for instance, uses it in the device by which Queen Dido was to be inspired with a passion for Æneas. Venus, in the course of her instructions to Cupid, says:

Horace, in the ode to Lydia, in which he gives such free expression to his jealousy (Ode XIII.), refers with considerable point and feeling to the osculatory attentions of his rival. The following translation is by Bulwer-Lytton:

The closing lines of an ode to Mæcenas (Lib. II. Ode XII.) are worth noting:

Literally, “when she turns to meet the ardent kisses, or with a gentle cruelty denies what she would more delight to have ravished by the petitioner; sometimes she is eager to snatch them herself.”

In the Latin Anthology is an ode to another Lydia, by an unknown poet, but probably Gallus, which breathes throughout the rapturous idolatry of the enamored writer. We have only space for these lines:

Ovid appropriates the kiss most effectively in his passages descriptive of the endearments, the fascinations, the yearnings, and the transports of love. Briseis in her letter to Achilles, begging him to return to the Grecian camp, is made to say:

In the letter of Sappho to her lover, Phaon, when he had forsaken her, and she had resolved upon suicide, we have a picture of that “sorrow’s crown of sorrow,” the remembrance in adversity of happier days:

A wife’s affection is shown in the letter of Laodanna to her husband at Aulis with the Grecian fleet:

This pretty conceit, which the moderns have often copied from Ovid, occurs in the epistle of Paris to Helen:

In his “Art of Love” (Book I.) Ovid thus pursues his course of instruction:

“Tears, too, are of utility: by tears you will move adamant. Make her, if you can, to see your moistened cheeks. If tears shall fail you, for indeed they do not always come in time, touch your eyes with your wet hand. What discreet person will not mingle kisses with tender words? Though she should not grant them, still take them ungranted. Perhaps she will struggle at first, and will say, ‘You naughty man!’ Still, in her struggling she will wish to be overcome. Only, let them not, rudely snatched, hurt her tender lips, and take care that she may not be able to complain that they have proved a cause of pain. He who has gained kisses, if he cannot gain the rest as well, will deserve to lose even that which has been granted him. How much is there wanting for unlimited enjoyment after a kiss! Oh, shocking! ’twere clownishness, not modesty. Call it violence, if you like; such violence is pleasing to the fair; they often wish, through compulsion, to grant what they are delighted to grant.”

Turning from Ovid to the Greek Anthology, we find this epigram:

Anacreon, in one of his odes, speaks of the heart flying to the lips; and Plato, in a distich quoted by Aulus Gellius, tells us of the effect of a kiss upon his susceptibility:

Plato also wrote:

Anacreon uses this figurative expression:

By the ancient expression “cups of kisses,” reference is most probably made to a favorite gallantry among the Greeks and Romans of drinking when the lips of their mistresses had touched the brim. Ben Jonson’s oft-quoted verses to Celia, in which occur the lines—

are translated from Philostratus, a Greek poet of the second century.

Lucian has a conceit upon the same idea: “that you may at once both drink and kiss.” And Meleager says:

Agathias also says:

Longepierre, to give an idea of the luxurious estimation in which garlands were held by the ancients, relates an anecdote of a frail beauty, who, in order to gratify three lovers without leaving cause for jealousy with any of them, gave a kiss to one, let the other drink after her, and put a garland on the brow of the third; so that each was satisfied with his favor, and flattered himself with the preference.

In one of Anacreon’s odes we find the strong and beautiful phrase, “a lip provoking kisses.”

Tatius speaks of “lips soft and delicate for kissing;” and that grave old commentator, Lambinus, in his notes upon Lucretius, tells us, with all the authority of experience, that girls who have large lips kiss infinitely sweeter than others!

Æneas Sylvius, in his story of the loves of Euryalus and Lucretia, where he particularizes the beauties of the heroine, describes her lips as exquisitely adapted for biting.[3] And Catullus, in his poems (viii.), asks, “Whom will you love now? Whose will you be called? Whom will you kiss? Whose lips will you bite? But you, Catullus, be stubbornly obdurate.” As Lamb has it:

Or, as Elton renders it:

Plautus alludes to this biting;[4] and Horace says (Ode XIII.), as already quoted:

Plutarch tells us that Flora, the mistress of Cn. Pompey, used to say, in commendation of her lover, that she could never quit his arms without giving him a bite. And Tibullus, in his confession of his illicit love for Delia, the wife of another, and of his devices for covering his tracks, says, among other things, “I gave her juices and herbs for removing the livid marks which mutual Venus makes by the impress of the teeth.”

Anacreon finds in the brevity of life arguments for the voluptuary as well as for the moralist:

Of the amatory writers who exhaust rhetoric to express the infinity of kisses which they require from the lips of their mistresses, Catullus takes the lead. In his famous verses to Lesbia (Carm. 5), he says:

“Let us live and love, my Lesbia, and a farthing for all the talk of morose old sages! Suns may set and rise again; but we, when once our brief light has set, must sleep through a perpetual night. Give me a thousand kisses, then a hundred, then another thousand, then a second hundred, then still another thousand, then a hundred. Then, when we shall have made up many thousands, we will confuse the reckoning, so that we ourselves may not know their amount, nor any spiteful person have it in his power to envy us when he knows that our kisses were so many.”

Roman superstition recognized an occult and mischievous potency in the sentiment of envy. Moreover, there was a prevalent notion that it excited the envy of the gods to count what gave one pleasure.

The following metrical versions of the foregoing are worth a place here. The first is by George Lamb (1821):

The second is by C. A. Elton, whose translations of the classic poets were first published in 1814:

In another poem addressed to Lesbia (Carm. 7), Catullus says:

“You ask how many kisses of yours, Lesbia, maybe enough for me; and more. As the numerous sands that lie on the spicy shores of Cyrene, between the oracle of sultry Jove and the sacred tomb of old Battus;[5] or as the many stars that in the silence of night behold men’s furtive amours; to kiss you with so many kisses is enough and more for madly fond Catullus; such a multitude as prying gossips can neither count, nor bewitch with their evil tongues.”

Lamb’s translation is as follows:

Thomas Moore gives the following exceedingly free rendering of the answer to the question:

We cannot dismiss Catullus without one more specimen of his osculatory exuberance. In his lines “To My Love” (Carm. 48), he says:

“Were I allowed to kiss your sweet eyes without stint, I would kiss on and on up to three hundred thousand times; nor even then should I ever have enough, not though our crop of kissing were thicker than the dry ears of the cornfield.”

Or in Lamb’s metrical version:

Martial, in his “Epigrams,” bestows a variety of attentions upon the promiscuous custom of kissing in Rome, as he found it in his day. In an epigram addressed to his friend Flaccus (xii. 98), he complains in very strong and very amusing terms of the persistent salutes of a certain class, who paid no heed whatever to times and seasons, places and circumstances, but broke through all forms and guards and conventional restraints.

On another occasion he pointed his invective in this manner (xii. 59):

“Rome gives, on one’s return after fifteen years’ absence, such a number of kisses as exceeds those given by Lesbia to Catullus. Every neighbor, every hairy-faced farmer, presses on you with a strongly-scented kiss. Here the weaver assails you, there the fuller and the cobbler, who has just been kissing leather; here the owner of a filthy beard, and a one-eyed gentleman; there one with bleared eyes, and fellows whose mouths are defiled with all manner of abominations. It was hardly worth while to return.”

His epigram to Linus (vii. 95) is rarely exceeded in its sarcastic severity. It closes in this manner:

The satirist thus pays his respects to a lady whose physical attractions do not appear to have had much charm for his fastidious taste:

And again:

The illustrious Postumus comes in for a share of repugnance in this delicate fashion. We give the literal translation:

“I commend you, Postumus, for kissing me with only half your lip; you may, however, if you please, withhold even the half of this half. Are you inclined to grant me a boon still greater, and even inexpressible? Keep this whole half entirely to yourself, Postumus.” (ii. 10.)

And elsewhere, thus:

“To some, Postumus, you give kisses, to some your right hand. ‘Which do you prefer?’ you say: ‘choose.’ I prefer your hand.”

In another place (iii. 53) Martial addresses Chloe in this ungallant and uncourtly style:

“I could do without your face, and your neck, and your hands, and your limbs, and your bosom, and other of your charms. Indeed, not to fatigue myself with enumerating each of them, I could do without you, Chloe, altogether.”

This brusquerie has been imitated by Thomas Moore in the following manner:

On the other hand, when it comes to the kisses of his favorite (xi. 8), Martial indulges in the following exuberant fancy:

“The fragrance of balsam extracted from aromatic trees; the ripe odor yielded by the teeming saffron; the perfume of fruits mellowing in their winter repository; or of the flowery meadows in the vernal season; or of silken robes of the empress from her Palatine wardrobes; of amber warmed by the hand of a maiden; of a jar of dark Falernian wine, broken and scented from a distance; of a garden that attracts the Sicilian bees; of the alabaster jars of Cosmus, and the altars of the gods; of the chaplet just fallen from the brow of the luxurious;—but why should I mention all these things singly? not one of them is enough by itself; mix all together,[6] and you have the perfume of the morning kisses of my favorite. Do you want to know the name? I will only tell you of the kisses. You swear to be secret. You want to know too much, Sabinus.”

One more selection from Martial (vi. 34) will suffice for this branch of our subject:

“Give me, Diadumenus, close kisses. ‘How many?’ you say. You bid me count the waves of the ocean, the shells scattered on the shores of the Ægean Sea, the bees that wander on Attic Hybla, or the voices and clappings that resound in the full theatre when the people suddenly see the countenance of the emperor. I should not be content even with as many as Lesbia, after many entreaties, gave to the witty Catullus: he wants but few who can count them.”

The following imitation was written by Sir C. Hanbury Williams:

Kissing appears to have been the usual method of salutation in England in former times. A Greek traveller, named Chalondyles, who visited Britain five centuries ago, says:

“As for English females and children, their customs are liberal in the extreme. For instance, when a visitor calls at a friend’s house, his first act is to kiss his friend’s wife; he is then a duly-installed guest. Persons meeting in the street follow the same custom, and no one sees anything improper in the action.”

Another Greek traveller of a century later, also adverts to this osculatory custom. He says:

“The English manifest much simplicity and lack of jealousy in their customs as regards females; for not only do members of the same family and household kiss them on the lips with complimentary salutations and enfolding of the arms round the waist, but even strangers, when introduced, follow the same mode, and it is one which does not appear to them in any degree unbecoming.”

Chaucer often alludes to it. Thus, the Frere in the Sompnour’s Tale, upon the entrance of the mistress of the house into the room where her husband and he were together,

Robert de Brunne (1303) says that the custom formed part of the ceremony of drinking healths:

In Hone’s “Year-Book” occurs the following passage:

“Another specimen of our ancient manners is seen in the French embrace. The gentleman, and others of the male sex, lay hands on the shoulders, and touch the side of each other’s cheek; but on being introduced to a lady, they say to her father, brother, or friend, Permettez moi, and salute each of her cheeks.... And was not this custom in England in Elizabeth’s reign? Let us read one of the epistles of the learned Erasmus, which, being translated, is in part as follows:

“‘Although, Faustus, if you knew the advantages of Britain, truly you would hasten thither with wings to your feet; and, if your gout would not permit, you would wish you possessed the wings of Dædalus. For just to touch on one thing out of many here, there are lasses with heavenly faces, kind, obliging, and you would far prefer them to all your Muses. There is, besides, a practice never to be sufficiently commended. If you go to any place, you are received with a kiss by all; if you depart on a journey, you are dismissed with a kiss; if you return, the kisses are exchanged. Do they come to visit you, a kiss is the first thing; do they leave you, you kiss them all around. Do they meet you anywhere, kisses in abundance. In short, wherever you turn, there is nothing but kisses. Ah, Faustus, if you had once tasted the tenderness, the fragrance of these kisses, you would wish to stay in England, not for ten years only, but for life.”

