father and the gravest of her relations in the same manner; that she would sit giggling and laughing with her companions from one end of a tragedy to the other; nay, that she would sometimes burst out in the middle of a sermon, and set the whole congregation a staring at her. The mother was going on, when the young lady came out of the cave to us with a com posed countenance, and a low curtsy. She was a girl of such exuberant mirth, that her visit to Trophonius only reduced her to a more than ordinary decency of behaviour, and made a very pretty prude of her. After having performed innumerable cures. I looked about me with great satisfaction, and saw all my pa tients walking by themselves in a very pensive and musing posture, so that the whole place seemed covered with philosophers. I was at length resolved to go into the cave myself, and see what it was that produced such wonderful effects upon the company; but as I was stooping at the entrance, the door being something low, I gave such a nod in my chair, that I awak. ed. After having recovered myself from the first startle, I was very well pleased at the accident which had befallen me, as not knowing but a little stay in the place might have spoiled my Spectators. THE MOTHER SHOULD BE THE NURSE*. - Ουκ άρα σοι γε πατηρ ην ιπποτα Πηλεύς, Ουδε Θετις μητης γλαυκη δε σ' ετικε θαλασσα, Πετραι τ' ηλίβατοι, οτι τοι νους εστιν απήνης. HOM. Iliad. xvi. v. 33., No amorous hero ever gave thee birth, Nor ever tender goddess brought thee forth: POPE. OF all the abuses that moralists should endeavour to reform, certainly not one wants so much their assistance as the abuse in nursing children. It is un of a nurse. *The following anecdote recorded of Blanche of Castile, shows strong maternal feelings, and has a tendency to recommend the duty enforced in this essay. Blanche of Castile performed for Lewis, her son, in his infancy, with peculiar attention the duties A lady of the court who, in imitation of her royal mistress, nursed her own child, took upon her, during a severe indisposition of the queen, to relieve the wants of the prince, who languished for his accustomed nourishment. Blanche, on reviving, having called for her son, put him to the breast, when the child, already satisfied, refused the feverish milk. The queen suspecting what had passed, affected a desire to see and thank the person who had performed for the young Lewis this maternal office. The lady, summoned to the chamber of her mistress, confessed the fact, alleging, that she had been moved by the cries of the infant prince. Blanche, without speaking, darted a scornful glance towards the officious proxy, and compelled the child to throw back the milk he had swallowed, declaring, "that no other woman should dare to dispute with her the title of mother to her son." merciful to see, that a woman endowed with all the perfections and blessings of nature, can, as soon as she is delivered, turn off her innocent, tender, and helpless infant, and give it up to a woman that is, ten thousand to one, neither in health nor good condition, neither sound in mind nor body, that has neither honour nor reputation, neither love nor pity for the poor babe, but more regard for the money than for the child, and never will take further care of it than what by all the encouragement of money and presents she is forced to; like Æsop's earth, which would not nurse the plant of another ground, although never so much im. proved, by reason that plant was not of its own production. And since another's child is no more natural to a nurse than a plant to a strange and different ground, how can it be supposed that the child should thrive and if it thrives, must it not imbibe the gross humours and qualities of the nurse, like a plant in a different ground, or like a graft upon a different stock? Do not we observe, that a lamb sucking a goat changes very much its nature, nay even its skin and wool into the goat kind? The power of a nurse over a child by infusing into it, with her milk, her qualities and disposition, is sufficiently and daily observed: hence came that old saying concerning an ill-natured and malicious fellow, that he had imbibed his malice with his nurse's milk, or that some brute or other had been his nurse. Hence Romulus and Remus were said to have been nursed by a wolf, Telephus the son of Hercules by a hind, Pelias the son of Neptune by a mare, and Ægisthus by a goat; not that they had acti ally sucked such creatures, as some simpletons have imagined, but that their nurses had been of such a nature and temper, and infused such into them. Many instances may be produced from good antho rities and daily experience, that children actually suck in the several passions and depraved inclinations of their nurses, as anger, malice, fear, melancholy, d ness, desire, and aversion. This Diodorus, lib., witnesses, when he speaks, saying, That Nero the Emperor's nurse had been very much addicted to drinking; which habit Nero received from his nurse, and was so very particular in this, that the people took so much notice of it, as instead of Tiberius Nero, they called him Biberius Mero. The same Diodorus also relates of Caligula, predecessor to Nero, that his nurse used to moisten the nipples of her breast frequently with blood, to make Caligula take the better hold of them; which, says Diodorus, was the cause that made him so blood-thirsty and cruel all his life time after, that he not only committed frequent murder by his own hand, but likewise wished that all human kind wore but one neck, that he might have the pleasure to cut it off. Such like degeneracies astonish the parents, who not knowing after whom the child can take, see one incline to stealing, another to drinking, cruelty, stupidity; yet all these are not minded. Nay, it is easy to demonstrate, that a child, although it be born from the best of parents, may be corrupted by an illtempered nurse. How many children do we see daily brought into fits, consumptions, rickets, &c. merely by sucking their nurses when in a passion or fury? But indeed almost any disorder of the nurse is a disorder to the child, and few nurses can be found in this town but what labour under some distemper or other. The first question that is generally asked a young woman that wants to be a nurse, Why she should be a nurse to other people's children; is answered by her having an ill husband, and that she must make shift to live. I think now this very answer is enough to give any body a shock, if duly considered; for an ill husband may, or ten to one if he does not, bring home to his wife an ill distemper, or at least vexation and disturbance. Besides, as she takes the child out of mere necessity, her food will be accordingly, or else very coarse at best; whence proceeds an ill-concocted and coarse food for the child; for as the blood, so is the milk; VOL. I. K. and hence I am very well assured proceeds the scurvy, the evil, and many other distempers. I beg of you, for the sake of the many poor infants that may and will be saved by weighing this case seriously, to exhort the people with the utmost vehemence to let the children suck their own mothers, both for the benefit of mother and child. For the general argument, that a mother is weakened by giving sack to her children, is vain and simple; I will maintain that the mother grows stronger by it, and will have her health better than she would have otherwise: she will find it the greatest cure and preservative for the vapours and future miscarriages, much beyond any other remedy whatsoever. Her children will be like giants, whereas otherwise they are but living shadows, and like unripe fruit; and certainly if a woman is strong enough to bring forth a child, she is beyond all doubt strong enough to nurse it afterwards. It grieves me to observe and consider how many poor children are daily ruined by careless nurses; and yet how tender ought they to be of a poor infant, since the least hurt or blow, especially upon the head, may make it senseless, stopid, or otherwise miserable for ever! But I cannot well leave this subject as yet; for it ! seems to me very unnatural, that a woman that has fed a child as part of herself for nine months, should have no desire to nurse it farther, when brought to light and before her eyes, and when by its cry it implores her assistance and the office of a mother. Do not the very cruellest of brutes tend their young ones with all the care and delight imaginable? For how can she be called a mother that will not nurse her young ones? The earth is called the mother of all things, not because she produces, but, because she maintains and nurses what she produces. The generation of the infant is the effect of desire, but the care of it argues virtue and choice. I am not ignorant but that there are some cases of necessity where a mother cannot give suck, and then out of two evils the least must be |