whether cut in ftone or caft in metal, whether bleeding upon an altar, ftuck with darts, or held in the hand of a Cupid, has always been looked upon as Talifmanic in diftreffes of this nature. I am acquainted with many a brave fellow, who carries his miftrefs in the lid of his fnuff-box, and by that expedient has fupported himself under the abfence of a whole campaign. For my own part, I have tried all thefe remedies, but never found fo much benefit from any as from a ring, in which my miftrefs's hair is platted together very artificially in a kind of True• Lover's-Knot. As I have received great benefit from this fecret, think myself obliged to communicate it to the public, for the good of my fellow-fubjects. I defire you will add this letter as an appendix to · your confolations upon abfence, and am,

Your very humble fervant, T. B.

I fhall conclude this Paper with a letter from an Univerfity gentleman, occafioned by my laft Tuesday's Paper*, wherein I gave fome account of the great feuds which happened formerly in thofe learned bodies, between the modern Greeks and Trojans.

SIR,

This will y fociety, whereof that there is HIS will give you to understand, that there is

ber, a very confiderable body of TROJANS, who, upon a proper occafion, would not fail to declare • ourselves. In the mean while we do all we can to annoy our enemies by ftratagem, and are refolved by the first opportunity to attack Mr. Joshua Barnes †, whom we look upon as the Achilles of the oppofite party. As for myself, I have had the reputation ever fince I came from fchool, of being a trusty • Trojan, and am refolved never to give quarter to the fmalleft particle of Greek, wherever I chance to meet it. It is for this reafon I take it very ill of you, that you fometimes hang out Greek colours at the

N° 239.

The noted Greek Profeffor of the University of Cambridge.

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head of your Paper, and fometimes give a word of the enemy even in the body of it. When I meet with any thing of this nature, I throw down your Speculations upon the table, with that form of words which we make ufe of when we declare war upon an • author.

Græcum eft, non poteft legi.

I give you this hint, that you may for the future abftain from any fuch hoftilities at your peril.

C*

'TROILUS.'

By ADDISON, dated it is thought from Chelsea.

N° 246 Wednesday, December 12, 1711.

. Οὐκ ἄρα σοί γε πατὴρ ἦν ἱππότα Πηλεὺς, Οὐδὲ Θέτις μήτες, γλαυκὴ δὲ σ' ἔτικε θάλασσα, Πέτραι τ' ηλίβατοι, ὅτι τοι νόθ. ἐςὶν ἀπηνὴς.

Hom. Iliad. xvi. 33.

"No amorous hero ever gave thee birth, "Nor ever tender goddefs brought thee forth: "Some rugged rock's hard entrails gave thee form, "And raging feas produc'd thee in a storm: "A foul well fuiting thy tempeltuous kind, "So rough thy manners, fo untam'd thy mind."

• Mr. SPECTATOR,

A

POPE

S your Paper is part of the equipage of the teatable, I conjure you to print what I now write to you; for I have no other way to commu⚫nicate what I have to fay to the fair fex on the most important circumftance of life, even the "Care of . Children." I do not understand that you profefs your Paper is always to confift of matters which are only to entertain the learned and polite, but that it may agree with your defign to publifh fome which may tend to the information of mankind in general; and when it does fo, you do more than writing wit and VOL. III. humour.

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humour. Give me leave then to tell you, that all the abufes that ever you have as yet endeavoured to ⚫ reform, certainly not one wanted fo much your affiftance as the abufe in nurfing of CHILDREN. It is un• merciful to fee, that a woman endowed with all the perfections and bleffings of nature, can, as foon as she is delivered, turn off her innocent, tender and helplefs infant, and give it up to a woman that is (ten thousand to one) neither in health nor good condition, • neither found 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 whole child, and never will take farther care of it than what by all the encouragement of money and prefents fhe is forced to; like fop's earth, which would not nurse the plant of another ground, altho' never fo much improved, by reafon that plant was not of its own production. And fince another's child is no more natural to a nurfe than a plant to a strange and different ground, how can it be fuppofed that the child fhould thrive; and if it thrives, muft it not • imbibe the grofs humours and qualities of the nurse, like a plant in a different ground, or like a graft upon a different ftock? Do not we obferve, that a lamb fucking a gcat 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 difpofition, is fufficiently and daily obferved. Hence came that old faying concerning an ill natured and malicious fellow, That he had imbibed his malice with his nurfe's milk, 6 or that fome brute or other had been his nurfe. Hence Romulus and Remus were faid to have been nurfed by a wolf; Telephus the fon of Hercules by a hind; Pelias the fon of Neptune by a mare; and Ægifthus by a goat: not that they had actually fucked fuch creatures, as fome fimpletons have imagined, but that their nurfes had been of fuch a nature and temper, and infufed fuch into them.

