XVIII.

WATERING-PLACES.

EVERY visiter of a watering-place must have heard of the almost incredible quantities of water which the more zealous worshippers of the spring contrive to swallow, as they affirm, without any inconvenience. The practice has at least antiquity and catholicity to commend it.

The eulogist of a spring at Aberdeen in the year 1580, says “it givis gud appetyte to them quha ar destitut thairof, and gif ony man drink twentie pound wecht of this Fontaine he finds no charge nor burden of the stomak nor bellie by the watter.”1

Dr Patrick Anderson, who undertook to publish the virtues of a well at Kinghorn in the year 1618, vouches that its waters have the same quality : "Out of the broad face of this foresaid rock springs most pleasandly a verie cleir and delicate cauld water, which being drunk in great measure is never for all that felt in the belly."

2

1 Ane Breif descriptioun of the qualiteis and effectis of the well of the woman hill besyde Abirdine. Anno Do. 1580.

2 The Colde Spring of Kinghorne Craig. His admirable and New Tryed Properties, so far foorth as yet are found true by Experience. Written by Patrik Anderson, D. of Physick. Edinburgh, 1618. The author was the inventor

Sir George Head tells us that at the Dinsdale Spa, in the north of England, "some of the patients drink four and others six large tumblers before breakfast: one slim gentleman in particular informed me he took twelve tumblers in the course of one morning. They all say, that, drink as much as ever they will, they never feel full."1

"Our

They are equally insatiable in America. day's journey," says Captain Hamilton, "terminated at Flintstown, a solitary inn on the eastern slope of the Alleghanies, near which is a mineral spring, whereof the passengers drank each about a gallon, without experiencing, as they unanimously declared, effect of any sort." 2

Some physiologists at once corroborate and explain

of certain pills which yet continue in some reputation. He seems to have been a good Protestant, for he is anxious to assure the world that the waters of his Cauld Spring "are not lyk the superstitious or mud-earth Wells of Menteith, or Lady Well of Strath-erne, and our Ladie Well of Ruthven, with a number of others in this cuntrie, all tapestried about with old rags, as certaine signes and sacraments, wherewith they arle the divell with ane arlspennie of their health; so subtile is that false knave, making them believe that it is only the vertue of the water, and no thing els. Such people can not say with David, The Lord is my helper, but the Devill.”

1 Sir George Head's Home Tour, p. 307. Lond. 1836. 2 Men and Manners in America, vol. ii. p. 160. Edinb. 1833.

the thing. "So rapid," says one, " is absorption from the stomach in the morning, that I have repeatedly seen nine tumblers of a saline mineral water taken at eight o'clock, and a very hearty breakfast finished within half an hour after the water was drunk!"1

XIX.

MONACHISM.

ONE of the Oxford divines, whose writings are now so much spoken of, has so expressed himself as if he wished the revival of some kind of monachism. "Great towns will never be evangelized merely by the parochial system; they are beyond the sphere of the parish priest, burdened as he is with the endearments and anxieties of a family. . . . It has lately come into my head, that the present state of things in England makes an opening for reviving the monastic system. I think of putting the view forward under the title of 'Project for reviving Religion in great towns.' Certainly colleges of unmarried priests (who might of course retire to a living when they could and liked), would be the cheapest possible way of providing for the spiritual

2 Dr Combe on Digestion and Dietetics, p. 195. Edinb. 1836. He refers for instances to Sir Francis Head's Bubbles from the Brunnens of Nassau.

wants of a large population.

You must

have dissent or monachism in a Christian country; so make ""1 choice." your These opinions are perhaps more strange than new; for views very like them were held by Swift. "The institution of convents," says the editor of Swiftiana, "seems in one point a strain of great wisdom, there being few irregularities in human passions, that may not have recourse to vent themselves in some of those orders, which are so many retreats for the speculative, the melancholy, the proud, the silent, the politic, and the morose to spend their lives, and evaporate the obnoxious particles; for each of whom in England,' says Swift forcibly, we are forced to provide a several sect of religion to keep them quiet.' "2

6

XX.

HARDHAM'S No. 37.

THIS famous snuff derives its name from John Hardham, a native of Chichester, who died in the year 1772. He was bred to the employment of a lapidary or diamond-cutter; but abandoned that for the business of a tobacconist. He was intimate with the wits and critics of his time, and wrote The

1 Froude's Remains, cited in Dr Pusey's Letter to the Lord Bishop of Oxford, p. 208, note.

2

Swiftiana, vol. i. p. 164. Lond, 1804.

Fortune Tellers, a comedy, which was never acted. He was at once the patron and teacher of many candidates for histrionic fame, so that we are told, "he was seldom without embryo Richards and Hotspurs strutting and bellowing in his dining-room, or the parlour behind his shop, which was at the Red Lion, near Fleet Market, in Fleet Street. The latter of these apartments was adorned with heads of most of the persons celebrated for dramatic excellence, and to these he frequently referred in the course of his instructions."1 The figures 37 seem to have been those which marked the number of his snuff-shop.

XXI.

ANTIQUARIES.

It is the glory of the antiquary that he is able to read what to others is unreadable. "If ever," says the cautious Mr Saunders Gordon, "these letters, I. A. M. P. M. P. T. were engraven on this building, it may not be reckoned altogether absurd that they should bear this reading; Julius Agricola Magnae Pietatis Monumentum Posuit Templum. This may as probably be received as that inscription in Holland, which, having these following letters, C C P F, is read, Caius Caligula Pharum Fecit."2 If the old

1 Biographia Dramatica, vol. i. pp. 206, 207, edit. 1782. 2 Gordon's Itinerarium Septentrionale, p. 29. Lond. 1726.