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,
“ariseth up ful curtisly,
And hire embraceth in his armes narwe,
And kisseth hire swete and chirketh as a sparwe
With his lippes.”
Robert de Brunne (1303) says that the custom formed part of the ceremony of drinking healths:
“That sais wasseille drinkis of the cup,
Kiss and his felow he gives it up.”
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.