This unctuous expatiation of the far-famed Dutchman is in rather broad contrast with the stern reprobation of John Bunyan, who says, in his “Grace Abounding:”

“The common salutation of women I abhor; it is odious to me in whomsoever I see it. When I have seen good men salute those women that they have visited, or that have visited them, I have made my objection against it; and when they have answered that it was but a piece of civility, I have told them that it was not a comely sight. Some, indeed, have urged the holy kiss; but then I have asked them why they have made balks? why they did salute the most handsome, and let the ill-favored ones go?”

More than a century before this decided expression of the great allegorist, Richard Whytford had said, in his “Type of Perfection” (1532):

“It becometh not, therefore, the personnes religious to follow the manere of secular personnes, that in theyr congresses or commune metynges, or departyngs, done use to kysse, take hands, or such other touchings that good religious-personnes shulde utterly avoyde.”

In Collet’s “Relics of Literature” maybe found this suggestive paragraph:

“Dr. Pierius Winsemius, historiographer to their High Mightinesses the States of Friesland, in his Chronijck van Frieslandt, 1622, tells us that the pleasant practice of kissing was utterly ‘unpractised and unknown’ in England till the fair princess Ronix (Rowena), the daughter of King Hengist of Friesland, ‘pressed the beaker with her lipkens, and saluted the amorous Vortigern with a husjen (a little kiss).’”

But, whether this Anglo-Saxon incident be true or mythical, it is certain that in the time of Cardinal Wolsey, who lived cotemporaneously with Erasmus, from whom we have quoted, the osculatory reputation of the English was widely spread. Cavendish, the biographer of Wolsey, says, in reference to a visit at the château of M. Créqui, a distinguished French nobleman:

“Being in a fair great dining chamber, I awaited my Lady’s coming; and after she came thither out of her own chamber, she received me most gently, like one of noble estate, having a train of twelve gentlewomen. And when she with her train came all out, she said to me, ‘Forasmuch as ye be an Englishman, whose custom is in your country to kiss all ladies and gentlewomen without offence, and although it be not so here in this realm [France, temp. Henry VIII.], yet will I be so bold to kiss you, and so shall all my maidens.’ By means whereof, I kissed my lady and all her women.”

When Bulstrode Whitelock was at the court of Queen Christina of Sweden, as ambassador from Oliver Cromwell, he waited on her on May-day, to invite her to “take the air, and some little collation he had provided as her humble servant.” She came with her ladies; and “both in supper-time and afterwards,” being “full of pleasantness and gayety of spirits, among other frolics, commanded him to teach her ladies the English mode of salutation, which, after some pretty defences, their lips obeyed, and Whitelock most readily.”

In a curious book published in London in 1694, entitled “The Ladies’ Dictionary; being a General Entertainment for the Fair Sex,” the author, who deals with the fashions of the time, remarks under the article “Kissing,” as follows:

“But kissing and drinking both are now grown (it seems) to be a greater custom amongst us than in those days with the Romans. Nor am I so austere to forbid the use of either, both which, though the one in surfeits, the other in adulteries, may be abused by the vicious; yet contrarily at customary meetings and laudable banquets, they by the nobly disposed, and such whose hearts are fixed upon honor, may be used with much modesty and continence.”

This osculatory custom seems to have disappeared about the time of the Restoration. Peter Heylin says it had for some time before been unfashionable in France. When he visited that country, in 1625, he thought it strange and uncivil that the ladies should turn away from the proffer of a salutation; and he indignantly exclaims “that the chaste and innocent kiss of an English gentlewoman is more in heaven than their best devotions.” Its abandonment in England might have formed part of that French code of politeness which Charles II. introduced on his return. Apropos of this, we may here quote a letter of Rustic Sprightly to the “Spectator” (No. 240):

The custom of salutation by kissing appears to have prevailed in Scotland about 1637. It is incidentally noticed in the following extract from “Memoirs of the Life of Tames Mitchell, of Dykes, in the Parish of Ardrossan (Ayrshire), written by himself,” Glasgow, 1759, p. 85; a rare tract of 111 pages:

“The next business (as I spake before) was the Lord’s goodness and providence towards me, in that particular, with Mr. Alexander Dunlop, our minister, when he fell first into his reveries and distractions of groundless jealousy of his wife with sundry gentlemen, and of me in special. First, I have to bless God on my part he had not so much as a presumption (save his own fancies) of my misbehavior in any sort; for, as I shall be accountable to that great God, before whose tribunal I must stand and give an account at that great day, I was not only free of all actual villany with that gentlewoman his wife, but also of all scandalous misbehavior either in private or public: yea, further, as I shall be saved at that great day, I did not so much as kiss her mouth in courtesy (so far as my knowledge and memory serves me) seven years before his jealousy brake forth: this was the ground of no small peace of my mind, ... and last of all, the Lord brought me clearly off the pursuit, and since he and I has keeped general fashions of common civility to this day, 12 December, 1637. I pray God may open his eyes and give him a sight of his weakness and insufficiency both one way and other. Now praise, honor, glory, and dominion be to God only wise (for this and all other his providences and favors unto me), now and ever. Amen.

“I subscribe with my hand the truth of this,

“James Mitchell.”

Relative to kissing among men, Sir Walter Scott has the following passage in “Waverley” (ch. x.):

“At his first address to Waverley, it would seem that the hearty pleasure he felt to behold the nephew of his friend had somewhat discomposed the stiff and upright dignity of the Baron of Bradwardine’s demeanor, for the tears stood in the old gentleman’s eyes, when, having first shaken Edward heartily by the hand in the English fashion, he embraced him à-la-mode Françoise, and kissed him on both sides of his face; while the hardness of his gripe, and the quantity of Scotch snuff which his accolade communicated, called corresponding drops of moisture to the eyes of his guest.”

In “Rob Roy” Sir Walter also says (ch. xxxvi.):

“A boat waited for us in a creek beneath a huge rock, manned by four lusty Highland rowers; and our host took leave of us with great cordiality and even affection. Betwixt him and Mr. Jarvie, indeed, there seemed to exist a degree of mutual regard, which formed a strong contrast to their different occupations and habits. After kissing each other very lovingly, and when they were just in the act of parting, the Bailie, in the fulness of his heart, and with a faltering voice, assured his kinsman that ‘if ever a hundred pund, or even twa hundred, would put him or his family in a settled way, he need but just send a line to the Saut-Market;’ and Rob, grasping his basket-hilt with one hand, and shaking Mr. Jarvie’s heartily with the other, protested ‘that if ever anybody should affront his kinsman, an he would but let him ken, he would stow his lugs out of his head, were he the best man in Glasgow.’”

Evelyn, in his “Diary and Correspondence,” writing to Mrs. Owen, says:

“Sir J. Shaw did us the honor of a visit on Thursday last, when it was not my hap to be at home, for which I was very sorry. I met him since casually in London, and kissed him there unfeignedly.”

And Charles Dickens, in “Little Dorrit,” gives us this amusing paragraph:

“‘You will draw upon us to-morrow, sir,’ said Mr. Flintwich, with a business-like face, at parting.

“‘My cabbage,’ returned Mr. Blandois, taking him by the collar with both hands, ‘I’ll draw upon you; have no fear. Adieu, my Flintwich. Receive at parting’—here he gave him a southern embrace, and kissed him soundingly on both cheeks—‘the word of a gentleman! By a thousand thunders, you shall see me again.’”

As a token of affection between father and son, the kiss, of course, has prevailed from time immemorial. Wickliffe, in his quaint rendering of the Bible, thus translates one of the earliest recorded instances, that of Isaac and Jacob (Gen. xxvii. 26, 27):

“Gyve to me a cosse, son myn. He come near and cossed him.”

But the preference in most cases, it must be confessed, is that of the young English sailor in Congreve’s “Love for Love.” On his return, Ben dutifully seeks his father:

“Sir Sampson. My son Ben! Bless thee, my dear boy; thou art heartily welcome.

“Ben. Thank you, father; and I’m glad to see you.

“Sir S. Odsbud, and I’m glad to see thee. Kiss me, boy; kiss me again and again, dear Ben. [Kisses him.]

“Ben. So, so; enough, father. Mess, I’d rather kiss these gentlewomen.

“Sir S. And so thou shalt,” etc.

And so he does, with right good will and alacrity.

That was a wonderful kiss which Fatima received from her lover:

Then there was the precious kiss which Margarida gave her troubadour lover, when “she stretched out her arms and sweetly embraced him in the love-chamber,” which coming to the knowledge of her husband (Raimon de Roussillon), he gave her the troubadour’s heart to eat, disguised as a savory morsel. And there was Francesca’s kiss, so sweet and yet so sad, so guilty and so pure, when trembling Paolo kissed her and they read no more that day. And there are the kisses that Antony wasted a world so gladly for, “on a brow of Egypt,”—or rather, we suspect, on lips of Egypt,—and Othello’s farewell kisses, which, tender and heart-broken as they were, had no magic in them to redeem poor Desdemona’s life. Who does not remember that grand kiss of Coriolanus—

which exhibits such a world of character and passion? and Romeo’s dying kiss in the vault of the Capulets? and the famous kiss of Bassanio? Then there is the kiss Queen Margaret gave Alain Chartier, the memory of which is still fresh after three centuries have passed away. He was a poet, and the ugliest man in France. The last of his race died in Paris in November, 1863. The queen with her maids found him asleep one day, and bent over him and kissed his dreaming lips. “I kiss not the man,” she said; “I kiss the soul that sings.” Another poet, the countryman of Chartier, had, two centuries later, the honor of being publicly kissed in the stage-box by the young and lovely Countess de Villars; but in Voltaire’s case the lady gave the osculatory salute not of her own free will, but in obedience to the commands of the claqueurs in the pit, mad with enthusiasm for the poet’s “Merope.” Then there is the kiss which the fresh cheek of young John Milton received, during his college days, from the lips of the high-born Italian beauty, and the kisses of Laurence Sterne, concerning which he says, “For my own part, I would rather kiss the lips I love than dance with all the graces of Greece, after bathing themselves in the springs of Parnassus. Flesh and blood for me, with an angel in the inside.”

