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):

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.