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In about forty days, infants begin to hear and smile, and look at bright objects, as the window by day, and the candle by night. Now, likewise, they begin properly to weep, for their cries and groans before were not attended with tears.

Thus, like a sailor by the tempest hurl'd

Ashore, the babe is shipwreck'd on the world:
Naked he lies, and ready to expire,

Helpless of all that human wants require;

Expos'd upon inhospitable earth;

From the first moment of his hopeless birth,
Straight with foreboding cries he fills the room,
(Too sure presages of his future doom!)

But flocks, and herds, and every savage beast,
By more indulgent Nature are increas'd;
They want no rattles for their froward mood,
No nurse to reconcile them to their food,

With broken words; nor winter's blasts they fear,
Nor change their habits with the changing year;
Nor for their safety citadels repair,

Nor forge the wicked instruments of war.

DRYDEN.

Smiles and tears are the effects of two internal sensations, which depend on something that passes in the mind. They are peculiar to Man; they express mental pain or pleasure, while the brutes can only express, and that by other means, bodily pain and pleasure. If tender infants who imprison'd stay

Within the womb, prepar'd to break away,

Were conscious of themselves and of their state,

And had but reason to sustain debate,

The painful passage they would dread, and show
Reluctance to a world they do not know;
They in their prisons still would choose to lie,
As backward to be born, as we to die.

SIR RICHARD BLACKMORE.

He next essays to walk, but downward press'd,
On four feet imitates his brother beast:
By slow degrees he gathers from the ground
His legs, and to the rolling chair is bound;
Then walks alone.

DRYDEN.

PUBERTY.

The life of Man, and of other animals, is measured only from the moment of birth; they enjoy existence, however, previous to that period, and begin to live in the state of a fœtus. The period of infancy, which extends from the moment of birth to about twelve years of age, has just now been considered.

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The period of infancy is followed by that of adolescence. This begins, together with puberty, at the age of twelve or fourteen, and commonly ends in girls at fifteen, and in boys at eighteen, but sometimes not till twenty-one, twenty-three, and twenty-five years age. According to its etymology, (being derived from the Latin word adolescentia) it is completed when the body has attained its full height. Thus, puberty accompanies adolescence, and precedes youth. This is the spring of life; this is the season of pleasures, of loves, and of graces; but, alas! this season is of short duration. Hitherto nature seems to have had nothing in view but the preservation and increase of her work : she has made no provision for the infant, except what is necessary to its life and growth. It has lived, or rather enjoyed a kind of vegetable existence, which was shut up within itself, and which it was incapable of communicating. In this first stage of life, reason is still asleep; but the principles of life soon multiply, and Man has not only what is necessary to his own existence, but what enables him to give existence to others. This redundancy of life, this source of health and vigour, can no longer be confined, but endeavours to diffuse and expand itself.

The age of puberty is announced by several marks. The first symptom is a kind of numbuess and stiffness in the groius, accompanied with a new and peculiar sensation in those parts which distinguish the sexes. The voice, for a considerable time, is rough and unequal; after which it becomes fuller, stronger, and graver, than it was before. This change may easily be distinguished in boys; but less so in girls, because their voices are naturally sharper. These marks of puberty are common to both sexes; but there are

marks peculiar to each, such as the growth of the breasts in girls, the beard in boys, &c. Among all races of mankind, the females arrive at puberty sooner than the males; but the age of puberty is different in different nations, and seems partly to depend on the temperature of the climate, and the quality of the food. In all the southern countries of Europe, and in cities, the greatest part of girls arrive at puberty about twelve, and boys about fourteen years of age. But in the northern parts, and in the country, girls scarcely arrive at puberty till they are fourteen or fifteen, and boys not till they are sixteen or seventeen. In our climate, girls, for the greatest part, have attained complete maturity at eighteen, and boys at twenty years of age.

In adolescence, or when boys and girls are growing, their stature increases gracefully, more in height than in breadth or bulk. The limbs are slim, the muscles are disentangled, and the whole external frame, by degrees, developes the fair mould in which it was cast, without a blemish. When the full natural size is attained, a comely complexion acquires fresh beauty, gracefulness, and polish, from a cheerful temper, good living, and an even flow of spirits.