Here is a white rose that has not faded through three hundred years,—the white rose sent by a Yorkist lover to his Lancaster inamorata:[8]

It is a pity that we do not know who plucked that rose with such courtly grace. The lines, like “Chevy Chase,” “The Nut-brown Maid,” and “Allan-a-Dale,” are a filius nullius, and, like many other anonymous waifs which have floated down to us, could, just as well as not, have carried a name on to immortality. What sort of a kiss was it that sweet Amy Robsart’s friend Leicester placed upon the lips of Queen Bess, and which, according to a chronicle of the time, “she took right heartilie”? It was certainly a bold proceeding “before folks,” considering who the parties were. The kiss that Chastelard asked of Mary Beaton was a notable one. Said the gallant Frenchman:

When the Cardinal John of Lorraine was presented to the Duchess of Savoy, she gave him her hand to kiss, greatly to the indignation of the churchman. “How, madam!” exclaimed he: “am I to be treated in this manner? I kiss the queen, my mistress, and shall I not kiss you, who are only a duchess?” and without more ado he, despite the resistance of the proud little Portuguese princess, kissed her thrice on the mouth before he released her with an exultant laugh. The doughty cardinal was apparently of one mind with Sheldon, who thought that “to kiss ladies’ hands after their lips, as some do, is like little boys who, after they eat the apple, fall to the paring.”

The proud and pompous Constable of Castile, on his visit to the English court soon after the accession of James I., we are told, was right well pleased to bestow a kiss on Anne of Denmark’s lovely maids of honor, “according to the custom of the country, and any neglect of which is taken as an affront.”

When Charles II. was making his triumphal progress through England, certain country ladies who were presented to him, instead of kissing the royal hands, in their simplicity held up their pretty lips to be kissed by the king,—a blunder no one would more willingly excuse than the red-haired lover of pretty Nell Gwynn.

When the excommunicated German emperor Henry IV. had been humbled by three days of penance, barefoot and fasting, in the month of January, before the palace of Pope Gregory VII., he was admitted to “the superlative honor” of kissing the pontiff’s toe. This, perhaps, was no greater humiliation than that of the haughty Doge, who, after seeing Genoa bombarded by the fleet of Louis XIV. on account of the assistance he had given to the Algerines, was reduced to the indignity of going to Versailles to kiss the hand which had given his city to the flames.

Marie Antoinette frequently shocked the etiquette of her day at the French court. Once, upon receiving the Austrian ambassador, Count von Mercy, she advanced to meet him, and reached her hand to him, allowing him to press it to his lips. Of course Madame de Noailles was horror-stricken. The kissing of the queen’s hand was a state ceremonial, and inadmissible at a private interview.

A pleasanter incident at the court of this queen is thus related by Madame Campan:

“Franklin appeared at court in the costume of an American husbandman: his hair straight and without powder, his round hat, and coat of brown cloth, formed a strong contrast with the spangled and embroidered coats, the powdered and pomatumed head-dresses, of the courtiers of Versailles. This novelty charmed all the lively imaginations of the French ladies. They gave elegant fêtes to Doctor Franklin, who united the fame of one of the most skilful physicians [Madame Campan was led into this mistake by Franklin’s title of doctor] to the patriotic virtues which induced him to take the noble rôle of apostle of liberty. I was present at one of these fêtes, where the most beautiful (the Comtesse de Polignac) among three hundred ladies was chosen to go and place a crown of laurel on the white hair of the American philosopher, and kiss both cheeks of the old man.”

Tom Hood once asked whether Hannah More had ever been kissed,—that is to say, by a man. It is almost impossible to conceive of such a thing; and yet it has been asserted by one of the authors of the “Rejected Addresses.” But to think of her having been kissed “on the sly,” and in church-time! Horace Smith distinctly affirms that, on a certain occasion,

Chevalier Bunsen, who rose from a humble position in life to great honor, was a man of vast savoir but little erudition. As a theologian, the character to which he most aspired, he was severely criticised by the celebrated Dr. Merle d’Aubigné. The two savans met at Berlin at the Evangelical Alliance held several years ago. Bunsen kissed Merle; of course the polite Genevan could but return the compliment. Great was the ado about the “kiss of reconciliation,” as the Germans called it, much to the annoyance of Dr. Merle, who had no idea of compromising the solemn writers of theology by a kiss! Besides, he said, he preferred the English custom in kissing to the German. A delicate insinuation, that; but the professor meant nothing wrong.

In the famous Brooklyn trial, Tilton versus Beecher, in which the world was favored with some extraordinary revelations respecting the ethics and æsthetics of modern osculation, the defendant, Mr. Beecher, while on the witness-stand, testified to his singularly varied experiences. In the course of his testimony, he said:

“Mrs. Moulton then came in; she came to me and said, ‘Mr. Beecher, I don’t believe the stories they are telling about you; I believe you are a good man.’ I looked up and said, ‘Emma Moulton, I am a good man;’ she then bent over and kissed me on the forehead; it was a kiss of inspiration, but I did not think it proper to return it.”

When subsequently asked what he meant by a kiss of inspiration, he replied:

“I meant—well, it was a token of confidence; it was a salutation that did not belong to the common courtesy of life: neither was it a kiss of pleasure, or anything of that kind, but it was, as I sometimes have seen it in poetry—if you will excuse me—it was—it seemed to me, a holy kiss.”

Q. “You have said something about your not returning it?”

A. “Well, sir, I felt—I felt so deeply grateful that if I had returned the kiss, I might have returned it with an enthusiasm that would have offended her delicacy; it was not best, under the circumstances, that she and I should kiss.”

This led the newspapers to ask for the interpretation of a kiss which Mr. Beecher had previously characterized as “paroxysmal.” It was comparatively easy even for people who were accustomed to do their kissing without analysis to comprehend the other varieties which had been introduced during the progress of the trial, such as the impulsive kiss, the enthusiastic kiss, the holy kiss, the kiss of reconciliation, the kiss of grace, mercy, and peace, and the kiss mutual. But the kiss “inspirational” and the kiss “paroxysmal” were likely to be understood only by those who remembered the story of the good old Methodist deacon. The young people of the church were in the habit of playing games whose forfeits were kisses; but the pious old gentleman was much troubled about it, and said that he was not so much opposed to kissing if they did not kiss with an appetite.

The Tilton-Beecher case evoked from the newspaper writers an infinite amount of comment. Among those whose views attracted marked attention was Mrs. Jane G. Swisshelm, who said, in the Chicago “Tribune:”

“We can all see the impropriety of verbal declarations of passion in such cases; and how much more unsafe any act bearing such interpretation! Wherever men and women meet in friendly or business relations, one or both must be constantly mindful of the differences and dangers of the sex,—must guard looks, words, and actions, and in no moment of overwrought sympathy can the stern barriers of decorum be safely broken down. Before kissing Mr. Beecher, Mrs. Moulton should have waited until he had taken that powder, until it had done its work and the undertaker had the body ready for burial. Only in his coffin is it safe for even ‘a section of the day of judgment,’ in the shape of a woman, to kiss any one man in a thousand. There seems to be no room for doubt that she is, or was, a perfectly upright woman; but her childish act shows the atmosphere in which these men have been living,—shows the unconscious steps by which they passed from virtue to vice,—and ought to awaken all lovers of virtue to a more careful guard of her outside defences. Chastity is not the natural condition of the race, but the very opposite, and it can only be secured by ages of culture and constant vigilance. It is a something to be acquired and maintained through grace and watchfulness, and those who open doors through which the enemy enters and causes the fall of others are responsible for their negligence and mistaken confidence.”

This judgment brought out some humorous responses. A lady thus expressed her indignation in the “Graphic:”

“I never saw Mrs. Swisshelm, thank goodness; but what a perfectly ridiculous old creature she must be! According to her own account, no live man could be found who would venture to kiss her, and so she was obliged to go and unscrew a dead man’s coffin and kiss him. I never heard of anything so dreadful in the whole course of my life.

“Mrs. Swisshelm’s letter is enough for me. I can understand just what a dreadful old person she must be. She wears trousers, I am told, besides that perfectly preposterous garment, the ‘chemiloon.’ If I was a man, I would no more kiss such a woman than I would kiss a pair of tongs that had been left out over-night in a snowbank.

“Kissing, when done innocently, is as innocent as strawberries-and-cream, and as nice. If Mrs. Swisshelm could only grow young and pretty, and take off her trousers and dress like a Christian, she would soon change her mind about kissing. Her letter is the expression of a cross old woman’s envious mind, and she ought to be ashamed of herself.”

Another writer, who objected to such forcibly expressed and sweeping opposition to kissing, said, in the “Inter-Ocean:”

“We believe in temperance, but not in total abstinence, so far as this business is concerned. Mrs. Swisshelm takes credit to herself for carefully avoiding kisses during her protracted life. To this she attributes, in part, her longevity and general heartiness. In one instance only did Mrs. Swisshelm deviate from this rule. It was in a hospital. A poor boy had been suffering long and much, and she had visited and cared for him. One day when she came in she found him dead and in his coffin. Then the law was suspended for a moment, and, bending her head, she kissed him, satisfied that he had passed beyond the thrill of an unholy thought thereat. A moment after, she bethought herself that others were in the room to whom the kiss might prove unprofitable, and for a second she upbraided herself for her foolish fervor; but an examination proved that these fears were groundless, for the others were dead also. This is the story as we gain it second-hand. We do not sympathize with this sentiment. If the poor boy needed a kiss at all, he needed it before his life had gone out and left the body only a clog. A kick or a kiss is equally unimportant to a piece of inanimate clay. The fact that there may have been too much kissing in high life of late years does not alter the fact that osculatory salutes are very good things in the family.”

The late Father Taylor, of the Seamen’s Bethel at Boston, narrates the following incident:

“While in Palestine, I went out one evening, and sat upon the grass on what was thought to be the hill Calvary. I lay down, and, with my arms under my head, looked up at the stars and meditated on what had happened on that sacred spot. With pain I suddenly remembered a man in my far-distant home who had always been hostile to me. I felt that my feelings also had not been right towards him, and I told my Lord that if I lived to get home I would see that man and ask his forgiveness. It was permitted me in due time to reach home. The incident had faded from my mind, when, one day, walking in Exchange Street, I saw that man approaching. My old feeling returned. I passed him without a sign; but just then I remembered Calvary, and turned to look after him. To my surprise, he also was turning. I went back to him, threw my arms about him, and kissed him! and I felt better.”

Herr Hackländer, writing on the subject of osculation, says:

“There are three kisses by which the human race are blest: the first is that which the mother presses on the new-born infant’s head; the second, that which the newly-wedded bride bestows on your lips; the third, that with which love or friendship closes your eyes when your career is ended.”

After which rhetorical flourish he adds:

“But I, more blest than other mortals, have to boast of a fourth kiss of bliss, that of Father Radetzky!” Hackländer had written a description of the battle of Novara, which brought him, among other distinctions, a kiss from the old field-marshal.

Turning back to mediæval history, we find an amusing incident in the career of Charles the Simple, of France. The viking Rollo, having been banished from Norway by Harold, proceeded southward to conquer a new domain. Entering the mouth of the Seine, he took possession of Rouen, where he spent the winter of each year, employing the summer in ravaging France, till at last the king, Charles the Simple, as the only hope of obtaining peace, promised to give him the province of Neustria as a fief, provided he would become a Christian.

