Читать книгу The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 13, No. 357, February 21, 1829 - Various - Страница 7

BY A PROFESSOR OF THE ART

(For the Mirror.)

There is no national custom so universally and so justly honoured with esteem and respect, "winning golden opinions from all sorts of people," as kissing. Generally speaking, we discover that a usage which finds favour in the eyes of the vulgar, is despised and detested by the educated, the refined, and the proud; but this elegant practice forms a brilliant exception to a rule otherwise tolerably absolute. Kissing possesses infinite claims to our love, claims which no other custom in the wide world can even pretend to advance. Kissing is an endearing, affectionate, ancient, rational, and national mode of displaying the thousand glowing emotions of the soul;—it is traced back by some as far as the termination of the siege of Troy, for say they, "Upon the return of the Grecian warriors, their wives met them, and joined their lips together with joy." There are some, however, who give the honour of having invented kissing to Rouix, or Rowena, the daughter of Hengist, the Saxon; a Dutch historian tells us, she, "pressed the beaker with her lipkens (little lips,) and saluted the amorous Vortigern with a husgin (little kiss,)" and this latter authority we ourselves feel most inclined to rely on; deeply anxious to secure to our fair countrywomen the honour of having invented this delightful art.

Numberless are the authors who have written and spoken with rapture on English kissing.

"The women of England," says Polydore Virgil, "not only salute their relations with a kiss, but all persons promiscuously; and this ceremony they repeat, gently touching them with their lips, not only with grace, but without the least immodesty. Such, however, as are of the blood-royal do not kiss their inferiors, but offer the back of the hand, as men do, by way of saluting each other."

Erasmus too—the grave, the phlegmatic Erasmus, melts into love and playful thoughts, when he thinks of kisses—"Did you but know, my Faustus," he writes to one of his friends, "the pleasures which England affords, you would fly here on winged feet, and if your gout would not allow you, you would wish yourself a Dædalus. To mention to you one among many things, here are nymphs of the loveliest looks, good humoured, and whom you would prefer even to your favourite Muses. Here also prevails a custom never enough to be commended, that wherever you come, every one receives you with a kiss, and when you take your leave, every one gives you a kiss; when you return, kisses again meet you. If any one leaves you they give you a kiss; if you meet any one, the first salutation is a kiss; in short, wherever you go, kisses every where abound; which, my Faustus, did you once taste how very sweet and how very fragrant they are, you would not, like Solon, wish for ten years exile in England, but would desire to spend there the whole of your life."