The Bath lies very low, is but a small city, but very compact, and one can hardly imagine it could accommodate near the company that frequents it at least three parts of the year. I have been told of 8,000 families there at a time—some for the benefit of drinking its hot waters, others for bathing, and others for diversion and pleasure (of which, I must say, it affords more than any public place of that kind in Europe).
I told you in my former letters that Epsom and Tunbridge do not allow visiting (the companies there meet only on the walks); but here visits are received and returned, assemblies and balls are given, and parties at play in most houses every night, to which one Mr. Nash hath for many years contributed very much. This gentleman is by custom a sort of master of ceremonies of the place; he is not of any birth nor estate, but by a good address and assurance ingratiates himself into the good graces of the ladies and the best company in the place, and is director of all their parties of pleasure. He wears good clothes, is always affluent of money, plays very much, and whatever he may get in private, yet in public he always seems to lose. The town have been for many years so sensible of the service he does them that they ring the bells generally at his arrival in town, and, it is thought, pay him a yearly contribution for his support.
In the morning early the company of both sexes meet at the Pump (in a great hall enrailed), to drink the waters and saunter about till prayer-time, or divert themselves by looking on those that are bathing in the bath. Most of the company go to church in the morning in dishabille, and then go home to dress for the walks before dinner. The walks are behind the church, spacious and well shaded, planted round with shops filled with everything that contributes to pleasure, and at the end a noble room for gaming, from whence there are hanging-stairs to a pretty garden for everybody that pays for the time they stay, to walk in.
I have often wondered that the physicians of these places prescribe gaming to their patients, in order to keep their minds free from business and thought, that their waters on an undisturbed mind may have the greater effect, when indeed one cross-throw at play must sour a man’s blood more than ten glasses of water will sweeten, especially for such great sums as they throw for every day at Bath.
The King and Queen’s Baths, which have a communication with one another, are the baths which people of common rank go into promiscuously; and indeed everybody, except the first quality. The way of going into them is very comical: a chair with a couple of chairmen come to your bedside (lie in what storey you will), and there strip you, and give you their dress without your shift, and wrapping you up in blankets carry you to the bath.
When you enter the bath, the water seems very warm; and the heat much increases as you go into the Queen’s Bath, where the great spring rises. On a column erected over the spring is an inscription of the first finder-out of these springs, in the following words: that “Bladud, the son of Lud, found them three hundred years before Christ.” The smoke and slime of the waters, the promiscuous multitude of the people in the bath, with nothing but their heads and hands above water, with the height of the walls that environ the bath, gave me a lively idea of several pictures I had seen, of Angelo’s in Italy of Purgatory, with heads and hands uplifted in the midst of smoke, just as they are here. After bathing, you are carried home in your chair, in the same manner you came.
The Cross Bath, which is used by the people of the first quality, was beautified and inclosed for the convenience of the late King James’s queen, who after the priests and physicians had been at work to procure a male successor to the throne of Great Britain, the Sacrament exposed in all the Roman Catholic countries, and for that end a sanctified smock sent from the Virgin Mary at Loretto, the queen was ordered to go to Bath and prepare herself, and the king to make a progress through the western counties and join her there. On his arrival at Bath, the next day after his conjunction with the queen, the Earl of Melfort (then Secretary of State for Scotland) erected a fine prophetic monument in the middle of the Bath, as an everlasting monument of that conjunction. I call it “prophetic,” because nine months after a Prince of Wales was born. This monument is still entire and handsome, only some of the inscriptions on the pillar were erased in King William’s time. The angels attending the Holy Ghost as He descends, the Eucharist, the Pillar, and all the ornaments are of fine marble, and must have cost that earl a great deal of money. He was second son to Drummond, Earl of Perth, in North Britain; and was Deputy Governor of the Castle of Edinburgh when the Duke and Duchess of York came to Scotland, in King Charles the Second’s time. He was a handsome gentleman, with a good address, and went into all the measures of that court, and at all their balls generally danced with the duchess; who, on their accession to the throne, sent for him up to London, made him Secretary of State for Scotland, created him Earl of Melfort, and Knight of the Order of St. Andrew. His elder brother was also made Chancellor and Governor of Scotland. And on King James’s abdication, as the two brothers followed the king’s fortunes, the Earl of Perth was made governor to the young prince; and Melfort was created a duke, had the Garter, and was a great man in France to his dying day.
There is another bath for lepers.
The cathedral church is small but well lighted. There are abundance of little monuments in it of people who come there for their health, but meet with their death.
These waters have a wonderful influence on barren ladies, who often prove with child even in their husbands’ absence; who must not come near them till their bodies are prepared.