Rollo was baptized at Rouen, in 912. He had then to pay homage to King Charles by kneeling before him, kissing his foot, and swearing to pay him allegiance. Rollo took the oath, but nothing would induce him to perform the rest of the ceremony, and he appointed one of his followers to do homage in his stead. The Northman, as proud as his master, wilfully misunderstood, and, instead of kneeling, lifted the king’s foot up to reach his mouth, so as to upset king and throne together, amid the rude laughter of his countrymen.

When the famous crusade of Godfrey de Bouillon, early in the eleventh century, was nearing its successful issue, Tancred, with a few other knights, was the first to come in sight of Jerusalem. When the Crusaders beheld the Holy City, the object of all their hopes and toils, they all at once fell down on their knees, weeping and giving thanks, and even kissing the sacred earth, and, as they rose, hymns of praise were sung by the whole army. So when Columbus and his followers stepped on the beach of San Salvador, all knelt down, reverently kissing the ground, with tears and thanks to God.

Jean Paul Frederic Richter, in his “Autobiography,” thus describes a thrilling event in his life’s history:

As earlier in life, on the opposite church-bench, so I could but fall in love with Catharine Bärin, as she sat always above me on the school-bench, with her pretty, round, red, smallpox-marked face,—her lightning eyes,—the pretty hastiness with which she spoke and ran. In the school carnival, that took in the whole forenoon succeeding fast nights, and consisted in dancing and playing, I had the joy to perform the irregular hop dance, that preceded the regular, with her. In the play, “How does your neighbor please you?” where upon an affirmative answer they are ordered to kiss, and upon a contrary there is a calling out, and in the midst of accolades all change places, I ran always near her. The blows were like gold-beaters’ by which the pure gold of my love was beaten out, and a continual change of places, as she always forbid me the court, and I always called her to the court, was managed.

All these malicious occurrences (desertiones malitiosæ) could not deprive me of the blessedness of meeting her daily, when with her snow-white apron and her snow-white cap she ran over the long bridge opposite the parsonage window, out of which I was looking. To catch her, not to say, but to give her something sweet, a mouthful of fruit, to run quickly through the parsonage court, down the little steps, and arrest her in her flight, my conscience would never permit; but I enjoyed enough to see her from the window upon the bridge, and I think it was near enough for me to stand, as I usually did, with my heart behind a long seeing and hearing trumpet. Distance injures true love less than nearness. Could I upon the planet Venus discover the goddess Venus, while in the distance its charms were so enchanting, I should have warmly loved it, and without hesitation chosen to revere it as my morning and evening star.

In the mean time I have the satisfaction to draw all those, who expect in Schwarzenbach a repetition of the Joditz love, from their error, and inform them that it came to something. On a winter evening, when my princess’s collection of sweet gifts was prepared, and needed only a receiver, the pastor’s son, who among all my school companions was the worst, persuaded me, when a visit from the chaplain occupied my father, to leave the parsonage while it was dark, to pass the bridge, and venture, which I had never done, into the house where the beloved dwelt with her poor grandmother up in a little corner chamber. We entered a little ale-house underneath. Whether Catharine happened to be there, or whether the rascal, under the pretence of a message, allured her down upon the middle of the steps, or, in short, how it happened that I found her there, has become only a dreamy recollection; for the sudden lightning of the present darkened all that went behind. As violently as if I had been a robber, I first pressed upon her my present of sweetmeats, and then I, who in Joditz never could reach the heaven of a first kiss, and never even dared to touch the beloved hand, I, for the first time, held a beloved being upon my heart and lips. I have nothing further to say, but that it was the one pearl of a minute, that was never repeated; a whole longing past and a dreaming future were united in one moment, and in the darkness behind my closed eyes the fireworks of a whole life were evolved in a glance. Ah, I have never forgotten it,—the ineffaceable moment!

I returned like a clairvoyant from heaven again to earth, and remarked only that in this second Christmas festival Ruprecht[9] did not precede, but followed it, for on my way home I met a messenger coming for me, and was severely scolded for running away. Usually after such warm silver beams of a blessed sun there falls a closing, stormy gust. What was its effect on me? The stream of words could not drain my paradise,—for does it not bloom even to-day around and forth from my pen?

It was, as I have said, the first kiss, and, as I believe, will be the last; for I shall not, probably, although she lives yet, journey to Schwarzenbach to give a second. As usual, during my whole Schwarzenbach life I was perfectly contented with my telegraphic love, which yet sustained and kept itself alive without any answering telegram. But truly no one could blame her less than I that she was silent at that time, or that she continues so now after the death of her husband; for later, in stranger loves and hearts, I have always been slow to speak. It did not help me that I stood with ready face and attractive outward appearance; all corporeal charms must be placed over the foil of the spiritual before they can sufficiently shine and kindle and dazzle. But this was the cause of failure in my innocent love-time, that without any intercourse with the beloved, without conversation or introduction, I displayed my whole love bursting from the dry exterior, and stood before her like the Judas-tree, in full blossom, but without branch or leaf.

An incident previously referred to has been thus embodied in verse:

The peculiar tendency of the Christian religion to encourage honor towards all men, as men, to foster and develop the softer affections, and, in the trying condition of the early Church, to make its members intimately known one to another, and unite them in the closest bonds, led to the observance of kissing as an accompaniment of that social worship which took its origin in the very cradle of our religion. Hence the exhortation of St. Paul, “Salute one another with a holy kiss;” and the brethren followed the injunction literally. It was called signaculum orationis, the soul of prayer; and was a symbol of that mutual forgiveness and reconciliation which the Church required as an essential condition to admission to its sacraments. Tertullian, Origen, and Athenagoras mention it; and Dr. Milner cites the Apostolical Constitutions to show the manner in which the ceremony was performed:

“Let the bishop salute the church and say, ‘The peace of God be with you all;’ And let the people answer, ‘And with thy spirit.’ Then let the deacon say to all, ‘Salute one another with a holy kiss and let the clergy kiss the bishop, and the laymen the laymen, and the women the women.”

This primitive fraternal embrace appears to have been observed as late as the twelfth or thirteenth century, and the pax (osculatorium, porte-paix, or pax brede) introduced, as it was at this period that the sexes began to mingle together in the low mass.

The use of the pax in England was prescribed by the royal commissioners of Edward VI. The Injunctions published at Doncaster, in 1548, ordain that:

“The clarke shall bring down the paxe, and standing without the church door, shall say loudly to the people these words, ‘This is a token of joyful peace which is betwixt God and men’s conscience; Christ alone is the peace-maker, which straitly commands peace between brother and brother. And so long as ye shall use these ceremonies, so long shall ye use these significations.’”

Agnes Strickland, in her account of the coronation of Queen Elizabeth, says:

“Then the bishop began the mass, the epistle being read first in Latin and then in English, the gospel the same,—the book being sent to the queen, who kissed the gospel. She then went to the altar to make her second offering, three unsheathed swords being borne before her, and one in the scabbard. The queen, kneeling, put money in the basin, and kissed the chalice; and then and there certain words were read to her grace. She retired to her seat again during the consecration, and kissed the pax.”[10]

In this country, the ceremonies of Lent and of Easter belong to the Church alone, but in most other lands these occasions have always borne both a civil and a political relation to society.

In former times royalty itself led the Lenten solemnities, and we read of monarchs washing the feet of beggars, in imitation of Christ, who washed the feet of his disciples. This ceremony, which was regularly practised by the kings and queens of England in ancient times, occurred upon Maundy-Thursday. They washed and kissed the feet of as many poor people as they themselves numbered in years, and bestowed a gift, or maundy, upon each.

Queen Elizabeth performed this royal duty at Greenwich when she was thirty-nine years old, on which occasion the feet of thirty-nine poor persons were first washed by the yeomen of the laundry with warm water and sweet herbs, afterwards by the sub-almoner, and lastly by the queen herself; the person who washed making each time a cross upon the pauper’s foot, above the toes, and kissing it. This ceremony was performed by the queen kneeling, being attended by thirty-nine ladies and gentlemen. Clothes, victuals, and money were then distributed among the poor.

The last of the English monarchs who performed this office in person was James II., and it was afterwards performed by the almoner. On the 5th of April, 1731, it being Maundy-Thursday, and the king in his forty-eighth year, there were distributed at the banqueting-house, Whitehall, to forty-eight poor men and the same number of poor women, boiled beef and shoulders of mutton, and small bowls of ale, for dinner; after that large wooden platters of fish and loaves, the fish being undressed,—twelve red herrings and twelve white herrings, and four half quartern loaves. Each person had one platter of these provisions, and after that were distributed among them shoes, stockings, linen and woollen cloth, and leathern bags filled with silver and copper coins, to each about four pounds in value. The washing of feet was performed by his Grace the Lord Archbishop of York, who was also Lord High Almoner.

Cardinal Wolsey, in 1530, made his maundy at Peterborough Abbey, where upon Maundy-Thursday, in our Lady’s Chapel, he washed and kissed the feet of fifty-nine poor men, “and, after he had wiped them, he gave every one of the said poor men twelve pence in money, three ells of good canvas to make them shirts, a pair of new shoes, a cast of red herrings and three white herrings, and one of these had two shillings.”

This ancient custom is now no longer observed, except in the Royal Chapel at Whitehall, where the poor still receive their gifts from the royal bounty.

Soon after the accession of King Alfonso to the throne of Spain, he performed the emblematic ceremony of washing the apostles’ feet, showing that the royal custom is not obsolete in Madrid, at least. A witness, after describing the preliminaries, says:

“Men and women in a compact mass of silk and velvet, broadcloth and gold lace, crowded the ‘Hall of the Columns,’ where the ceremony was to take place, the spectators, more than eight hundred of whom were ladies, standing all round, jammed upon benches, row upon row, leaving barely the most limited space open for the performers. Within this space the twelve paupers, or apostles, sat on a settee, each of them with his best foot and leg bare to the knee, and as well ‘prepared’ for the occasion as by dint of much soap and water could be contrived; the king in his grand uniform, with a towel tied around him, apron-wise, followed by Cardinal Moreno, Archbishop of Valladolid, in his scarlet robes and skull-cap, and behind and all around them a great staff of grandees and marshals, an array of golden uniforms only distinguishable from the no less sumptuous liveries of the court menials by the stars, crosses, cordons, and scarfs of their chivalrous orders. The cardinal went first, and sprinkled a few drops of perfumed water over each of the bare feet in succession; the king came after, kneeling before each foot, rubbing it slightly with his towel, then stooping upon it as if he meant to kiss it. The ceremony did not take many minutes. The twelve men then got up; they were marshalled in great pomp round the hall, and seated in a row on one side of the table, with their faces to the spectators, in the order observed in Leonardo da Vinci’s grand picture of the Last Supper.”

Mr. D’Israeli, in his “Curiosities of Literature,” thus summarizes the historical notices of M. Morin, a French Academician, upon the custom of kissing hands:

“This custom is not only very ancient, and nearly universal, but has been alike participated by religion and society.

“To begin with religion. From the remotest times men saluted the sun, moon, and stars, by kissing the hand. Job assures us that he was never given to this superstition (xxxi. 27). The same honor was rendered to Baal (1 Kings xviii.). Other instances might be adduced.

