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In connection with the subject of superstitions in regard to babies, may be mentioned the child's cawl, or a membranous substance which sometimes slightly adheres to a child's head, and is brought with it into the world. Advertisements addressed to mariners for their sale may occasionally be seen in the London Papers; some superstitious sea-faring people deeming them a preservative against ship-wreck. It may be thought curious to see this matter treated of in Brown's Vulgar Errors." This book is a sort of landmark of the progress of reason in this country. It is remarkable that the writer upon "Vulgar Errors" should have deemed the Copernican theory of the earth's motion unworthy of confutation, as repugnant to common sense and scripture; upon this point the Vulgar had another eminent Champion, in Lord Bacon. Brown says of the cawl, that midwives were accustomed to sell them to credulous lawyers, who had an opinion it advantaged their promotion." He says that the unusual appearance was to be ascribed entirely to the toughness of the membrane, or the weakness of the infant not getting rid of it, and "therefore herein significations are natural and concluding upon the infant, but not to be extended to magical signalities, or other persons." The following prescription must, I presume, be regarded as one of the errors which are so frequent in the early history of medicine; it is from Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy, and is a sovereign remedy for melancholy head-aches. "Take rose-water, and vinegar, with a little woman's-milk, and grated nutmegs. Apply the mixture to the temples."

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We have spoken of the nurse's arms, and of the cradle ; it seems necessary to mention the practice of swaddling. Dr. Scriblerus peremptorily forbad such indignity to be offered to

his child, the celebrated Martinus. The practice has supplied Cowley with a pretty image in his poem on " Light."

A crimson garment in the rose thou wearest,
A crown of studded gold thou bearest;
The virgin lilies, in their white,

Are clad but with the lawn of almost naked light.

The violet, springs little infant, stands,

Girt in thy purple swaddling-bands ;

On the fair tulip thou dost dote,

Thou cloth'st it in a gay and party-colored coat.

I am disposed to connect with Cowley's violet, Carew's primrose, as a type of infancy:

us.

Ask me why I send you here,
The firstling of the infant year,

Ask me why I send to you

This primrose all bepearled with dew?

Ask me why this flower doth shew,

So yellow, green, and palely too,

Ask me why the stalk is weak,

And bending, yet it doth not break?

I the rather quote the last extract, as Carew was, perhaps, the first model of that elaborate finish in short amatory pieces of which Waller is generally considered the originator among Carew was one of Lord Clarendon's early friends. Lord Clarendon in the course of the very interesting account which he gives of the lawyers and poets with whom he lived when he was a young man, says that Carew " was a person of a pleasant and facetious wit, and made many poems (especially in the amorous way) which for the sharpness of the fancy, and the elegancy of the language in which that fancy was expressed, were, at least, equal, if not superior to any of that time." The conclusion of Lord Clarendon's notice of Carew

is amusing. "But his glory was, that after fifty years of his life spent with less severity or exactness than it ought to have been, he died with the greatest remorse for that license, and with the greatest manifestation of Christianity, that his best friends could desire." Carew was born in 1589 and died in 1639, so that his manifestations of Christianity must have borne a small proportion to his inexactitudes.

A beautiful passage from Jeremy Taylor may serve to prolong a little further our illustrations of infancy derived from the vegetable creation.

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Every little thing can blast an infant blossom, and the breath of the south can shake the little rings of the vine, when first they begin to curl like the locks of a new-weaned boy. But when by age and consolidation they stiffen into the hardness of a stem, and have, by the warm embraces of the sun and the kisses of heaven, brought forth their clusters, they can endure the storms of the north, and the loud noises of a tempest, and yet never be broken*.”

The Church of England deems it important that infants should be baptised even in their nurse's arms. This has been attributed to the circumstance of the ceremony having taken the place of circumcision, which was on the eighth day; but it is not proposed, in this place, to inquire whether or not there be other reasons. In Selden's " Table Talk" there are several curious particulars and observations concerning baptism. According to the Church of Rome, unbaptised children

* "So are the early unions of an unfixed marriage; watchful and observant, jealous and busy, inquisitive and careful, and apt to take alarm at every unkind word. After the hearts of the man and the wife are endeared and hardened by a mutual confidence and experience, longer than artifice and pretence can last, there are a great many remembrances, and some things present that dash all little unkindnesses in pieces."

after death go into the Limbo of Infants. The use of sponsors grew up in the early times of the Church when one of the parents was often a heathen. A curious old custom may be noticed of sponsors making presents of spoons. In Shakspeare's play of Henry VIII, where Cranmer professes his unworthiness to be a sponsor for Anne Boleyn's daughter, Queen Elizabeth, the King tells the Archbishop, good-humouredly, that he will not excuse him, for that he only declines, because he wants to save his spoons. These spoons were called apostle's spoons, from having an apostle's head for the handle. Twelve was a complete set. Some sponsors only gave the four evangelists, and some only a particular saint. The late Baron Bolland had collected a complete set. Coleridge has some tolerable verses on a Christening; there are ten stanzas; the two most in point to our subject, are―

This day among the faithful placed,

And fed with fontal manna,

O with maternal title graced

Our Anna's dearest Anna!

While others wish thee wise and fair,

A maid of spotless fame,

I'll breathe this more compendious prayer—
May'st thou deserve thy name!

The groaning-drink (of which mention is made on the trial of the legitimacy of the claimant to the Earldom of Anglesea), caudle, and baby-cake, (one of the dramatis personæ in Ben Jonson's Masque of Christmas,) shew the tendency of most of our national customs and tastes. The ancients hung at their doors a crown of olive, indicating agriculture, for a boy, and a fillet of wool for a girl; but our customs come more home to men's mouths and stomachs, especially the groaning-drink,

peculiar to Ireland, and liberally poured out to all kind inquirers during an accouchement.

On the subject of naming infants may be quoted a tale from Crabbe's Parish Register, the chapter on Baptisms. This author has few passages of transcendent merit, but the little poetical histories with which his works abound, let the reader more into the realities of middle and low life in England, than the works of any other poet.

To name an infant meet our village-sires,
Assembled all, as such event requires;
Frequent and full, the rural sages sate,

And speakers many urged the long debate.

Some hardened knaves, who roved the country round,

Had left a babe within the parish-bound.

First, of the fact they questioned "Was it true ?"

The child was brought-" What then remained to do ?"
"Was it dead or living ?" This was fairly proved,
'Twas pinch'd, it roar'd, and every doubt removed.
Then by what name th' unwelcome guest to call
Was long a question, and it posed them all;
For he who lent it to a babe unknown,
Censorious men might take it for his own;
They look'd about, they gravely spoke to all,
And not one Richard answered to the call.
Next they inquired the day, when, passing by
Th' unlucky peasant heard the stranger's cry:
This known,-how food and raiment they might give,
Was next debated-for the rogue would live;
At last, with all their words and work content,
Back to their homes the prudent vestry went,
And Richard Monday to the workhouse sent.
There was he pinch'd and pitied, thump'd and fed,
And duly took his beatings and his bread;
Patient in all control, in all abuse,

He found contempt and kicking have their use:
Sad, silent, supple; bending to the blow,
A slave of slaves, the lowest of the low;

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