THE KISS IN HISTORY.

THE KISS IMPRIMIS.

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

SIGNIFICANCE AMONG THE HEBREWS.

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.

DIVERSITIES IN THE BIBLE.

SALUTATION.

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.]

VALEDICTION.

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.

RECONCILIATION.

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.

SUBJECTION.

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

APPROBATION.

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

ADORATION.

——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.

TREACHERY.

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.]

AFFECTION.

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.

SYMBOLICAL EXPRESSION AMONG THE GREEKS AND ROMANS.

ANCIENT HISTORY AND POETRY COMMINGLED.

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:

TRACES IN ENGLISH HISTORY.

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):

“Mr. Spectator,

“I am a country gentleman, of a good, plentiful estate, and live as the rest of my neighbors, with great hospitality. I have been ever reckoned among the ladies the best company in the world, and have access as a sort of favorite. I never came in public but I saluted them, though in great assemblies, all around; where it was seen how genteelly I avoided hampering my spurs in their petticoats, whilst I moved amongst them; and on the other side how prettily they curtsied and received me, standing in proper rows, and advancing as fast as they saw their elders, or their betters, dispatched by me. But so it is, Mr. Spectator, that all our good breeding is of late lost by the unhappy arrival of a courtier, or town gentleman, who came lately among us. This person, whenever he came into a room, made a profound bow and fell back, then recovered with a soft air, and made a bow to the next, and so to one or two more, and then took the gross of the room by passing by them in a continued bow till he arrived at the person he thought proper particularly to entertain. This he did with so good a grace and assurance that it is taken for the present fashion; and there is no young gentlewoman within several miles of this place has been kissed ever since his first appearance among us. We country gentlemen cannot begin again and learn these fine and reserved airs; and our conversation is at a stand till we have your judgment for or against kissing by way of civility or salutation, which is impatiently expected by your friends of both sexes, but by none so much as

“Your humble servant,

“Rustic Sprightly.”

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.

MEMORABLE KISSES.

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:

MY FIRST KISS.

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:

FREAKS AND PHASES OF LOCAL CUSTOM.

THE KISS OF PEACE.

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]

ROYAL FEET-WASHING AND KISSING.

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.”

THE CUSTOM OF KISSING HANDS.

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.”

UNDER THE MISTLETOE.

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.

SCANDINAVIAN TRADITION.

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.

THE MISTLETOE.

THE MISTLETOE IN AMERICA.

THE BLARNEY STONE.

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:

THE BLARNEY STONE.