Having reached the acme of sublunary enjoyments, and surrounded with all the pleasing endearments of life, (for, as Archdeacon Paley observes, "It is a good world after all") Man then displays the perfection of his nature, a vigorous and majestic form, pre-eminent in the creation; and a mind capable of appreciating the importance of his own character.

The seven first years of life, Man's break of day,
Gleams of short sense, a dawn of thought display:
When fourteen springs have bloom'd his downy cheek,

His soft and bashful meanings learn to speak.

At the age of puberty, or a few years after, the body attains its full stature. Some young men grow no taller after fifteen or sixteen, and others continue to grow till the age of twenty or twentythree. At this period they are very slender; but by degrees the members swell and begin to assume their proper shape; and before the age of thirty, the body in men has attained its greatest perfection with regard to strength, consistence, and symmetry.

Adolescence ends at the age of twenty or twenty-five; and at this period, Manhood (according to the division which has been made of the years of Man's life into different ages) begins.

At first, the Infant,

Mewling and puking in his nurse's arms;

And then the whining School-boy with his satchel
And shining morning-face, creeping, like snail,
Unwillingly to school; and then the Lover,
Sighing like Furnace, with a woful ballad
Made to his mistress' eye-brows; then a soldier,
Full of strange oaths, and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble Reputation,

Even in the cannon's mouth.

SHAKSPEARE.

CHARACTER.

There is a place,

(If ancient and prophetic fame in heaven

Err not,) another world, the happy scat

Of some new race call'd MAN, about this time

To be created, like to us, though less
In power and excellence, but favour'd more
Of Him who rules above.

MILTON.

The following is Linnæus's description of Man, as translated by Mr. Kerr:

The body, which seldom reaches six feet in height is erect, and almost naked, having only some scattered distant hairs, except in some small spots, and when born is entirely naked. The head is shaped like an egg; the scalp being long, and covered with hair; the forehead broad; the top of the head flat, and the hind-bead protuberant. The face is naked, having the brow or forehead flattened and quadrangular; the temples are compressed, with peaked angles pointing upwards and backwards towards the hairy scalp. The eyebrows are prominent, and covered with hairs, which, shed

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ding outwards, cover each other like tiles; and between the inner extremities of the two eye-brows there is a smooth, shallow furrow or depression, in a line with the nose. The upper eye-lid is moveable, but the lower one hardly moves, and both are planted at their edges with a row of stiff recurved hairs, named eye-lashes. The eye-balls are round, having no suspending muscle, as in those of most quadrupeds; the pupil, or opening of the sight, is circular, and the eye has no membrana nictitans. The upper parts of the cheeks are prominent, softish, and coloured with a red blush; their outer parts flattened; the lower parts are hollowed, lax, and expausile. The nose is prominent, and compressed at the sides; its extremity or point is higher than the rest, and blunt; the nostrils are oval, open downwards, with thickened edges, and are hairy on their insides. The upper lip is almost perpendicular, and is furrowed on the middle, from the division between the nostrils to the edge of the lip; the under lip is erect, thicker and more prominent than that above; both have a smooth red protuberance, surrounding the mouth at their edges. The chin is prominent, blunt, and gibbous. In males, the face all round the mouth is covered with hair, called the beard, which first appears about puberty in patches on the chin. The teeth in both jaws may be distinguished into three orders; the fore-teeth are erect, parallel, and wedge-like, of the kind named incisors, or cutting-teeth; they stand close to each other, and are more equal and rounder than in other animals; the tusks, called in man eye-teeth and corner-teeth, of which there is only one on each side of the fore-teeth in each jaw, are a little Jonger than the fore-teeth, but much less so than in other animals, and they are placed close to the other teeth; the grinders, of which there are five on each side in both jaws, are blunt, and divided on their upper surface into pointed eminences; but these are not so remarkable as in other animals. The ears are placed on the sides of the head, are of an oblong rounded figure, with a semilunar bend on their anterior edges; they lie flat to the head, are naked, arched at the margin on their upper and posterior edges, and are thicker and soft at the under extremities.

The trunk of the body consists of the neck, breast, back, and

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