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UNPUBLISHED LETTER OF LORD NELSON.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