learer
than in the ingenious volumes of Grotius or Selden. Another Dutchman
presented the States-General with a ponderous reply to Selden's _Mare
Clausum_, but the wise Sommelsdyke advised the States to suppress the
idle discussion; observing that this affair must be decided by the
_sword_, and not by the _pen_.

It may be curious to add, that as no prevailing or fashionable subject
can be agitated, but some idler must interfere to make it extravagant
and very new, so this grave subject did not want for something of this
nature. A learned Italian, I believe, agreed with our author Selden in
general, that the _sea_, as well as the _earth_, is subject to some
States; but he maintained, that the dominion of the sea belonged to the
_Genoese_!

ON THE CUSTOM OF KISSING HANDS.

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