And not to kiss you.
A correspondent having bitterly complained of the lascivious character of the dancing of the period, Budgell, in the course of his reply, remarks:
“I must confess I am afraid that my correspondent had too much reason to be a little out of humor at the treatment of his daughter; but I conclude that he would have been much more so had he seen one of those kissing dances, in which Will Honeycomb assures me they are obliged to dwell almost a minute on the fair one’s lips, or they will be too quick for the music, and dance quite out of time.”
Sir John Suckling, in his “Ballad of the Wedding,” published some years before this period, said:
O’ th’ sudden up they rise and dance;
Then sit again, and sigh, and glance;
Then dance again, and kiss.
Brand, in his “Popular Antiquities,” tells us that the custom of kissing in dancing, is still prevalent in many parts of the country. “When the fiddler thinks young couples have had music enough, he makes his instrument squeak out two notes, which all understand to say ‘kiss her.’” The panting bucolic swains are not slow to claim this privilege from their blushing partners.
In the “Banquet” of Xenophon, quoted by Burton in his “Anatomy of the Melancholy,” there is an account of an interlude, or dance, in which Dionysius and Ariadne were engaged, which was of such a pleasing character that the account states that “the audience were so ravished with it, that they that were unmarried swore they would forthwith marry, and those that were married called instantly for their horses and galloped home to their wives.”
In Hone’s “Table Book” there is an account of a curious kissing festival held in Ireland. It is stated that on Easter Monday several hundred young persons of the town and neighborhood of Potsferry, County Down, dressed in their best, went to a pleasant walk near the town. “The avowed object of each person is to see the fun, which consists in the men kissing the females, without reserve, whether married or single. This mode of salutation is quite a matter of course; it is never taken amiss, nor with much show of coyness. The female must be ordinary indeed who returns home without having received at least a dozen hearty kisses.”