“We now pass to Greece. There all foreign superstitions were received. Lucian, after having mentioned various sorts of sacrifices which the rich offered the gods, adds that the poor adored them by the simpler compliment of kissing their hands. That author gives an anecdote of Demosthenes which shows this custom. When a prisoner to the soldiers of Antipater, he asked to enter a temple. When he entered, he touched his mouth with his hands, which the guards took for an act of religion. He did it, however, more securely to swallow the poison he had prepared for such an occasion. Lucian mentions other instances.

“From the Greeks it passed to the Romans. Pliny places it amongst those ancient customs of which they were ignorant of the origin or the reason. Persons were treated as atheists who would not kiss their hands when they entered a temple. When Apuleius mentions Psyche, he says she was so beautiful that they adored her as Venus, in kissing the right hand.

“This ceremonial action rendered respectable the earliest institutions of Christianity. It was a custom with the primeval bishops to give their hands to be kissed by the ministers who served at the altar.

“This custom, however, as a religious rite, declined with paganism.

“In society our ingenious Academician considers the custom of kissing hands as essential to its welfare. It is a mute form which expresses reconciliation, which entreats favors, or which thanks for those received. It is a universal language, intelligible without an interpreter, which doubtless preceded writing, and perhaps speech itself.

“Solomon says of the flatterers and suppliants of his time, that they ceased not to kiss the hands of their patrons till they had obtained the favors which they solicited. In Homer we see Priam kissing the hands and embracing the knees of Achilles while he supplicates for the body of Hector.

“This custom prevailed in ancient Rome, but it varied. In the first ages of the republic it seems to have been only practised by inferiors to their superiors: equals gave their hands and embraced. In the progress of time, even the soldiers refused to show this mark of respect to their generals; and their kissing the hand of Cato when he was obliged to quit them was regarded as an extraordinary circumstance, at a period of such refinement. The great respect paid to the tribunes, consuls, and dictators obliged individuals to live with them in a more distant and respectful manner, and, instead of embracing them as they did formerly, they considered themselves as fortunate if allowed to kiss their hands. Under the emperors, kissing hands became an essential duty, even for the great themselves; inferior courtiers were obliged to be content to adore the purple by kneeling, touching the robe of the emperor by the right hand, and carrying it to the mouth. Even this was thought too free; and at length they saluted the emperor at a distance by kissing their hands, in the same manner as when they adored their gods.

“It is superfluous to trace this custom in every country where it exists. It is practised in every known country, in respect of sovereigns and superiors, even amongst the negroes and inhabitants of the New World. Cortez found it established at Mexico, where more than a thousand lords saluted him, in touching the earth with their hands, which they afterwards carried to their mouths.

“Thus, whether the custom of salutation is practised by kissing the hands of others from respect, or in bringing one’s own to the mouth, it is of all customs the most universal. M. Morin concludes that this practice is now become too gross a familiarity, and it is considered as a meanness to kiss the hand of those with whom we are in habits of intercourse; and he prettily observes that this custom would be entirely lost if lovers were not solicitous to preserve it in all its full power.”

The mistletoe, which has so many mystic associations connected with it, is believed to be propagated in its natural state by the missel-thrush, which feeds upon its berries. It was long thought impossible to propagate it artificially; but this object has been attained by bruising the berries, and, by means of their viscidity, causing them to adhere to the bark of fruit-trees, where they readily germinate and take root. The growth of the mistletoe on the oak is now of extremely rare occurrence, but in the orchards of the west-midland counties of England, such as the shires of Gloucester and Worcester, the plant flourishes in great frequency and luxuriance on the apple-trees. Large quantities are annually cut at the Christmas season, and despatched to London and other places, where they are extensively used for the decoration of houses and shops. The special custom connected with the mistletoe on Christmas Eve, an indubitable relic of the days of Druidism, handed down through a long course of centuries, must be familiar to all of our readers. A branch of the mystic plant is suspended from the wall or ceiling, and any one of the fair sex who, either from inadvertence, or, as possibly may be insinuated, on purpose, passes beneath the sacred spray, incurs the penalty of being then and there kissed by any lord of the creation who chooses to avail himself of the privilege.

Balder, the Apollo of Scandinavian mythology, was killed by a mistletoe arrow given to the blind Höder by Loki, the god of mischief, and potentate of our earth. Balder was restored to life, but the mistletoe was placed in future under the care of Friga, and was never again to be an instrument of evil till it touched the earth, the empire of Loki. Hence is it always suspended from ceilings. And when persons of opposite sexes pass under it, they give each other the kiss of peace and love, in the full assurance that the epiphyte is no longer an instrument of mischief.

In the year 1602, when the Spaniards were inciting the Irish chieftains to harass the English authorities, Cormac MacCarthy held, among other dependencies, the castle of Blarney, and had concluded an armistice with the Lord-President on condition of surrendering this fort to an English garrison. Day after day did his lordship look for the fulfilment of the compact, while the Irish Pozzo di Borgo, as loath to part with his stronghold as Russia to relinquish the Dardanelles, kept protocolizing with soft promises and delusive delays, until at last Carew became the laughing-stock of Elizabeth’s ministers, and Blarney talk proverbial.

A popular tradition attributes to the Blarney Stone the power of endowing whoever kisses it with the sweet, persuasive, wheedling eloquence so perceptible in the language of the Cork people, and which is generally termed Blarney. This is the true meaning of the word, and not, as some writers have supposed, a faculty of deviating from veracity with an unblushing countenance whenever it may be convenient. The curious traveller will seek in vain the real stone, unless he allows himself to be lowered from the northern angle of the lofty castle, when he will discover cover it about twenty feet from the top, with the inscription—Cormac MacCarthy fortis me fieri fecit, A.D. 1446.

As the kissing of this would be somewhat difficult, the candidate for Blarney honors will be glad to know that at the summit, and within easy access, is another real stone, bearing the date of 1703. A song published in the “Reliques of Father Prout” contains an allusion to this marvellous relic:

Buckle, in his “History of Civilization in England,” says:

“Some questions had been raised as to the propriety of kissing the Pope’s toe, and even theologians had their doubts touching so singular a ceremony. But this difficulty has been set at rest by Matthew of Westminster, who explains the true origin of this custom. He says that formerly it was usual to kiss the hand of his Holiness, but that towards the end of the eighth century a certain lewd woman, in making an offering to the Pope, not only kissed his hand, but also pressed it. The Pope,—his name was Leo,—seeing the danger, cut off his hand, and thus escaped the contamination to which he had been exposed. Since that time, the precaution has been taken of kissing the Pope’s toe, instead of his hand. And, lest any one should doubt the accuracy of this account, the historian assures us that the hand, which had been cut off five or six hundred years before, still existed in Rome; and was indeed a standing miracle, since it was preserved in the Lateran in its original state, free from corruption. And, as some readers might wish to be informed respecting the Lateran itself, where the hand was kept, this also is considered by the historian, in another part of his great work, where he traces it back to the Emperor Nero. For it is said that this wicked persecutor of the faith on one occasion vomited a frog covered with blood, which he believed to be his own progeny, and, therefore, caused it to be shut up in a vault, where it remained hidden for some time. Now, in the Latin language latente means hidden, and rana means a frog; so that by putting these two words together we have the origin of the Lateran, which, in fact, was built where the frog was found.”

Punch, the London Charivari, who is no respecter of persons, and who strikes right and left with unhesitating freedom, levelled the following characteristic squib at Pius IX. during the famous Gladstone and Manning controversy:

THE BRONZE STATUE OF ST. PETER.

In “Pen-Pictures of Europe,” Elizabeth Peake says, speaking of St. Peter’s Church at Rome:

“In contrast with the beauty and grandeur of the interior is the insignificant-looking bronze statue of what they call St. Peter, seated in a chair of white marble. Some one remarked that it had been in ancient times a statue of Jupiter. ‘Jupiter,’ I exclaimed, ‘the Jupiter of the old Romans? Never!’ While I stood wondering at the unaccountable vagaries of mankind in general, and of artists in particular, and of the meaning of the word taste, several persons passed along and kissed the foot of the statue, the toes of which are actually worn away with kissing, and the big toe, what is left of it, looks bright as gold....

“Crowds of people were walking round in the nave, looking at the pictures and statues; crowds stood at the gate of the chapel, looking in through the gate and railing, listening to the music; and all grades filed along by the statue of St. Peter, kneeling, then rising and kissing his toe. The peasants wiped off the toe with their hands or sleeves, and then kissed it; others carefully wiped it with their handkerchiefs both before and after kissing it.”

In a little work published in London in 1758, entitled “A New Geographical and Historical Grammar,” we find the following paragraph concerning bribery and kissing:

“The ladies may think it a hardship that they are neither allowed a place in the Senate nor a voice in the choice of what is called the representative of the nation. However, their influence appears to be such in many instances that they have no reason to complain. In boroughs the candidates are so wise as to apply chiefly to the wife.[11] A certain candidate for a Norfolk borough kissed the voters’ wives with guineas in his mouth, for which he was expelled the House; and for this reason others, I suppose, will be more private in their addresses to the ladies.”

Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, gave Steel, the butcher, a kiss for his vote nearly a century since; and another equally beautiful woman, Jane, Duchess of Gordon, recruited her regiment in a similar manner. Duncan Mackenzie, a veteran of Waterloo, who died at Elgin, Scotland, December, 1866, delighted in relating how he kissed the duchess in taking the shilling from between her teeth to become one of her regiment,—the Gordon Highlanders, better known as the Ninety-second. The old Scottish veteran of eighty-seven has not left one behind him to tell the same tale about kissing the blue-eyed duchess in the market-place of Duthill.

The late Daniel O’Connell hit upon a novel mode of securing votes for the candidates he had named at a certain election, which test, considering the constitutional temperament of his countrymen, is said to have proved effectual. He said, in reference to the unfortunate elector who should vote against them, “Let no man speak to him. Let no woman salute him!”

Montaigne, speaking of the gradual debasement of the custom in France in his time (1533-1592), says:

“Do but observe how much the form of salutation, particular to our nation, has by its facility made kisses, which Socrates says are so powerful and dangerous for stealing hearts, of no esteem. It is a nauseous and injurious custom for ladies, that they must be obliged to lend their lips to every fellow that has three footmen at his heels, how nasty or deformed soever; and we do not get much by the bargain; for, as the world is divided, for three pretty women we must kiss fifty ugly ones, and to a tender stomach like those of my age, an ill kiss overpays a good one.”

A correspondent of “The Spectator” (No. 67, an. 1711) having bitterly complained of the lascivious character of the dancing of the period, Budgell, in the course of his reply, remarks:

“I must confess I am afraid that my correspondent had too much reason to be a little out of humor at the treatment of his daughter; but I conclude that he would have been much more so had he seen one of those kissing dances, in which Will Honeycomb assures me they are obliged to dwell almost a minute on the fair one’s lips, or they will be too quick for the music and dance quite out of time.”

