M. Morin, a French academician, has amused himself with collecting
several historical notices of this custom. I give a summary, for the
benefit of those who have had the honour of kissing his majesty's hand.
It is not those who kiss the royal hand who could write best on the
custom.
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. 26. The same honour was rendered to
Baal, 1 Kings xix. 18. 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. He mentions other instances.
From the Greeks it passed to the Romans. Pliny places it among 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.
The ceremonial action rendered respectable the earliest institutions of
Christianity. It was a custom with the primæval 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 favours, or which thanks for those
received. It is an 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 favours 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 to sovereigns and
superiors, even amongst the negroes, and the 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 other customs the most universal. 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 this custom
would be entirely lost, if _lovers_ were not solicitous to preserve it
in all its full power.