filled with milk. If the milk is good, it is sweetish to the taste, and totally free from flatness; to the eye it appears thin, and of a bluish cast. That the woman hath her menes, if in other respects objections are not made, this need not be any; and as to the custom with many, of abstaining from venery while they continue to suckle a child, it is so far without reason to support it, that the truth is, a rigorous chastity is as hurtful, and often more pernicious, than an immoderate use of venery. Amongst the vulgar errors, is that of red-haired women being improper for wet nurses.

If the menes do not appear during the first months, but after six or eight months suckling they begin to descend, the child should be weaned.

Wet nurses should eat at least one hearty meal of animal-food every day; with this, a proper quantity of vegetables should be mixed. Thin broth, or milk, are proper for their breakfasts and their suppers; and if the strength should seem to fail a little, a draught of good ale should now and then be allowed; but spirituous liquors must, in general, be foreborne; not but a spoonful of rum may be allowed in a quart of milk and water, (i.e. a pint of each), which is a proper common drink.

Though it is well observed by Dr Hunter, that the far greater number of those women who have cancers in the breast or womb, are old maids, and those who refuse to give suck to their children; yet it is the unhappiness of some willing mothers not to be able: for instance, those with tender constitutions, and who are subject to nervous disorders; those who do not eat a sufficient quantity of solid food, nor enjoy the benefit of exercise and air: if children are kept at their breasts, they either die whilst young, or are weak and sickly after childhood is past, and so on through remaining life.

(Lucius Caecilius Firmianus), a celebrated author at the beginning of the 4th century, was, according to Baronius, an African; but, according to others, was born at Fermo in the marquisate of Anconia, from whence it is imagined he was called Firmianus. He studied rhetoric under Arnobius; and was afterwards a professor of that science in Africa and Nicomedia, where he was so admired, that the emperor Constantine chose him preceptor to his son Crispus Caesar. Lactantius was so far from seeking the pleasures and riches of the court, that he lived there in poverty, and, according to Eusebius, frequently wanted necessaries. His works are written in elegant Latin. The principal of which are, 1. De ira divina. 2. De operibus Dei, in which he treats of the creation of man, and of divine providence. 3. Divine Institutions, in seven books. This is the most considerable of all his works; he there undertakes to prove the truth of the Christian religion, and to refute all the difficulties that had been raised against it; and he boldly and with great strength attacks the illusions of paganism. His style is pure, clear, and natural, and his expressions noble and elegant, on which account he has been called the Cicero of the Christians. There is also attributed to him a treatise De morte persecutorum; but several of the learned doubt its being written by Lactantius. The most copious edition of Lactantius's works is that of Paris, in 1748, 2 vols 4to.