Long before, Sir John Suckling had said, in his “Ballad on a Wedding:”

While on this subject it may not be amiss to advert to a passage in the Symposium, or Banquet, of Xenophon, which Burton, in his “Anatomy of Melancholy,” quotes with his usual gusto:

“When Xenophon had discoursed of love, and used all the engines that might be devised, to move Socrates, among the rest, to stir him the more, he shuts up all with a pleasant interlude or dance of Dionysius and Ariadne: First Ariadne, dressed like a bride, came in and took her place; by-and-by Dionysius entered, dancing to the music. The spectators did all admire the young man’s carriage; and Ariadne herself was so much affected with the sight that she could scarce sit. After awhile Dionysius beholding Ariadne, and incensed with love, bowing to her knees, embraced her first, and kissed her with a grace; she embraced him again, and kissed him with like affection, as the dance required; but they that stood by and saw this did much applaud and commend them both for it. And when Dionysius rose up, he raised her up with him, and many pretty gestures, embraces, kisses, and love-compliments passed between them: which when they saw fair Bacchus and beautiful Ariadne so sweetly and so unfeignedly kissing each other, so really embracing, they swore they loved indeed, and were so inflamed with the object that they began to rouse up themselves, as if they would have flown. At the last, when they saw them still so willingly embracing, and now ready to go to the bride-chamber, they were so ravished with it that they that were unmarried swore they would forthwith marry, and those that were married called instantly for their horses, and galloped home to their wives.’”

Kissing the hand is a national custom in Austria. A gentleman on meeting a lady of his acquaintance, especially if she be young and handsome, kisses her hand. On parting from her he again kisses her hand. In Vienna, a young man who is paying his addresses to a young lady, on taking his place at the supper-table around which the family are seated, kisses the mother’s hand as well as the hand of his affianced. It is very common to see a gentleman kiss a lady’s hand on the street on meeting or parting. If you give a beggar-woman a few coppers, she either kisses your hand, or says, “I kiss your hand.” The stranger must expect to have his hand kissed not only by beggars, but by chambermaids, lackeys, and even by old men. Gentlemen kiss the hands of married women as well as of those who are single, as it is regarded as an ordinary salutation or token of respect. American ladies are startled with the first experience of the application of this custom; but they soon submit to it with a good grace. Children, when presented to a stranger, take his hand and kiss it, showing that it is a custom to which they are educated from their cradles.

In “Ivanhoe” the Grand Master of the Templars is made to say:

——“Thou knowest that we were forbidden to receive those devout women who at the beginning were associated as sisters of our Order, because, saith the forty-sixth chapter, the Ancient Enemy hath by female society withdrawn many from the right path to paradise. Nay, in the last capital, being, as it were, the cope-stone which our blessed founder placed on the pure and undefiled doctrine which he had enjoined, we are prohibited from offering even to our sisters and our mothers the kiss of affection—ut omnium mulierum fugiantur oscula. I shame to speak—I shame to think—of the corruptions which have rushed in upon us even like a flood.”

Marc Monnier, in his “Wonders of Pompeii,” says that the latest excavations have revealed the existence of hanging covered balconies, long exterior corridors, pierced with casements frequently depicted in the paintings. There the fair Pompeian could have taken her station in order to participate in the life outside. The good housewife of those times, like her counterpart in our day, could there have held out her basket to the street-merchant who went wandering about with his portable shop; and more than one handsome girl may at the same post have carried her fingers to her lips, there to cull (the ancient custom) the kiss that she flung to the young Pompeian concealed down yonder in the corner of the wall. Thus re-peopled, the old-time street, narrow as it is, was gayer than our own thoroughfares; and the brightly-painted houses, the variegated walls, the monuments, and the fountains gave vivid animation to a picture too dazzling for our gaze.

Eastern salutations take up considerable time. When an Arab meets a friend, he begins, while yet some distance from him, to make gestures expressive of his very great satisfaction in seeing him. When he comes up to him, he grasps him by the right hand, and then brings back his own hand to his lips, in token of respect. He next proceeds to place his hand gently under the long beard of the other, and honors it with an affectionate kiss. He inquires particularly, again and again, concerning his health and the health of his family, and repeats, over and over, the best wishes for his prosperity, giving thanks to God that he is permitted once more to behold his face. All this round of gestures and words is, of course, gone over by the friend too, with like formality. But they are not generally satisfied with a single exchange of this sort: they sometimes repeat as often as ten times the whole tiresome ceremony, with little or no variation.

Some such tedious modes of salutation were common, also, of old; so that a man might suffer very material delay in travelling if he chanced to meet several acquaintances and should undertake to salute each according to the custom of the country. On this account, when Elisha sent his servant Gehazi in great haste to the Shunammite’s house, he said to him, “If thou meet any man, salute him not; and if any salute thee, answer him not again.” (2 Kings iv. 29.) So, when our Lord sent forth his seventy disciples, among other instructions, he bade them “salute no man by the way;” meaning that their work was too important to allow such a waste of time in the exchange of mere unmeaning ceremonies. (Luke x. 4.)

This code defined with great accuracy the nature, limits, and conditions of the right of kissing, although we do not find that property of this nature holds a place among the incorporeal hereditaments of our laws. The Romans were very strict, and only near blood-relations might kiss the women of the family at all. The kiss had all the virtue of a bond granted as a seal to the ceremony of betrothing, in consequence of the violence done to the modesty of the lady by a kiss!

In Turkey, negotiations for marriage are conducted by friends or relations, the parties in interest not being allowed to see each other. The bargain being concluded to their mutual satisfaction, preparations are made for the customary festivities.

About nine or ten o’clock in the evening the nuptial knot is tied,—the Imaam, or priest, placing himself in a short passage which leads between two rooms, respectively occupied by the bride and bridegroom, who neither see each other nor the priest during the ceremony. That functionary asks the bride if she will take the man to be her husband, whether he be blind, lame, etc. She replies yes, three times.

They are now man and wife, though as yet they have not gazed on each other’s features.

After the conclusion of the ceremony the festivities are resumed.

Meanwhile the bride is escorted by her female friends to the bridal chamber, where she is seated on an ottoman and left alone. Shortly after, the bridegroom makes his appearance. Discovering that his wife is still enveloped in her veil, he requests her to throw it aside, so that he can feast his eyes upon her beauty. This she coquettishly declines doing until he has become very earnest in his persuasions, when she discloses to him for the first time a view of her face.

After much persuasion on his part, and affected reluctance on hers, he at length succeeds in kissing her, and the curtain drops.

An American naval officer, who had spent considerable time in China, narrates an amusing experience of the ignorance of the Chinese maidens of the custom of kissing. Wishing to complete a conquest he had made of a young mei jin (beautiful lady), he invited her—using the English words—to give him a kiss. Finding her comprehension of his request somewhat obscure, he suited the action to the word and took a delicious kiss. The girl ran away into another room, thoroughly alarmed, exclaiming, “Terrible man-eater, I shall be devoured.” But in a moment, finding herself uninjured by the salute, she returned to his side, saying, “I would learn more of your strange rite. Ke-e-es me.” He knew it wasn’t “right,” but he kept on instructing her in the rite of “ke-e-es me,” until she knew how to do it like a native Yankee girl; and after all that, she suggested a second course, by remarking, “Ke-e-es me some more, seen jine Mee-lee-kee!” (Anglicé—American), and the lesson went on until her mamma’s voice rudely awakened them from their delicious dream.

Notwithstanding the alleged infrequency of the custom of kissing in the Chinese dominions, we learn, from the Chinese poems which have been so happily translated by Mr. G. C. Stent, that the people of far Cathay are quite as susceptible to the spell of physical beauty as the people of other lands, and that they know as well how to sing and flatter it. Take the following extract, for example:

In Diedrich Knickerbocker’s veracious history of New York, we are told that New Year’s day was the favorite festival of the renowned governor Peter Stuyvesant, and was ushered in by the ringing of bells and firing of guns. On that genial day, says Mr. Irving, the fountains of hospitality were broken up, and the whole community was deluged with cherry brandy, true Hollands, and mulled cider; every house was a temple of the jolly god, and many a provident vagabond got drunk out of pure economy,—taking in liquor enough gratis to serve him half a year afterwards.

The great assemblage, however, was at the governor’s house, whither repaired all the burghers of New Amsterdam, with their wives and daughters, pranked out in their best attire. On this occasion the good Peter was devoutly observant of the pious Dutch rite of kissing the women-kind for a Happy New Year; and it is traditional that Antony the Trumpeter, who acted as gentleman usher, took toll of all who were young and handsome, as they passed through the antechamber. This venerable custom, thus happily introduced, was followed with such zeal by high and low that on New Year’s day, during the reign of Peter Stuyvesant, New Amsterdam was the most thoroughly be-kissed community in all Christendom.

The Trumpeter referred to by the humorous historian was Van Corlear, of whom, on the eve of a famous Dutch military campaign, it is said:

“It was a moving sight to see the buxom lasses, how they hung about the doughty Antony Van Corlear,—for he was a jolly, rosy-faced, lusty bachelor, fond of his joke, and withal a desperate rogue among the women. Fain would they have kept him to comfort them while the army was away; for, besides what I have said of him, it is no more than justice to add that he was a kind-hearted soul, noted for his benevolent attentions in comforting disconsolate wives during the absence of their husbands; and this made him to be very much regarded by the honest burghers of the city. But nothing could keep the valiant Antony from following the heels of the old governor, whom he loved as he did his very soul; so, embracing all the young vrouws, and giving every one of them that had good teeth and rosy lips a dozen hearty smacks, he departed, loaded with their kind wishes.”

Before leaving this lusty bachelor, who was such a “prodigious favorite” with the women, it may be noted that he is said to have been the first to collect that famous toll levied on the fair sex at Kissing Bridge, on the highway to Hellgate. The bridge referred to by Diedrich still exists, but the toll is seldom collected nowadays, except on sleighing-parties, by the descendants of the patriarchs, who still preserve the traditions of the city.

Bartlett, in his “Dictionary of Americanisms,” tells us that the “Kiss-Me-Quick” is a home-made, quilted bonnet, which does not extend beyond the face. It is chiefly used to cover the head by ladies when going to parties or to the theatre. Sam Slick says, in “Human Nature:”

“She holds out with each hand a portion of her silk dress, as if she was walking a minuet, and it discloses a snow-white petticoat. Her step is short and mincing, and she wears a new bonnet called a kiss-me-quick.”

That early American poet, Joel Barlow, in his famous poem, “The Hasty Pudding,” thus pleasantly refers to the New England husking bees:

The old custom of “taking toll” has been humorously commemorated by the Belgian artist Dillens, in a painting of singular beauty. It was exhibited at the Paris International Exhibition in 1855, and purchased by the late Emperor of the French. The scene is in Zealand. A quiet summer evening invites the peasantry of the country to a stroll. Three couples, habited in Sunday or holiday costume, have in their walks reached a bridge. Whether or not it is a legal exaction that a toll must be enforced there, is little to the purpose, but one of a peculiar character is demanded, and is most willingly paid by the first pair who reach the spot: the buxom maiden, whose pleasant upturned face shows she has no reluctance to submit to the agreeable extortion, is quite as ready to pay the toll as her lover is to take it. Of course the example will be followed by their companions behind, though the two young men pretend to be quite unconscious of what is going on, and one of the females affects a look of surprise.

Mr. Waller, in his interesting account of a visit to Iceland in 1872, gives us a very clear idea of some of the customs of the people, whom he found inconveniently hospitable. Among other incidents, he relates the following instance of native kindness and feminine courage:

“In the morning I made a small study, and, after a very tolerable meal and many good wishes, we rode off. All went well until we came to the river Markafljot, which happened to be very much flooded. Not liking to attempt to swim under the circumstances, we rode on down the bank for some miles, and fortunately found a house.

