originally, for Collet says—still the same authority
—" The pleasant practice of kissing was utterly
unpractised and unknown in England till the
fair Princess Rouix (Rowena), the daughter of
King Hengist of Friezland, pressed the beaker
with her lipkens, and saluted the amorous
Vortigern with a husjen" (little kiss).

When James the First of Scotland met Anne
of Denmark, he was going to kiss her after the
English fashion; but Anne did not approve of
such familiar doings, and repulsed him. Yet,
after he had had some private talk with her
aside, she became more amenable, and suffered
him to kiss her in the presence of the whole
court. The proud and pompous Constable of
Castile was glad to kiss her lovely maids of
honour, with whom there does not seem to have
been any overwhelming difficulty. The custom
was much reprobated by the Roundheads and
all the Puritan party. Hear what good old
John Bunyan says against it; and surely his
words might have been quoted as full of sense
and justice, in such times as the old-fashioned
canvassing for elections, when all the pretty
women were kissed— or even now, when under
the mistletoe, the poor ugly ones are not kissed:

"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, and that have visited them, I have made my
objections 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-favoured ones go."

Why, indeed? That is just what the
Mormons, more generous than Bunyan's friends, do
not do: they make no balks of even the ill-
favoured.

Beautiful and sad are many of the kisses
scattered about literature and history. There
was the kiss of the Troubadour Gauffre Hudel,
Prince of Blaye, who fell in love with the
Countess of Tripoli only by report, and pined
away so sorely for love and yearning that his
heart went from him, and his life was dead
within him. He took ship and sailed over the
waves to see her: and she, touched by his
devotion, went down into the ship as it lay
in the bay of Tripoli with Gauffre nigh unto
death on board. As she went to him, and
took his hand, and kissed him, the poet's love
leapt up into its lust flame: he gave her one
long look, blessed her, and then died—with her
lips upon his. The lady went into a convent.

Then there was the precious kiss which
Margarida, wife of Raimon de Roussillon, gave her
lover the Troubadour Guillem de Cabestanth,
when " she stretched out her arms, and sweetly
embraced him in the lone chamber." Ah! that
kiss was dearly purchased! for Raimon, coming
to the knowledge of all it meant, gave Margarida
her lover's heart to eat, disguised as a
savoury morsel. "When he told her what she
had done, she, saying that "if she had eaten
so sweet a morsel, would eat nothing more,"
dashed herself from the window into the castle
yard: and so died in great pain—but more
happily than if she had lived. And there was
Francesca's kiss, so sweet and yet so sad, so
guilty and so pure, when, "trembling all over,"
Paolo kissed her—and they read no more
for that day. And there was the kiss which
Marie Stuart gave the sleeping poet, Alain.
Chartier, and before all the court, too; and
that other kiss—or rather, many kisses—
given by Marguerite de Valois to Clement
Marot, of which this poet makes such tender,
boastful account, prefiguring Leigh Hunt's
assertion, that

      Stolen sweets are always sweeter,
      Stolen kisses much completer.

One of the strangest kisses on record is that
(which I firmly believe in) told in the Arabian
Nights, when the Lady of Bagdad, who goes to
purchase a rich stuff, is asked for only a kiss in
return. No money will buy it; no honours;
nothing but a kiss on her fair cheek. So, holding
her veil that the passers-by may see nothing,
she offers her cheek to the young merchant's
kiss; and the wretch bites it savagely through,
instead. But all the Arabian Nights kisses are
as strange and wild and fetterless as the
emotions they express. We, in this colder North,
can hardly understand the state of mind and
manners detailed therein.

Sweet and lovely is the maiden's kiss in Paradise
and the Peri,—" the last long kiss which she
expires in giving;" full of beauty and poetic
fancy Diana's kiss, when she stole down from
heaven to the sleeping shepherd-boy lying like a
lily on the summit of Mount Ida; mournful the
kisses of Hero and Leander; heroic those
"kisses thrie" given by the knight to the laidly
beast who starts up a comely maiden; revolting
the kisses given by the devil to the witches in
the sabbaths; very pleasant the sugar kisses
which young boys and girls delight in giving to
each other with a " crack." But of all the pleasant,
tender, quaint, perplexing kisses, give me
that strange salute which the Norwegian maidens
bestow upon you after they have put you to bed,
and tucked you up well between the sweet-
smelling sheets; for then, bending their fresh, fair
faces, do they not kiss you honestly upon your
beard, with no thought of shame or doubt?

What other kisses are there? There is " kiss
in the ring," the favourite Sunday game on
Hampstead Heath, when the young men and
women are tired of donkey-riding; and there
is kissing under the mistletoe, which unhappily
is fast dying out from genteel society.
There is the kiss blown away from the tips of
all four fingers crumpled up into a point, into
which the old act of homage has sunk; and there
is the Frenchman's kiss, which brushes your
cheeks with tufts of hair; and the Italian's kiss,
which, if you are a woman, is pressed lightly on,
your hand in the most gracious manner possible;
and there is the baby's wet, open-mouthed kiss,
so infinitely precious to women, and so terrible
to men; and our pretty litlle pouting sister's