by kissing the hands
of others from respect, or in bringing one's own to the mouth, it is of
all other customs the most universal. This practice is now become too
gross a familiarity, and it is considered as a meanness to kiss the hand
of those with whom we are in habits of intercourse; and this custom
would be entirely lost, if _lovers_ were not solicitous to preserve it
in all its full power.

POPES.

Valois observes that the Popes scrupulously followed, in the early ages
of the church, the custom of placing their names after that of the
person whom they addressed in their letters. This mark of their humility
he proves by letters written by various Popes. Thus, when the great
projects of politics were yet unknown to them, did they adhere to
Christian meekness. At length the day arrived when one of the Popes,
whose name does not occur to me, said that "it was safer to quarrel with
a prince than with a friar." Henry VI. being at the feet of Pope
Celestine, his holiness thought proper to kick the crown off his head;
which ludicrous and disgraceful action Baronius has highly praised.
Jortin observes on this great cardinal, and advocate of the Roman see,
that he breathes nothing but fire and brimstone; and accounts kings and
emperors to be mere catchpolls and constables, bound to execute with
implicit faith all the commands of insolent ecclesiastics. Bellarmin was
made a cardinal for his efforts and devotion to the papal cause, and
maintaining this monstrous paradox,--that if the pope forbid the
exercise of virtue, and command that of vice, the Roman church, under
pain of a sin, was obliged to abandon virtue for vice, if it would not
sin against _conscience_!

It was Nicholas I., a bold and enterprising Pope, who, in 858,
forgetting the pious modesty of his predecessors, took advantage of the
divisions in the royal families of France, and did not hesitate to place
his name before that of the kings and emperors of the house of France,
to whom he wrote. Since that time he has been imitated by all his
successors, and this encroachment on the honours of monarchy has passed
into a custom from having been tolerated in its commencement.

Concerning the acknowledged _infallibility of the Popes_, it appears
that Gregory VII., in council, decreed that the church of Rome neither
_had erred_, and _never should err_. It was thus this prerogative of his
holiness became received, till 1313, when John XXII. abrogated decrees