“Knocking at the door, we asked, ‘Is the river very deep?’

“‘Very,’ said a voice from the inside.

“‘Is there a man who will show us a ford?’ we asked again.

“‘No,’ was the reply; ‘both Jan and Olave are up in the mountains; but one of the girls will do quite as well. Here, Thora, go and show the Englishmen the way.’

“Immediately an exceedingly handsome young woman ran out, and, nodding kindly to me, went around to the back of the house, caught a pony, put a bridle on it, and, not taking the trouble to fetch a saddle, vaulted on his bare back, and, sitting astride, drove her heels into its sides and galloped off down the river-bank as hard as she could go, shouting for us to follow.

“We became naturally rather excited at such a display of dash on the part of such a pretty girl, and started off immediately in chase. But, though we did our utmost to catch her, she increased her distance hand over hand. There was no doubt about it,—she had as much courage as ever we could boast of, and in point of horsemanship was a hundred yards ahead of either of us.

“For about half a mile we rattled along, when suddenly she pulled up short on a sand-bank.

“‘You can cross here,’ she said, ‘but you must be careful. Make straight for that rock right over there, and when you have reached it you will be able to see the cairn of stones we built to show the landing-place.’

“‘All right,’ I said. ‘Good-by.’

“She looked puzzled for a moment, and then said, ‘I’ll come through with you: it will be safer.’

“‘Good gracious, Bjarni, don’t let her come!’ I said: ‘she is sure to be drowned, and I can’t get her out with all those wet clothes on. Tell her to go back.’

“But before I was half-way through the sentence, she had urged her horse into the water, and in a moment was twenty yards into the river. Of course we followed as quickly as possible, and after a great deal of splashing reached the middle of the flood. ‘Now,’ she said, bringing her horse up abreast with mine, and pointing with her whip, ‘there’s the mark.’ The water was running level with the horses’ withers, and it was only by lifting their heads very high that they could keep their noses clear.

“‘Good-by,’ she said; ‘God bless you,’ and, before I was quite aware of it, kissed me on the cheek.

“I was about to return the compliment, but she was gone; and, a few minutes after, we saw her, a mere speck in the distance, galloping over the plain.

“Kissing in Iceland is a custom similar to shaking hands here. I would have expected it in ordinary situations but a kiss in the midst of boundless waters was, to say the least of it, strange. It was certainly the wettest one I ever had in my life.”

“Everybody in Paraguay smokes,” says a South American traveler, “and every female above the age of thirteen chews. I am wrong. They do not chew, but put tobacco in their mouths, keep it there constantly, except when eating, and, instead of chewing it, roll it about and suck it. Imagine yourself about to salute the red lips of a magnificent little Hebe, arrayed with satin and flashing with diamonds, as she puts you back with one delicate hand, while with the other she draws forth from her mouth a brownish-black roll of tobacco quite two inches long, looking like a monster grub, and then, depositing the savory lozenge on the brim of your sombrero, puts up her face and is ready for a salute. I have sometimes seen an over-delicate foreigner turn away with a shudder of loathing under such circumstances, and get the epithet of ‘the savage!’ applied to him by the offended beauty for his sensitive squeamishness. However, one soon gets used to this in Paraguay, where you are, perforce of custom, obliged to kiss every lady you are introduced to, and one-half you meet are really tempting enough to render you regardless of the consequences, and you would sip the dew of the proffered lip in the face of a tobacco-factory,—even in the double-distilled honeydew of Old Virginia.”

At Big Creek, Arkansas, they have a peculiar fashion, which sometimes proves embarrassing. As there is no preacher within thirty miles, the way for marrying is by kissing across a table. Recently, a New York drummer who was there on business put up at a private house, and became quite intimate with the inmates. One evening he was fooling around one of the girls, and trying the sweetness of her temper, when she gave his whiskers a pull and ran. He followed. She got the table between them. He chased her around it several times. When out of breath, he stopped on the other side, and, making a wild plunge, caught her in his arms and gave her a hearty kiss. She then sat down on the sofa, and they talked pleasantly for a couple of hours,—he thinking it singular that she should sit up so late.

At last she said, “Don’t you think it’s about time we went to bed?”

“I guess you are right,” he remarked; “let’s go.”

She lit a candle, and he was about to do the same, when she said, “I reckon one’s enough. One candle will light two folks to bed.”

“Undoubtedly it would, when those two people occupy the same room. But your candle won’t illuminate my chamber.”

“Ain’t we going to occupy the same room? Ain’t we married?”

“Ain’t we what?” shouted the gentleman.

“Married! Didn’t you kiss me across the table? That married us.”

A cold sweat spread over the drummer. He saw in an instant that if he said he wasn’t married to her she would make an outcry, and then her loving and much-tobacco-consuming father would arise in his wrath and carve him into cutlets, and her brothers would bring down their shot-guns and empty the contents into him. He must be strategic. He must put her off. So he said:

“Fairest of your sex, permit me to remark that I did not know that kissing across the table constituted a marriage-ceremony. But I am content. I have never seen one who so completely filled my idea of a beautiful, sweet, loving, and modest woman. However, I would never think of holding you to this marriage until I had asked the permission of your father to pay my addresses to you. To-morrow, at dinner, when the entire family are present, I will propose for your fair hand.”

This satisfied the lady, and, after bestowing upon him a fervent kiss, she went to her room, and he went to his. He packed his carpet-bag, took off his boots, and made tracks for the nearest railroad-station. He didn’t feel entirely safe until he had reached St. Louis. He hasn’t informed his wife of this little adventure. He’s afraid she might write out to Arkansas for the facts in the case, and then he might get arrested for bigamy. Women sometimes won’t listen to reason, you know.

“Drop the handkerchief” is a dangerous game. Desdemona dropped her handkerchief, and it cost her her life. Handkerchiefs have played a great deal of mischief. A handkerchief ruptured a Baptist church in Dedham, Mass. There was a church sociable in the chapel, and they “played plays,” and “drop the handkerchief” was one of the plays. We don’t remember just how it’s done, but they stand in a circle, promiscuously, and a lady, taking a handkerchief, walks around on the outside of the circle and drops the handkerchief behind one of the male persuasion, and he runs after her, or he don’t—we forget which—but, any way, if he catches her, or if he don’t—we forget which—he can kiss her. There is kissing about it, any way, whether he catches her or not, for “drop the handkerchief” would be no play with kissing left out. And “drop the handkerchief” is a real play, and when grown-up people play, kissing is the main part. So we know there is kissing in it; and the account of this Dedham affair says “the game involves kissing,” to which the Rev. Mr. Foster, pastor, took exception, and he declared “right out loud” that the “church was built for a house of God, and not for kissing-parties.” And one of the young men who was “involved” in the kissing-party even threatened to smite the parson, and the account says “the pleasure of the evening was destroyed,” and the Rev. Mr. Foster resigned his charge.

The Dunkards, at their national convention at Girard, Ill., discussed whether white members were bound to salute colored ones with the holy kiss. After mature deliberation, it was decided to be a matter of taste merely, and that, while those who chose to indulge in universal osculation, irrespective of race or color, should have full liberty to do so, no member should feel himself obliged to follow such example. The decision doubtless, it is said, lightened many anxious hearts. The Dunkards, or German Baptists, wear broad-brimmed hats, and fasten their shad-belly coats close up to the throat; wear no neck-ties, and never waste time in blacking their boots; consider buttons too much like jewelry, and tie up their clothes with strings; live frugally, and eschew cakes and sweets; work much, and spend little; never are wealthy, and yet have no poor among them; kiss promiscuously in public, and have no jealousies; never give the first word, and never answer back; regard ancient customs, and disregard the new; never hold office, and never take contracts.

The members of the United Brethren Church, or “Church of God,” in Pennsylvania, observe the sacrament of feet-washing inculcated in the thirteenth chapter of St. John’s Gospel. The ceremony is thus described by a Pittsburg reporter:

“The front seats were entirely filled by men and women who desired to take part in the ceremony. The females, however, largely preponderated, and of both sexes there were probably twenty-five or thirty. The pastor partially filled two basins with water. The feet-washing was done by a man and woman, each of whom wore an apron in imitation of the girdle worn by Christ, and each, taking up a basin of water, washed one by one the feet of those of their own sex, the shoes and stockings as a matter of course having been taken off. Both feet were placed in the basin, and upon being taken out were wiped with the apron worn by the washer, whereupon the one performing the ceremony and the one submitting to it shook hands and kissed each other, there being no distinction at all made in the matter of sex, the men kissing each other as well as the women. While this peculiar ordinance was being attended to, the audience manifested the most eager and intense interest. People crowded forward in the aisles to get a good look at it, and so great was the curiosity of those occupying the back seats that many stood up on the benches for the purpose of getting a better view. During the performance of the ceremony the congregation sang, with unusual vigor,—

An eminent English authoress was leaving an afternoon concert in London, when two old ladies from the country, finding that she was the writer of books that had delighted them, rushed up to her and begged permission to kiss her hand. The authoress blushed deeply, and began tugging at her tight-fitting glove. The glove was only withdrawn after a minute or two of effort, causing much embarrassment to the modest authoress. A French gentleman, who had witnessed the proceeding, remarked that if it had been George Sand she would instantly have thrown her arms around the old women and kissed each on both cheeks.

Some ungallant writers assert that in the desire of the ancients to test the sobriety of their wives and daughters, who it seems were apt to make too free with the juice of the grape, notwithstanding a prohibition to the contrary, originated a practice reprobated by Socrates the philosopher, Cato the elder, and Ambrose the saint, and lauded by lyrists and lovers from the beginning of time. The refinement of manners among the classic dames and damsels before mentioned was probably pretty much upon a par with that depicted in the “Beggars’ Opera,” when Macheath exclaims, after saluting Jenny Diver, “One may know by your kiss that your gin is excellent.”

