and is the strongest incitement to cleanliness, temperance, moderate exercise, and habitual good-humour. All that is necessary is to convince young people that these are the true means of rendering them lovely, because they are the only means of securing the enjoyment of health, the very essence of beauty; instead of sourly discouraging so natural a wish, let us point out the way to its full accomplishment, and thus prevent many amiable women from taking a wrong road, and from desstroying both health and beauty by an absurd pursuit of the latter alone. "One of the first truths to be impressed upon the minds of young women is, that beauty cannot exist without health, and that the one is absolutely unattainable by any practices inconsistent with the other. In vain do they hope to improve their skin, or to give a lively redness to their cheek, unless they take care to keep the blood pure, and the whole frame active and vigorous. Beauty, both of shape and countenance, is nothing more than visible health; the outward mirror of the state of things within; the certain effect of good air, cheerfulness, temperance, and exercise. "There is nothing, perhaps, so pernicious to women as the use of creams, and pastes, and powders, and lotions, and numberless other contrivances to bleach the skin, or to produce an artificial white and red. All of them act with double injury, not only in destroying the surface which they were expected to beautify, but in poisoning the habit, and causing fatal neglect of the great preservatives of life itself. A blotch or a pimple, however offensive to the eye, gives timely notice of the impure state of the fluids, and of the kind efforts of nature to expel the noxious matter. Ought not these efforts then to be assisted by a judicious plan of diet and regimen, instead of throwing back the impurity into the blood, and conthe very means of health seeds of infection and disides, lead or mercury is the chief ingredient in all those boasted cosmetics, and, being absorbed through the skin, cannot fail to occasion cramps, spasms, convulsions, colics, and the incurable train of nervous and consumptive complaints. "Beauty is impaired, and health too often destroyed, by other absurd practices, such as drinking vinegar, to produce what is called a genteel or slender form, and avoiding exposure to the open air, for fear of its injuring the fancied delicacy of a fine skin. Vinegar, used as sauce, and in moderate quantities, serves to correct the putrescent tendency of various articles of food, and is equally agreeable and wholesome; but when swallowed in draughts, for the purpose of reducing plumpness, it proves highly injurious, causing excessive perspiration, relaxing the bowels, imparting no small degree of acrimony to the blood, and very much enfeebling the whole system. The dread of open air is still more ridiculous and detrimental. Look at the healthy texture of the milkmaid's skin, and at the roses ever blooming on her cheek, and then consider whether the open air can be unfavourable to beauty. The votaries of fashion may affect to despise these natural charms, and to call them vulgar: the heart of man feels their irresistible attraction, and his understanding confirms him in so just a preference. Surely the languid sickly delicacy, produced by confinement, cannot be compared to the animated glow of of a face often fanned by the refreshing breeze! "The woman, therefore, who feels a laudable wish to look well, and to be so in reality, must place no confidence in the silly doctrines or the deceitful arts of fashion. She must consult nature and reason, and seek for beauty in the temple of health; if she looks for it elsewhere she will experience the most mortifying disappointment; her charms will fade; her constitution will be ruined; her husband's love will vanish with her shadowy attractions; and her nuptial bed will be unfruít ful, or cursed with a puny race, the hapless victims of a mother's imprudence. She cannot transmit to her children what she does not herself possess; weakness and disease are entailed upon her posterity; and, even in the midst of wedded joys, the hopes of a healthy and vigorous issue are blasted for ever. "The only way to prevent such evils is to pay a due regard to those rational means of promoting health, which I have already hinted at; temperance, exercise, open air, cleanliness, and good-humour. These subjects are pretty fully discussed in my "Domestic Medicine;" yet a few remarks may be proper on the present occasion. "In laying down rules of temperance, I do not wish to impose any restraint on the moderate use of good and wholesome food or drink: but under these heads we must not include spirituous liquors; relaxing and often-repeated draughts of hot tea and coffee; salted, smoke-dried, and highly seasoned meats; salt fish; rich gravies; heavy sauces; almost indigestible pastry; and sour, unripe fruits, of which women in general are immoderately fond. We pity the green-sick girl, whose longing for such trash is one of the causes as well as one of the effects of her disease; but can