"Throw physic to the dogs, I'll have none on't,'" said Horace: "if hot water can effect such wonders, why, a plague on all the doctors! Let a man be content to distil his medicine fresh from his own teakettle, or make his washing copper serve the double purpose for domestic uses and a medicated bath.

'But what is surprising, no mortal e'er view'd
Any one of the physical gentlemen stew'd.
From the day that King Bladud first found out these bogs,
And thought them so good for himself and his hogs,
Not one of the faculty ever has tried
These excellent waters to cure his own hide;
Though many a skilful and learned physician,
With candour, good sense, and profound erudition,
Obliges the world with the fruits of his brain,
Their nature and hidden effects to explain.'
1 See the fabulous account alluded to in Warner's History of
Bath, where Bladud is represented to have discovered the
properties of the warm springs at Beechen Wood Swainswick,
by observing the hogs to wallow in the mud that was
impregnated therewith, and thus to have derived the
knowledge of a cure for 'tis leprous affection.

But allons, lads," said Horace, "we are here to follow the fashion, and indulge in all the eccentricities of the place; to note the follies of the time, and depict the chief actors, without making any personal sacrifice to correct the evil. Our satire will do more to remove old prejudices when it appears in print, aided by Bob Transit's pencil, than all our reasonings upon the spot can hope to effect, although we followed Mr. M'Culloch's economy, and lectured upon decency from break of day to setting sun. In quitting the pump-room we must not, however, omit to notice the statue of Beau Nash, before which Transit appears, in propria personæ, sketching off the marble memento, without condescending to notice the busts of Pope and Newton, which fill situations on each side; a circumstance which in other times produced the following epigram from the pen of the witty earl of Chesterfield.

"The statue plac'd the busts between
Adds satire to the strength;
Wisdom and Wit are little seen,
But Folly at full length."

Such is the attachment of man to the recollections of any thing associated with pleasure, that it is questionable if the memory of old Joe Miller is not held in higher estimation by the moderns than that of Father Luther, the reformer; and while the numerous amusing anecdotes in circulation tend to keep alive the fame of Nash, it is not surprising that the merry pay court to his statue, being in his own dominions, before they bow at the classic shrine of Pope, or bend in awful admiration beneath the bust of the greatest of philosophers.

"'Twas said of old, deny it now who can,
The only laughing animal is man."

And we are about to present the reader with a right merry scene, one, too, if he has any fun in his composition, or loves a good joke, must warm the cockles of his heart. Who would ever have thought, in these moralizing times, when the puritans are raising conventicles in every town and village, and the cant of vice societies has spread itself over the land, that in one of our most celebrated places of fashionable resort, there should be found baths where the young and the old, the beauteous female and the gay spark, are all indiscriminately permitted to enjoy the luxurious pleasure together. That such is the case in Bath no one who has recently participated in the pleasures of immersion will dispute, and in order to perpetuate that gratification, Bob Transit has here faithfully delineated the scene which occurred upon our entering the King's Bath, through the opening from the Queen's, where, to our great amusement and delight, we found ourselves surrounded by many a sportive nymph, whose beauteous form was partially hidden by the loose flannel gown, it is true; but now and then the action of the water, produced by the continued movements of a number of persons all bathing at the same time, discovered charms, the which to have caught a glimpse of in any other situation might have proved of dangerous consequences to the fair possessors. The baths, it must be admitted, are delightful, both from their great extent and their peculiar properties, as, on entering from the Queen's Bath you may enjoy the water at from 90 to 96 degrees, or requiring more heat have only to walk forward, through the archway, to obtain a temperature of 116. The first appearance of old Blackstrap's visage floating along the surface of the water, like the grog-blossomed trunk of the ancient Bardolph, bound up in a Welsh wig, was truly ludicrous, and produced such an unexpected burst of laughter from my merry companions, that I feared some of the fair Naiads would have fainted in the waters from fright, and then Heaven help them, for decency would have prevented our rushing to their assistance. The notices to prevent gentlemen from swimming in the baths are, in my opinion, so many inducements or suggestions for every young visitor to attempt it. Among our mad wags, Horace Eglantine was more than once remonstrated with by the old bathing women for indulging in this pleasure, to the great alarm of the ladies, who, crowding together in one corner with their aged attendants, appeared to be in a high state of apprehension lest the loose flannel covering that guards frail mortality upon these occasions should be drawn aside, and discover nature in all her pristine purity—an accident that had very nearly happened to myself, when, in endeavouring to turn round quickly, I found the water had disencumbered my frame of the yellow bathing robe, which floated on the surface behind me.

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One circumstance which made our party more conspicuous, was, the rejection of the Welsh wigs, which not all the entreaties of the attendant could induce any of the wags to wear. The young ladies disfigure themselves by wearing the black bonnets of the bathing women; but spite of this masquerading in the water, their lovely countenances and soul-subduing eyes, create sensations that will be more easily conceived than prudently described. A certain facetious writer, who has published his "Walks through Bath," alluding to this practice, speaks of it as having been prohibited in the fifteenth century. How long such prohibition, if it ever took place, continued, it is not for me to know; but if the Bath peripatetic historian had made it his business to have seen what he has described, he would have found, that the practice of bathing males and females together in puris naturalibus was still continued in high perfection, in spite of the puritans, the Vice Society, or the prohibition of Bishop Beckyngton.{2}