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s onely fault and trespass, that he is borne alive."--Plinie's _Naturall Historie_, by Phil. Holland, Lond. 1601, fol., intr. to b. vii. The following queries are extracted from Sir Thomas Browne's "Common-place Books," _Aristotle, Lib. Animal._: "Whether till after forty days children, though they cry, weep not; or, as Scaliger expresseth it, 'Vagiunt sed oculis siccis.' "Whether they laugh not upon tickling? "Why, though some children have been heard to cry in the womb, _yet so few cry at their birth_, though their heads be out of the womb?"--Bohn's ed. iii. 358. Thompson follows Pliny, and says that man is "taught _alone_ to weep" ("Spring," 350.); but--not to speak of the "Cruel crafty crocodile, Which, in false grief hiding his harmful guile, Doth weep full sore and sheddeth tender tears," as Spenser sings--the camel weeps when over-loaded, and the deer when chased sobs piteously. Thompson himself in a passage he has stolen from Shakspeare, makes the stag weep: ----"he stands at bay; _The big round tears_ run down his dappled face; He groans in anguish."--Autumn, 452. "Steller relates this of the _Phoca Ursina_, Pallas of the camel, and Humboldt of a small American monkey."--Laurence _On Man_, Lond. 1844, p. 161. Risibility, and a sense of the ridiculous, is generally considered to be the property of man, though _Le Cat_ states that he has seen a chimpanzee laugh. The notion with regard to a child crying at baptism has been already touched on in these pages, Vol. vi., p. 601.; Vol. vii., p. 96. Grose (quoted in Brand) tells us there is a superstition that a child who does not cry when sprinkled in baptism will not live; and the same is recorded in Hone's _Year-Book_. EIRIONNACH. * * * * * UNPUBLISHED LETTER OF LORD NELSON. The following letter of Lord Nelson may, especially at the present moment, interest and amuse some of the readers of "N. & Q." The original is in my possession, and was given me by the late Miss Churchey of Brecon, daughter of the gentleman to whom it was addressed. Can any of your readers inform me where the "old lines" quoted by the great hero are to be found? E. G. BASS. Ryde, Isle of Wight. Merton, Oct. 20, 1802. Sir, Your idea is most just and proper, that a provision should be made for midshipmen who have served a certain ti
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