any woman, capable of the least reflection, continue to gratify a perverse appetite by the use of the most pernicious crudities? Fruit, in the season of its maturity, is no less salutary than delicious. By plucking and eating it before it is ripe, you defeat the benignant purposes of nature, and will severely feel her resentment. The morning is the best time to eat fruit, when the stomach is not loaded with other aliment. Even in the evening I had rather see it introduced than the enervating luxuries of the tea-table, or the still worse preparations for a supper of animal food. A meal of this sort should not be made twice in one day. After a hearty dinner, a long interval is necessary before nature can require, or VOL. III. NO. XVIII. even bear, without injury, another substantial repast. Suppers are doubly prejudicial on account of the lateness of the hour, and the danger of going to bed with a full stomach. Apoplexies are often occasioned by such inconsiderate and unseasonable indulgence, but its certain effects are restless nights, frightful dreams, broken and unrefreshing slumbers, an incapacity of early rising next morning, head-achs, paleness of aspect, and general relaxation. Whoever sets any value on health or beauty, will always make very light repasts at night, and will go to bed early; that is to say, never later than ten or eleven o'clock, in order to enjoy sweet repose, and to rise betimes, with renovated strength and alacrity, to the pleasures and duties of the ensuing day. "Pure air and moderate exercise are not of less importance than food and drink. Women are much confined by their domestic employments and sedentary pursuits: for this very reason they ought to go out frequently, and take exercise in the open air; not in a close carriage, but on foot or on horseback. When prevented by the weather from going abroad, dancing, provided it be not continued to fatigue, is the most cheerful and healthy amusement within doors. The only sedentary diversions proper for women are playing on some musical instrument, singing, and reading aloud delightful pieces of poetry or eloquence. Young ladies and mothers should wholly resign the card-table to old maids, who can only injure their own health, and who have no taste for any other mode of social inter course. "It may seem a little strange that I should think it in any sort necessary to recommend cleanliness to the fair sex: I am far from intending to convey the most distant insinuation of their negligence in this respect; I only wish to heighten their ideas of its utility, and to point out far. ther methods of increasing its benefits. They are rather too sparing of water, trom an apprehension of 9 228 its injuring the skin, or giving it a "All women of delicacy and good son, the linen and interior articles "Among many improvements in "The injury to which I allude, is the want of nipples. This unnatural defect, seems to have originated pafrom the use of laced stays; and as children so often resemble their rents in outward form, it is not improbable that the daughter may bear this mark of a mother's impru dence, and may even transmit it to her own female children. Where stays have never been used, the want of a nipple is as extraordinary BUCHAN'S ADVICE TO MOTHERS. as the want of a limb; and no mother is found thus disqualified from discharging one of her most sacred duties. But in London the instances are too frequent to be ascribed to accident, and cannot, perhaps, be accounted for more satisfactorily, than in the manner here suggested. "Among the means of promoting health and beauty, cheerfulness or good-humour is certainly not the least in point of efficacy. It has the happiest influence on the body and mind; it gives a salutary impulse to the blood, keeps all the vital organs in easy and agreeable play, renders the outward deportment highly pleasing, while the perpetual sunshine within spreads a fascinating loveliness over the countenance. Peevishness or ill-humour embitters life, saps the constitution, and is more fatal to beauty than the smallpox, because its ravages are more certain, more disgusting, and more permanent." The directions given to mothers and nurses, in this work, carry with them the stamp of good sense. They seem, to an unlearned capacity, in themselves so reasonable, that they gain at once implicit credit. They are clear and intelligible, and accomplish the end of enlightening the fair reader, without awakening chimerical terrors, and suggesting extravagant inferences. The venerable writer appears to draw his illustrations from his own experience, and some of them are extremely curious and instructive.The following is a specimen : "As strong examples often make some impression where other modes of reasoning fail, I shall here beg leave to introduce the history of a young gentleman, whom I attended at a very early period of my practice, and who fell a victim to the excessive fondness of an indulgent mother. With every wish to promote her son's health and happiness, she was, as far as respected intention, the innocent but absolute cause of