Note 3 — Chapter I · CHILDHOOD AND EDUCATION. (Boys.)

Ignorantly as the little Duke of Gloucester was treated, what was the condition of ordinary babies? Let a contemporary tell the tale. Steele,[3] writing as if his familiar Pacolet was speaking, and giving an experience of his sensations, says: 'The first thing that ever struck my senses was a noise over my head of one shrieking; after which, methought I took a full jump, and found myself in the hands of a sorceress, who seemed as if she had been long waking, and employed in some incantation. I was thoroughly frightened, and cried out; but she immediately seemed to go on in some magical operation, and anointed me from head to foot. What they meant I could not imagine: for there gathered a great crowd about me, crying, "An heir! an heir!" upon which I grew a little still, and believed this was a ceremony only to be used to great persons, and such as made them what they called heirs.