It is a pity that we do not know who plucked that rose with such courtly grace. The lines, like “Chevy Chase,” “The Nut-brown Maid,” and “Allan-a-Dale,” are a _filius nullius_, and, like many other anonymous waifs which have floated down to us, could, just as well as not, have carried a name on to immortality. What sort of a kiss was it that sweet Amy Robsart’s friend Leicester placed upon the lips of Queen Bess, and which, according to a chronicle of the time, “she took right heartilie”? It was certainly a bold proceeding “before folks,” considering who the parties were. The kiss that Chastelard asked of Mary Beaton was a notable one. Said the gallant Frenchman: “Kiss me with some slow, heavy kiss, That plucks the heart out at the lips.” * * * * * When the Cardinal John of Lorraine was presented to the Duchess of Savoy, she gave him her hand to kiss, greatly to the indignation of the churchman. “How, madam!” exclaimed he: “am I to be treated in this manner? I kiss the queen, my mistress, and shall I not kiss you, who are only a duchess?” and without more ado he, despite the resistance of the proud little Portuguese princess, kissed her thrice on the mouth before he released her with an exultant laugh. The doughty cardinal was apparently of one mind with Sheldon, who thought that “to kiss ladies’ hands after their lips, as some do, is like little boys who, after they eat the apple, fall to the paring.” * * * * * The proud and pompous Constable of Castile, on his visit to the English court soon after the accession of James I., we are told, was right well pleased to bestow a kiss on Anne of Denmark’s lovely maids of honor, “according to the custom of the country, and any neglect of which is taken as an affront.” * * * * * When Charles II. was making his triumphal progress through England, certain country ladies who were presented to him, instead of kissing the royal hands, in their simplicity held up their pretty lips to be kissed by the king,—a blunder no one would more willingly excuse than the red-haired lover of pretty Nell Gwynn. * * * * * When the excommunicated German emperor Henry IV. had been humbled by three days of penance, barefoot and fasting, in the month of January, before the palace of Pope Gregory VII., he was admitted to “the superlative honor” of kissing the pontiff’s toe. This, perhaps, was no greater humiliation than that of the haughty Doge, who, after seeing Genoa bombarded by the fleet of Louis XIV. on account of the assistance he had given to the Algerines, was reduced to the indignity of going to Versailles to kiss the hand which had given his city to the flames. * * * * *