totally destroying both. She brought on relaxation and debility by her misguided endeavours to avert pain; and while she hoped to "Edward Watkinson was the only son of a country clergyman, of amiable manners and sound learning, but of a recluse turn of mind. The mother was the daughter of a London tradesman, and had been educated with extreme delicacy. She naturally pursued the same line of conduct towards her own child; and her fond husband was too much under the influence of the like fatal weakness. Many a child is spoiled by the indulgence of one parent: in the case now before us, both concurred to produce that enervating effect. "For some time after his birth, master Neddy was reckoned a promising boy. When I first saw him, he was about eighteen years of age; but, to judge by his look, one would have supposed him to have been at least eighty. His face was long, pale, and deeply furrowed with wrinkles; his eyes were sunk in their sockets; his teeth quite decayed; his nose and chin almost touched each other; his breast narrow and prominent; his body twisted; his legs like spindles; his hands and fingers approaching nearly to the form of bird's claws; in short, his whole figure exhibited the truly pitiable appearance of a very old man, sinking under the weight of years and infirmities into the grave. "It was at Midsummer I paid my first visit. I then found him wrap ped up in clothing sufficient for the rigours of a Lapland winter, and so closely muffled that one could hardly see the tip of his nose. He wore several pair of stockings; his gloves were double, and reached his elbows; and, to complete the absurdity of his dress, he was tightly laced in stays. Though armed in this manner at all points, he seldom peeped out of doors except in the dog-days, and then ventured no farther than the church, which was only forty paces from his father's house. I believe this was the most distant excursion he ever made; and the extraordinary attempt was always accompanied with peculiar care, and many additional preservatives from cold. "The eye of his parents might be truly said to watch over him, not only by day, but by night also, as he slept in the same bed with them, having never been permitted to lie alone, lest he should throw the clothes off, or feel the want of any immediate assistance. It did not once occur to his father or mother, that all the inconveniences which they so much dreaded, could not be half so injurious as the relaxing atmosphere of a warm bed, surrounded by close curtains, and impregnated with the noxious effluvia from their lungs and bodies. "His food and drink were of the weakest quality, always administer ed warm, and by weight and measure. When I recommended a more nourishing diet, and a little generous wine, I was told that the strongest thing master Neddy had ever taken was chicken water, and that they durst not venture on wine or animal food for fear of a fever. Thus was the poor lad reduced almost to a skeleton, through the silly apprehension of a disease, of which he was not susceptible. Nature was in him too weak to spread a hectic flush, even for a moment, over his countenance, which had acquired the colour of a parboiled chicken. All his vital powers were languid; and even his speech resembled the squeaking of a bird, more than the voice of a man. "When I spoke of exercise, I was told he took a walk every fine day in the hall, and that was deemed sufficient for one of his delicate constitution. I mentioned a horse; the mother was frightened at the very name of so dangerous an animal. On telling her, that I owed the firmness and vigour of my own constitution to riding every day, she began to think there might be something specific in it; and she therefore consented to the purchase of a little horse. But tame as the creature was, it did not quiet the mother's alarms. Master Neddy, though placed upon the poney's back, was not entrusted with the reins. These were given in charge to a maid-servant, who led the horse round the orchard, while the cautious rider fastened both hands on the pommel of the saddle; and the father walking on one side, and the mother on the other, held him fast by the legs, lest he might be brought to the ground by any sudden start of his high-mettled racer. This exhibition was too ridiculous not to excite the laughter of the neighbours, which soon put an end to master Neddy's equestrian exercise. "The timidity of a youth thus brought up is more easily conceived than described. Fearful of every thing, he would run from the most inoffensive animal, as if he had been pursued by a lion or a tiger. His weakness in this respect being known to the village boys, it was a common practice with them, whenever they saw him peeping through his father's gate, to frighten him into the house, by calling the pigs to bite him. This sportive alarm had the same effect as the sudden rush of a mad bullock. "With such excessive weakness both of mind and body, master Neddy had some good points about him. His parents represented him as a perfect model of morality; and I had no right to doubt the truth of |