(_For the Mirror_.)
--------------Our first father
Smiled with superior love, as Jupiter
On Juno smiles, when he impregns the clouds,
That shed May flowers, and pressed her matron lip
With _kisses_ pure.
_Par. Lost_, b. 4, 1. 499--502.
--------Kissing the world begun,
And I hope it will never be done
_Old Song_.
Kissing has been practised in various modes, and for various purposes,
from a period of very remote antiquity. Among the ancient oriental
nations, presents from a superior were saluted by kissing, to express
gratitude and submission to the person conferring the favour. Reference
is made to this custom, Genesis, ch. xl. v. 41, "According to thy words
shall my people be ruled;" or, as the margin, supported by most eminent
critics, renders it, "At thy mouth shall my people _kiss_." The
consecration of the Jewish kings to the regal authority was sealed by a
kiss from the officiator in the ceremony: 1 Sam. ch. x. v. 1. Kissing was
also employed in the heathen worship as a religious rite. Cicero mentions
a statue of Hercules, the chin and lips of which were considerably worn
by the repeated kissing of the worshippers. When too far removed to be
approached in this manner, it was usual to place the right hand upon the
statue, and return it to the lips. That traces of these customs remain to
the present day, kissing the Testament on oath in our courts of
judicature, and kissing the hand as a respectful salute, afford
sufficient evidence. But it is with kissing as a mode of expressing
affection or endearment that we are principally concerned, and its use,
as such, is of equal (perhaps greater) antiquity with any of the
preceding usages. To the passage cited, MIRROR, No. 357, by _Professor
Childe Wilful_, on this subject, may be added the meeting of Telemachus
and Ulysses on the return of the latter from Troy, as described, Odyssey,
lib. 16, v. 186--218; and the history of the courtship of the patriarch
Jacob and the "fair damsel" Rachel, Genesis, ch. xxix. v. 11. This last
authority, though it must be acknowledged not so classical as the
foregoing, is nevertheless much more piquant, being perhaps the oldest
record of amorous kissing extant. Thou seest, therefore, courteous
reader, that this "divine custom," in addition to the claims upon thee
which it intrinsically possesseth, and which are neither few nor small,
hath moreover the universal suffrage of the highest antiquity; thou
seest that its date, so far from being confined to the Trojan or Saxon
age, can with certainty be traced to patriarchal times; yea, verily, and
I cannot find it in me to rest here, without conducting thee to an era
even more remote. Revert thine eye to the motto at the head of this
chapter. Doth it not carry thee back in spirit to the very baby hours of
creation, the "good old days of Adam and Eve?" and doth it not represent
unto thee this delightful art as known and practised in full perfection,
"when young time told his first birth-days by the sun?" I grant thee that
such an authority is not sufficiently critical to fix with precision the
"_ab initio_" of the custom; yet doth it not possess infinite claim upon
thy credence? and more especially when thou considerest that, our
respectable progenitors, the antediluvians, were visited with the deluge
of waters for little else than their license. Vide chap. vi. of the first
book of Moses called Genesis, _passim_. In a world, of which almost all
we know with certainty is its uncertainty, and that "the fashion thereof
passeth away," it is only a natural inquiry whether the custom of kissing
hath, like most others, undergone any material alteration. Perhaps from
its nature, it is as little subjected to versatility from the lapse of
ages as any; yet still, to say that it has experienced some change, would
not be hazarding a very improbable opinion. Who knows but the "clamorous
smack" wherewith the Jehu of an eight-horse wagon salutes the lips of his
rosy inamorata, (scarcely less audible than the crack of his heavy thong
on Smiler's dull sides,) may have been perfectly consistent with the acmé
of politesse some centuries bygone. We speak here somewhat confidently.
Hear what an amorous votary of the Muses in the olden time, Robert
Herrick, saith with respect to kissing:--.
"Pout your joined lips--then _speak_ your kiss."
If this were the present orthodox creed of kissing, it would most
woefully spoil the sport of many a gallant youth, who, with the most
polite officiousness, extinguishes (by pure accident of course) while
professing to snuff, the candles, only that he may snatch a hasty,
unobserved kiss of the smiling maiden, whose proximity hath so
irresistibly tempted him. I wish the professor who hath already obliged
us with a chapter on kissing, would lay us under greater and more
manifold obligations, by a course of lectures on the same subject; and if
I laid wagers, I would wager my judgment to a cockle-shell, that
Socrates' discourse on marriage did not produce a more beneficial effect
than would his lecture; and that few untasted lips would be found,
either among his auditors, or those whose fortune it should be to fall in
the way of those auditors; but as it is at present, (for, alas! these are
not the days of Polydore Virgil or Erasmus,) we are compelled, albeit
somewhat grumblingly, to be content with but a very limited share of such
blisses. Not that I doubt (heaven forbid that I should) the real
inclination or the ability of at least the juvenile part of my fair
countrywomen to be much more liberal than they generally are in this way;
but, "dear, confounded creatures," as Will Honeycomb says, what with the
trammels of education and domestic restraint, they are prevented from
appearing, as they "really are, the best good-natured things alive." So
much innocent hypocrisy, so much _mauvaise honte_, so many of "the
whispered _no_, so little meant," that they are practical antitheses to
themselves. "Can danger lurk within a kiss." But all fathers are not
Coleridges, nor are all mothers Woolstonecrafts.
I plead not for libertinism, though only in so simple and innocent a form
as kissing. I do not long for the repetition (or more properly
commencement) of Polydore Virgil's days of "promiscuous" kisses. Let
these remain, as heretofore, in fiction, and in fiction alone. "A glutted
market makes provisions cheap," saith Pope. True, saith experience.
"------The lip that all may press,
Shall never more be pressed by mine,"
saith Moore. _Sic ego_. But there is a medium to be observed between
gluttony and absolute starvation, and "_medio tutis-simus ibis_," saith
the proverb; and I do beg to tell those over cautious ladies and
gentlemen, who seem to know no medium between the cloistered nun and the
abandoned profligate, that Nature will prevail in their spite, or, as
Obadiah wisely and truly said, "When lambs meet they will play." And now,
reader, kind, courteous, gentle, or whatever thou art, I bid thee adieu,
with the hope, that if we agree at this, we may meet again on some future
occasion. IOTA.
* * * * *