In this spirit I have undertaken to trace, in the following pages, the origin, progress and decline of the custom of bundling in America, together with such facts as clearly prove that it was not confined to this continent, but prevalent in various countries of the world. "HONI SOIT QUI MAL Y PENSE." H. R. S. BUNDLING. BUNDLING. "A man and a woman lying on the same bed with their clothes on; an expedient practiced in America on a scarcity of beds, where, on such occasions, husbands and parents frequently permitted travellers to _bundle_ with their wives and daughters."--_Grose, Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue_. BUNDLE, _v.i._ "To sleep on the same bed without undressing; applied to the custom of a man and woman, especially lovers, thus sleeping."--_Webster, 1864_. BUNDLE, _v.n._ "To sleep together with the clothes on."--_Worcester, 1864_. Bundling, as may be seen from the above quoted definitions, was practiced in two forms: first, between _strangers_, as a simple domestic make-shift arrangement, often arising from the necessities of a new country, and by no means peculiar to America; and, secondly, between _lovers_, who shared the same couch, with the mutual understanding that innocent endearments should not be exceeded. It was, however, in either case, a custom of convenience. We may notice, in this connection, that it is very common, even at the present day, in New England, to speak of one as having "bundled in with his clothes on," if he goes to bed without undressing; as, for instance, if he came home drunk, or feeling slightly ill, lay down in the daytime, or in a cold night found the blankets too scanty. The point which first claims our attention in the discussion of this custom, is its probable _origin_, and its _antiquity_ in THE BRITISH ISLES. For, though British travelers have uniformly endeavored to fix the odium of this custom upon us their transatlantic cousins, as being peculiarly "An American institution," it is, nevertheless, an indisputable fact that bundling has for centuries flourished within their own kingdom. For what else, in fact, was that universal custom of promiscuous sleeping together which prevailed among the ancient Britons at the time of the Roman conquest, and which led Cæsar to consider them as polyandrous polygamists, and other ancient writers to give them an unenviable character for morality?[1] Bundling, of course! in its rudest aboriginal form.