THE KISS IN POETRY. — SONNET UPON A STOLEN KISS. — THE KISS—A DIALOGUE. — THE SIRENS’ SONG. — THE KISS. — TO CHARIS. — THE PARTING KISS. — YIELDING TO TEMPTATION. — INES SENT A KISS TO ME. — THE WANDERING KNIGHT’S SONG. — THE COCK AND THE FOX. — ANACREONTIC. — THE LANDLADY’S DAUGHTER. — BLOOMING NELLY. — BONNIE PEGGY ALISON. — DINNA KISS AFORE FOLK. — DON JUAN AND HAIDEE. — THE FIRST KISS OF LOVE. — TEACHER AND PUPIL. — THINE AT LAST. — JULIA’S KISS. — TO A LADY ON HER TRANSLATION OF VOITURE’S “KISS.” — THE KISS. — TO A CHILD EMBRACING HIS MOTHER. — KISSES. — GIVE ME KISSES. — TO MY LOVE. — A DINNER AND A KISS. — A HINT. — THROWING KISSES. — KISSES TO-DAY. — CONSECRATION.—A LOVER’S MOOD. — “UNDER THE ROSE.” — PLATONIC KISSES. — HOW IT HAPPENED. — IN AMBUSH. — A LONG-BRANCH EPISODE. — THREE KISSES. — TOO OLD FOR KISSES. — WEDDING SONG. — THE KISS AT THE DOOR. — A KISS. — FIVE TWICES. — NURSERY RHYMES. — RHAPSODIES. — EXCERPTS FROM THE POETS. — EXTRACTS FROM THE OLD BALLADS. — MARRIAGE OF GILBERT BECKET. — BIRTH OF ROBIN HOOD. — DOWSABELL. — GILDEROY. — PATIENT COUNTESS. — FRIAR OF ORDERS GRAY. — GENTLE HERDSMAN. — FAIR ROSAMOND. — LUNATIC LOVER. — CHILD WATERS. — PHILLIDA AND CORYDON. — FAIR MARGARET AND SWEET WILLIAM. — SWEET WILLIAM’S GHOST. — LADY’S FALL. — WALY WALY, LOVE BE BONNY. — BRIDE’S BURIAL. — CHILDREN IN THE WOOD. — LUCY AND COLIN. — MARRIAGE OF SIR GAWAINE. — GUY AND AMARANT. — THE HUMORS OF VERSE. — ON MY REFUSING ANGELINA A KISS UNDER THE MISTLETOE. — MOCK HEROICS. — KING KEDER. — THE PUBLICAN’S DAUGHTER. — ROBIN GOODFELLOW. — NOSES. — “BEWARE OF PAINT.” — THE SHADOWS. — THE SMACK IN SCHOOL. — THE BALLAD OF THE OYSTERMAN. — ANCIENT SPANISH LYRIC. — THE BROKEN PITCHER. — THE “BASIA” OF JOHANNES SECUNDUS. — KISS I. — KISS II. — KISS III. — KISS IV. — KISS V. — KISS VI. — KISS VII. — KISS VIII. — KISS IX. — KISS X. — KISS XI. — KISS XII. — KISS XIII. — KISS XIV. — KISS XV. — KISS XVI.

[Begging another kiss, on condition of mending the former.]

[From the Spanish of Silvestre.]

[From the Spanish.]

[From the Fables of La Fontaine.]

[From the French of Menage.]

[From the German of Uhland.]

[An old Scotch song.]

[A Platonic Kiss.]

[Polonaise.]

[Before closing this portion of our selections, it is worth while to note the popular misconception of the favorite ditty “Coming through the Rye,” as shown in the pictorial illustrations which present a laddie and lassie meeting and kissing in a field of grain. The lines,—

and especially the other couplet,—

seem to imply that traversing the rye was a habitual or common thing; but what in the name of the Royal Agricultural Society could be the object in trampling down a crop of grain in that style? The song, perhaps, suggests a harvest-scene, where both sexes, as is the custom in Great Britain, are at work reaping, and where they would come and go through the field indeed, but not through the rye itself, so as to meet and kiss in it. The truth is, the rye in this case is no more grain than Rye Beach is, it being the name of a small shallow stream near Ayr, in Scotland, which, having neither bridge nor ferry, was forded by the people going to and from the market, custom allowing a lad to steal a kiss from any lass of his acquaintance whom he met in mid-stream. Reference to the first verse, in which the lass is shown as wetting her clothes in the stream, confirms this explanation:

The closing stanza of the old English ballad called “The Rural Dance about the May-pole” is as follows:

There is a song of the reign of Queen Anne beginning:

to which a lover replies,—

From the old Scotch ballad, “The Souter and his Sow,” we take the following stanza:

Some of our readers will remember the humorous old Scotch song in which these verses occur:

In Cheshire and Staffordshire the lines run thus:

Many will recognize these old verses:

The only account of this apocryphal monarch is a poetic myth relating to an amorous design, from the frustration of which was named the town of Kidderminster:

Shakspeare, in his “Venus and Adonis,” gives this picture of tantalizing caprice:

As a specimen of what the human mind can effect in the way of amatory poetry, we take the following from a journal of the period:

In George Colman’s musical farce, “The Review, or the Wags of Windsor,” Looney Mactwolter falls in love with Judy O’Flannikin:

In Hood’s “Retrospective Review,” “Oh, when I was a tiny boy,” etc., occurs this stanza:

In Robert Southey’s “Love Elegies,” the poet relates how he obtained Delia’s pocket-handkerchief, and shows that “the eighth commandment was not made for love,” when he proceeds as follows:

Scotch song abounds with pleasant allusions to the custom of kissing, like this, for example, from a well-known West Highland ditty:

[From the Spanish.]

The true name of the Dutch poet Johannes Secundus was Johannes Everard. He was born at the Hague in 1511, and died at Utrecht in 1536. His “Opera Poetica” consist of elegies, odes, epigrams, and other poems, written in purely classical Latin. Of these productions, the “Basia,” or “Kisses” (Utrecht, 1539), have been most admired, and have been ranked with the lyrics of Catullus. They have been repeatedly translated into the principal European languages, the English versions being by Nott and Stanley. We offer selections from the latter, for such of our readers as are unfamiliar with the rapturous Dutchman’s florid effusions.

The introductory epigram is as follows:

THE ORIGIN OF KISSES.

THE KISS IN DRAMATIC LITERATURE. — SELECTIONS FROM SHAKSPEARE. — BEN JONSON. — BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER. — LILLY. — MARLOWE. — MARSTON. — MASSINGER. — FORD. — HEYWOOD. — SHIRLEY. — DRYDEN. — OTWAY. — LANSDOWNE. — GOLDSMITH. — KNOWLES. — SCHILLER. — GOETHE. — ALFIERI. — LONGFELLOW. — BULWER-LYTTON. — TALFOURD. — MISS MITFORD. — PROCTER. — MRS. BROWNING. — TENNYSON.

Falstaff. Her husband, dwelling in a continual ’larum of jealousy, comes me in the instant of our encounter, after we had embraced, kissed, protested, and, as it were, spoke the prologue of our comedy.

Merry Wives, iii. 5.

Benedict. Only foul words; and thereupon I will kiss thee.

Beatrice. Foul words is but foul wind, and foul wind is but foul breath, and foul breath is noisome; therefore I will depart unkissed.

Much Ado, v. 2.

Rosalind. His very hair is of the dissembling color.

Celia. Something browner than Judas’: marry, his kisses are Judas’ own children.

R. I’ faith, his hair is of a good color.

C. An excellent color: your chestnut was ever the only color.

R. And his kissing is as full of sanctity as the touch of holy bread.

C. He hath bought a pair of cast lips of Diana: a nun of winter’s sisterhood kisses not more religiously; the very ice of chastity is in them.

As You Like It, iii. 4.

Rosalind. Come, woo me, woo me; for now I am in a holiday humor, and like enough to consent. What would you say to me now, an I were your very very Rosalind?

Orlando. I would kiss before I spoke.

R. Nay, you were better speak first; and when you were gravelled for lack of matter, you might take occasion to kiss. Very good orators, when they are out, they will spit; and for lovers, lacking (God warn us) matter, the cleanliest shift is to kiss.

O. How if the kiss be denied?

R. Then she puts you to entreaty, and there begins new matter.

As You Like It, iv. 1.

Clown. He that comforts my wife is the nourisher of my flesh and blood; he that cherishes my flesh and blood loves my flesh and blood; he that loves my flesh and blood is my friend: ergo, he that kisses my wife is my friend.

All’s Well that Ends Well, i. 3.

(Richard to Bolingbroke, kneeling.)

(Richard to the Queen.)

King Henry. Katharine, break thy mind to me in broken English. Wilt thou have me?

Katharine. Dat is, as it shall please de roy mon pere.

Hen. Nay, it will please him well, Kate; it shall please him, Kate.

Kath. Den it shall also content me.

Hen. Upon that I will kiss your hand, and I call you—my queen.

Kath. Laissez, mon seigneur, laissez, laissez: ma foy, je ne veux point que vous abaissez vostre grandeur en baisant la main d’un vostre indigne serviteure; excusez moy, je vous supplie, mon tres puissant seigneur.

Hen. Then I will kiss your lips, Kate.

Kath. Les dames, et damoiselles, pour estre baisées devant leur nopces, il n’est pas le coutume de France.

Hen. Madam my interpreter, what says she?

Alice. Dat it is not de fashion pour les ladies of France,—I cannot tell what is, baiser, en English.

Hen. To kiss.

Alice. Your majesty entendre bettre que moy.

Hen. It is not the fashion for the maids in France to kiss before they are married, would she say?

Alice. Ouy, vrayment.

Hen. O Kate, nice customs curtsey to great kings. Dear Kate, you and I cannot be confined within the weak list of a country’s fashion; we are the makers of manners, Kate; and the liberty that follows our places stops the mouths of all find-faults, as I will do yours, for upholding the nice fashion of your country, in denying me a kiss: therefore, patiently, and yielding [kissing her]. You have witchcraft in your lips, Kate; there is more eloquence in the sugar touch of them than in the tongues of the French council, and they should sooner persuade Harry of England than a general petition of monarchs.

Henry V., v. 2.

(Suffolk to Lady Margaret.)

(Queen Margaret to Suffolk, kissing his hand.)

(Henry VIII. to Anne Bullen, after the dance.)

(Headquarters of the Grecian camp. Enter Diomed with Cressida.)

(Cressida to Diomed.)

(Timon, looking on the gold.)

(Cleopatra to Messenger.)

Alas, poor Yorick!... Here hung those lips that I have kissed I know not how oft.

Hamlet, v. 1.

Oh, sweet Fastidious! Oh, fine courtier! How comely he bows him in his courtesy! how full he hits a woman between the lips when he kisses!

Every Man out of his Humor, iv. 1.

Hedon. You know I call madam Philautia my Honor; and she calls me her Ambition. Now, when I meet her in the presence anon, I will come to her, and say, Sweet Honor, I have hitherto contented my sense with the lilies of your hand, but now I will taste the roses of your lip; and, withal, kiss her: to which she cannot but blushingly answer, Nay, now you are too ambitious. And then do I reply: I cannot be too Ambitious of Honor, sweet lady. Will’t not be good? ha? ha?

Anaides. Oh, assure your soul.

Hedon. By heaven, I think ’twill be excellent; and a very politic achievement of a kiss.

Cynthia’s Revels, ii. 1.

He that had the grace to print a kiss on those lips should taste wine and rose-leaves. Oh, she kisses as close as a cockle.

Cynthia’s Revels, v. 2.

Your city ladies, you shall have them sit in every shop, like the muses, offering you the Castalian dews and the Thespian liquors to as many as have but the sweet grace and audacity to—sip of their lips.

Poetaster, iii. 1.

Praise them, flatter them, you shall never want eloquence or trust: even the chastest delight to feel themselves that way rubbed. With praises you must mix kisses too; if they take them, they’ll take more,—though they strive, they would be overcome.

Silent Woman, iv. 1.

[Kisses Lovel.

Marlow. To guess at this distance, you can’t be much above forty. [Approaching.] Yet nearer, I don’t think so much. [Approaching.] By coming close to some women, they look younger still; but when we come very close indeed—[Attempting to kiss her.]

Miss Hardcastle. Pray, sir, keep your distance. One would think you wanted to know one’s age as they do horses, by mark of mouth.

She Stoops to Conquer.