The child's usual mode of life is carefully described. Between eight and nine in the morning he had a fowl's liver and a little loaf, or else some bread or cake sopped in broth, or bread and jam and a cup of water. At twelve o'clock broth with sippets of bread or half of the breast of a fowl, or sometimes some forcemeat balls, as he likes a change, and demands it. When he gets tired of this he may have a little loin of mutton or the leg of a fowl. He is also very fond of a piece of bacon between two slices of bread, and of quince marmalade, jams, and sweets. At five o'clock he "packs his wallet," as the doctor calls it, by a meal of bread and jam, and a cup of water. He is put to bed at nine o'clock, and sleeps with his nurse. The learned Don Cristobal then enters into a most verbose disquisition as to the fitness of the locality chosen for {337} the temperament of the child, and arrives at the conclusion that the choice has been a wise one, although the roundabout method of argument founded on wise talk about blood and humours and vapours and the like seems rather beside the mark to a modern reader. The sum of it all is, however, that Don Juan de Isassi's house stands healthily, if somewhat bleakly, on high ground about three bow-shots from the town, and joining the great convent of the Suceso, the house itself being a good one, surrounded by its own grounds. Thus far the doctor has only spoken of the constitution and past management of his late charge; but the next document, which bears the same date as the preceding one (June 18, 1630), lays down an elaborate plan for the future rearing of the child. He recommends that he should be allowed to play after his early supper, and not be sent to sleep before nine at night, unless he feels sleepy. He is to be woke at eight, if he is not already awake, and is to be given his light breakfast of a fowl's liver and cake, a rasher of bacon and bread and broth, or a roasted egg. At eleven or twelve he is to dine on forcemeat balls, made of two parts chicken, one part mutton, and one part bacon, with a little pie or broth with sippets. Sometimes, instead of force-meat balls, he may have the leg of a fowl, which, if he likes it, will be enough for him, with a little bread soaked in broth, or he may have a mouthful of mutton with chicken broth. It will be well, says the courtly doctor, that the gentleman himself should be consulted occasionally as to whether he preferred the fowl or the sausages, or roast or boiled food. He is to sleep about an hour and a half after dinner, {338} and play in the afternoon; but great care must be taken to keep him out of the sun, and his early supper may be as heretofore, only somewhat later; a biscuit or two with jam, a small egg, such as the fowls of the province lay, or sippets in broth. A curious and somewhat elaborate little dish is recommended for occasional breakfast or supper. "Take," says the doctor, "a half-dozen