Many inftances may be produced from good authorities and daily experience, that Children actually fuck in the feveral paflions and depraved inclinations

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of their nurfes, as anger, malice, fear, melancholy, fadness, defire, and averfion. This Diodorus, lib. 2. ⚫ witneffes, when he fpeaks, faying, That Nero the Emperor's nurse had been very much addicted to drinking; which habit Nero received from his nurfe, and was fo very particular in this, that the people took fo much notice of it, as instead of Tiberius Nero, they called him Biberius Mero. The fame Diodorus alfo relates of Caligula, predeceffor to Nero, that his nurfe used to moiften the nipples of her breast frequently with blood, to make Caligula take the better hold of them; which, fays Diodorus, was the caufe that made him fo blood-thirty and cruel all his life• time after, that he not only committed frequent murder by his own hand, but likewife wished that all human kind wore but one neck, that he might have the pleasure to cut it off. Such like degeneracies aftonish the parents, who not knowing after whom the Child can take, fee one to incline to ftealing, another to drinking, cruelty, ftupidity; yet all these are not minded. Nay, it is eafy to demonftrate, that a Child, although it be born from the best of parents, may be corrupted by an ill-tempered nurfe. How many children do we fee daily brought into fits, confumptions, rickets, &c. merely by fucking their nurfes when in a paffion or fury? But indeed almost any • diforder of the nurse, is a diforder to the child, and few nurfes can be found in this town but what labour under fome diftemper or other. The first question that is generally asked a young woman that wants to be a nurfe, Why the fhould be a nurfe to other people's children; is anfwered, by her having an ill husband, and that he must make fhift to live. L think now this very anfwer is enough to give any body a fhock, if duly confidered; for an ill husband may, or ten to one if he does not, bring home to his ⚫ wife an ill diftemper, or at leaft vexation and disturbance. Befides, as he takes the child out of mere neceffity, her food will be accordingly, or elfe very coarse at beft; whence proceeds an ill-concocted and coarfe food for the child; for as the blood, fo is the milk; and hence I am very well affured proceeds the . fcurvy,

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fcurvy, the evil, and many other diftempers. I beg of you, for the fake of the many poor infants that may and will be faved by weighing this cafe feriously, to exhort the people with the utmoft vehemence to let the children fuck their own mothers, both for the benefit of mother and child. For the general argument, that a mother is weakened by giving fuck to her children, is vain and fimple; I will maintain that the mother grows ftronger by it, and will have her health better than fhe would have otherwife. She will find it the greatest cure and prefervative for the vapours and future mifcarriages, much beyond any other remedy whatfoever. Her children will be like giants, whereas otherwife they are but living fhadows and like unripe fruit; and certainly if a woman is ftrong enough to bring forth a child, he is beyond all doubt ftrong enough to nurse it afterwards *. It grieves me to obferve and confider how many peor children are daily ruined by careless nurfes; and yet how tender ought they to be of a poor infant, fince the least hurt or blow, efpecially upon the head, may ⚫ make it fenfelefs, ftupid, or otherwife miferable for • ever!

But I cannot well leave this fubject as yet; for it feems to me very unnatural, that a woman that has fed a child as part of herself for nine months, should have no defire to nurfe it farther, when brought to light and before her eyes, and when by its cry it implores her affiftance and the office of a mother. Do not the very crueleft of brutes tend their young ones with all the care and delight imaginable? How can fhe be called a mother that will not nurfe her young ⚫ ones? The earth is called the mother of all things, ⚫ not because the produces, but because she maintains ⚫ and nurfes what the produces. The generation of the infant is the effect of defire, but the care of it argues virtue and choice. I am not ignorant but that there are fome cafes of neceffity, where a mother cannot give fuck, and then out of two evils the leaft ⚫ must be chofen; but there are fo very few, that I am

See Dr. GREGORY'S Comparative View of "the State and "Faculties of Man with those of the Animal World," Difcourse I. London, 1766. 12mo.

• fure