still-born son. Malone thinks the play was written in 1604. This seems more probable than Chalmers's date of 1601. For in alluding to Queen Elizabeth, it is difficult to suppose that Shakspeare would, during her reign, when no one was allowed to exhibit a likeness of Her Majesty without license of her Serjeant Painter for fear of disparaging her, have ventured even upon maintaining the Queen's legitimacy by proofs derived from her ugliness. The passage is as follows, and is addressed to the reigning Prince : It is yours, And might we lay the old proverb to your charge, The trick of his frown, his forehead, nay the valley It will be recollected that, in Shakspeare's play of Henry VIII, the lady who announces to the King that the Queen Anne Boleyn has a daughter, tells the king that it is as like him "as cherry is to cherry." When the king makes his exit after ordering her a hundred marks, she says— A hundred marks! I will have more, or scold it out of him. Lookers on upon the cradle will not fail to notice whether Oberon and his fairy subjects have, by neglect, allowed the child to have any of the marks enumerated in Midsummer Night's Dream." C 66 The blots of nature's hand Shall not in their issue stand; Shall upon their children be. Pliny informs us that the Roman family of Lepidus were purblind-Lawrence mentions a woman with six fingers who married into a family, and caused several remarkable variations in the number of the fingers of her children and grandchildren. Burton relates of one Thomas Nickel born at Brandenburgh 1551-that he never could stand still; his mother, having been frightened by a staggering drunkard. In W. Scott's Tales of a Grandfather it is stated as an undoubted fact, that Lady Cromarty's child was marked across the neck with an axe! The Physiologist may now step in, and shew us that our baby, little as it is, is "fearfully and wonderfully made.” Even its sleeping, which is often sixteen hours out of the twenty-four, appears to follow an economy that regulates the quantity of sleep at various periods of life, with reference to the necessity for nutrition. Though Morpheus is sometimes described to us in the character of an old man, yet the antique statutes represent him as a child; such is a statue of Morpheus which Addison saw in the Florence Gallery, and such is the poetical description of Morpheus given by Statius. The structure of the brain, the pulsations of the heart, the vital heat and a variety of peculiarities in the little infant indicate the Great Designer that fashioned us. Human life, at the period we are considering is very precarious. Nature, however, has afforded an abundant supply, in order to meet contingencies. It is calculated that 25 boys and 26 girls are born every minute; this is upon an estimate which rates the population of the world at nine hundred and sixty millions. Usually, in Europe, about one-fifth of the children die in the first year; more boys than girls die during that year. Adam Smith has considered this subject in its important bearing on the "Wealth of Nations." He says "In some places, half the children born die before they are four years of age, in many places before they are seven, and, in almost all places, before they are more than ten." He collects various statistical facts which indicate that the mortality is chiefly among the children of the common people, whose marriages, on the other hand, are usually more fruitful. He mentions, that, in the Highlands of Scotland, it is not uncommon for a mother who has borne twenty children, not to have two alive. I have conversed with poor people, who consider that Providence has been particularly kind to them, when it has taken to itself their children.—And I have met with a variety of facts, where, by soothing draughts of favorite doctors, and the dexterous withdrawing of pillows by still more favorite nurses, or by other means which Providence has placed in the way of the poor, its good dispositions towards them have been rather promoted than thwarted. One object which usually attracts attention in the cradle, is the color of the child's eyes. Five varieties of eyes have been enumerated:-1, Blue, passing, in its lighter tints, to grey; 2, An obscure orange (gazelle's eye); 3, A-middle tint between blue and orange, which is sometimes very green in persons with red hair and freckled skin; 4, Brown, in its various shades, hazel, dark, or black; 5, Red, as in albinos, which in fact arises from a deficiency of coloring matter, the rose of the iris, and violet of the pupil depending on the blood. In European countries, newly born children have generally light eyes and hair, and both grow gradually darker in individuals of dark complexion. It may be observed that the facial angle (measuring the relative prominence of the jaws and forehead), in a child often reaches 90 degrees; in an adult it varies from 65 to 85. The inclination of 65 is a near The Greek sculptors, in their approach to the monkey race. beau ideal, extended the facial angle to 100, but never beyond. Babyhood affords one of the sixteen circumstances which have been enumerated as distinguishing man from other animals, and as shewing the impropriety of classing him, as Linnæus did, with bats, on account of his teeth and some other particulars. A remarkable characteristic of man is his slow growth, long infancy, and late puberty. In other animals the sutures of the skull close, and the teeth come out at a much earlier period; the young are much sooner able to support their bodies on their legs, and they ture and capacity. Our poets have the early helplessness of our race. sooner arrive at adult stasometimes expatiated on Thus in Prior's Solomon Helpless and naked, on a woman's knees, To his young sense, how various forms appear His wants in plainer characters to show, And, in a translation from Ovid, by Dryden- By slow degrees he gathers from the ground His legs, and to the rolling chair is bound; Then walks alone: a horseman now become, He rides a stick, and travels round the room. There is a moral in this infirmity of man; and where, indeed, is the phenomenon of nature, which, if duly reflected on, will not force upon us the perception and admiration of super-human intelligence. Let us hear what Lord Shaftsbury says upon this subject in his Characteristics." It may be observed, that this was once a very popular work, and that his lordship still ranks high among English prose writers for his style, especially with regard to the propriety and cadence of his sen tences. "The young of most other kinds, are instantly helpful to themselves, sensible, vigorous, know to shun danger, and seek their good a human infant is of all the most helpless, weak, infirm. And wherefore should it not have been thus ordered? Where is the loss in such a species? or what is man the worse for this defect, amidst such large supplies? Does not this defect |