tess of Lincoln, and addressed to the matrons of the seventeenth century.

"Trust not other women," says her ladyship, "whom wages hyres to doe this service, better then yourselves, whom God and nature ties to doe it. I have found by grievous experience, such dissembling in nurses, pretending willingnesse, towardnesse, wakefulnesse; when indeed they have been most wilfull, most froward, and most slothfull, as I feare the death of one or two of my little babes came by the defalt of their nurses. Of all those which I had for eighteene children, I had but two which were throughly willing and carefull: divers have had their children miscarry in the nurse's hands; and are such mothers (if it were by the nurse's carelessnesse) guiltlesse? I knowe not how they should; since they will shut them out of the armes of nature, and leave them to the will of a stranger; yea, to one that will seeme to estrange her selfe from her owne child, to give sucke to the nurse-child. This she may faine to doe upon a covetous composition, but she frets at it in her minde, if she have any naturall affection. Therefore be no longer at the trouble, and at the care, to hire others to doe your owne worke: bee not so unnaturall to thrust away

O luckless babe, born in an evil hour!

Who shall thy numerous wants attend? explore
The latent cause of ill? thy slumbers guard?

And when awake, with nice sedulity

Thy every glance observe? A parent may;

A hireling cannot.

Downman's Infancy, book i.

your owne children: bee not accessary to that disorder of causing a poorer woman to banish her owne infant, for the entertaining of a richer woman's child, bidding her unlove her own to love yours 5."

This very estimable treatise has been amiably and parentally recommended by Mr. Brydges, for affording an extraordinary proof of the writer's good sense, it being, as an excellent author had previously remarked, "a well-written piece, full of fine arguments, and capable of convincing any one, who is capable of conviction, of the necessity and advantages of mothers nursing their own children "."

What else avails the cradle's damask roof,
The eider bolster, and embroider'd woof!-
Oft hears the gilded couch unpity'd plains,
And many a tear the tassel'd cushion stains!
No voice so sweet attunes his cares to rest,
So soft no pillow as his mother's breast!]

From a copy of the book in the choice and extensive library

of Richard Heber, esq.

6

• Memoirs of the Peers of England, vol. i. p. 57.

? See Ballard's Learned Ladies, p. 266, where an edition is mentioned in 1628. The above extract is from one dated 1622. 'Darwin's Economy of Vegetation, canto iii.

JOHN HOLLES,

EARL OF CLARE,

A MAN too remarkable to be omitted, while there was the least foundation for inscribing him in this Catalogue; yet was that foundation too slight to range him in form as an author2.

His person was lofty and noble3, his courage daring, his eloquence useful, his virtues often at war with his interest, as often accommodating themselves to it. A volunteer in the Netherlands under sir Francis Vere; a seaman in one of the greatest scenes on which his country

• He was placed by lord Orford in his Supplement.

See his Life, written by Gervase Holles, his kinsman, in Collins's Historical Collections of the noble families of Cavendish, Holles, &c. and in the Biographia. [At the age of thir teen he was sent to Cambridge, and so well fitted for the university, that the master of the college caught him up in his arms, and kissing him, said to those who were by, “This child, if he lives, will prove a singular honour and ornament to this kingdom." From the university he was sent to Gray's Inn, where he continued some years in acquiring such knowledge as might be necessary for the management of his private estate, and the performance of public offices. Historical Collections, p. 80. He was created baron of Houghton in the county of Nottingham, 1616; and earl of Clare in 1624. His daughter Arabella married Thomas, earl of Strafford, who was beheaded. Bolton's Extinct Peerage, p. 60.]