We'll learn and con them each by heart, Set them in note books by our art, Each lord, and duke, and tailor. From Dr. S———{9} to Peter K———, U———, O———, and I———, and E——-, and A———, Down to the ploughman Naylor.{10}
Then let them sow their crop of cares, Their flowers, their weeds, their fruit, their tares, Not looking ere they leap. We, like the folks in Jamie's book{11} Will i' the dark sharp up our hook, And, my own Barnard, reap.
9 Dr. S————-e, a very singular, but a very hearty kind
of Caleb Quotem. He has been soldier, and sailor, doctor,
and, I believe, divine. He is as well known at the best
parties as the Wells and the Market-house. He gives feasts
fit for the gods at home, and invariably credits his
neighbours' viands as being Jove's nectar or the fruits of
Paradise, so as to him they be not forbidden. Short commons
could not upset his politeness. His anecdotes have a spice
of the old courtier about them; but the line old chanson à
boire, from Gammar Gurton's Needle,
"Back and side go bare, go bare,
Both foot and hand go cold;
But belly, God send good ale enough,
Whether it be new or old;"
he really gives beautifully, and with a spice of the olden
time quite delightful.
10 Mr. Naylor, of the Plough hotel; an excellent Boniface,
a good friend, and a merry companion. As a boy, I recollect
him keeping the Castle at Marlborough; at "frisky
eighteen," I have contributed to his success at the Crown at
Portsmouth; and I now, older, and it may be, a little wiser
grown, patronize him occasionally at Cheltenham.
11 Vide Hogg's Brownie of Bodsbeck.
A TRIP TO THE SPAS.
CHAPTER II.
The Spas—Medicinal Properties—Interesting specimens of
the Picturesque—"Spasmodic Affections from Spa Waters"—
Grotesque Scripture—The Goddess Hygeia—Humorous Epitaph—
Characters in the High Street—Traveller's Hall, or Sketches
in the Commercial Room at the Bell Inn, Cheltenham.
"For walks and for waters, for beaux and for belles,
There's nothing in nature to rival their wells."
Inquisitive traveller, if you would see the Well-walks in perfection, you must rise early, and take a sip of the saline aperients before you taste of the more substantial meal which the Plough-man. Naylor, or the Cheltenham Bell-man, or the Shep-herd of the Fleece, will be sure to prepare for your morning mastication. Fashion always requires some talismanic power to draw her votaries together, beyond the mere healthful attractions of salubrious air, pleasant rides, romantic scenery, and cheerful society; and this magnet the Chelts possess in the acknowledged medicinal properties of their numerous spas, the superior qualities of which have been thus pleasantly poetized:—
"They're a healthful, and harmless, and purgative potion,
And as purely saline as the wave of the ocean,
Whilst their rapid effects like a——
——Hush! never mind;
We'll leave their effects altogether behind."