THE NATURAL HISTORY OF THE CHILD.* .
DR. Cotriersev Durne has collected a most extraordinary mis- cellany " grubbed up from ancient and scarce books, obscure pamphlets and papers." Every sort of subject finds a place in this curious volume.
There is a discussion of the authorship of the lines,
" The hand that rocks the cradle, Is the hand that rules the world."
There is a short account of some of the discoveries of embry- ology. There is also a most entertaining chapter on names :—
" In the register at Hill Croome dated June 13th, 1716, is the entry of a man named (Christian name) Tell No' (surname) Lyes.' . . . Daughter ' was a frequent affix to a surname in the sixteenth century. Geffrey—daughter ' is in the register of Leigh in the year 1662."
In West Derby, Liverpool, on December, 19th, 1882, the child of Arthur Pepper and Sarah his wife was christened
" Ann, Bertha, Cecilia,. Diana, Emily, Fanny, Gertrude, Ilypatia, Inez, Jane, Kate, Louisa, Maud, Nora, Ophelia, Quince, Rebecca, Starkey, Ulysis, Venus, Winifred, Xenophon, Yeni, Zeus.' . . . The United States possesses families who had apparently insuperable difficulties in finding. Christian names appropriate to their offspring. A Mr. and Mrs. Stickney were driven to such a desperate course as to name their three sons One," Two,' and Three ' ; and their three daughters First," Second,' and Third.' Another family managed all right with the first baby's name and triumphantly called him
Joseph.' When the next baby came the parents must have peeped into futurity, for they named him And.' The anxiety was relieved by the appearance of another child whom they called Another.' . . . One couple called a child Finis.' Then they had three more children. But they were equal to the emergency and called them Addenda," Appendix,' and Sup- plement.' . . . Imp ' (an abbreviation of impubes, one who has not arrived at puberty) was once a word in very common use. Royal Imp ' has been used in a prayer for the son of a Monarch (` beloved son Edward our prince, that most angelic imp Pathway to Prayer,' Bacon)."
On every sort of aspect of child life, from christening ceremonies or the custom of infant marriages to the evils of thumb-sucking and the use of indiarubber " soothers," there is the same enter- taining jumble of the results of disjointed research. Unfor- tunately Dr. Courtney Dunn cannot resist the lure of being " bright." A parent has a shocking knack of being " fond," a lady of being " fair," a person who is still alive of being " in the land of the living." There is hardly a page without some such novel ornament. However, this examination of the teeth of gift-horses is but an ungenerous task, and Dr. Dunn has cer- tainly presented the world with a most amusingly caparisoned Hobby.
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