are inhabited. Most of the company lodge at some distance, in five separate inns, situated in different parts of the common, from whence they go every morning to the well, in their own carriages. The lodgers of each inn form a distinct society that eat together; and there is a commodious public room, where they breakfast in dishabille, at separate tables, from eight o'clock till eleven, as they chance or chuse to come in. Here also they drink tea in the afternoon, and play at cards, or dance in the evening. One custom, however, prevails, which I look upon as a solecism in politeness :—the ladies treat with tea in their turns, and even girls of sixteen are not exempted from this shameful imposition. There is a public ball by subscription every night at one of the houses, to which all the company from the others are admitted by tickets; and, indeed, Harrowgate treads upon the heels of Bath, in the articles of gaiety and dissipation -with this difference, however, that here we are more sociable and familiar. One of the inns is already full up to the very garrets, having no less than fifty lodgers, and as many servants. Our family does not exceed thirty-six; and I should be sorry to see the number augmented, as our accommodations won't admit of much increase.

At present, the company is more agreeable than one could expect from an accidental assemblage of persons who are utter strangers to one another. There seems to be a general disposition among us to

maintain good fellowship, and promote the purposes of humanity, in favour of those who come hither on the score of health. I see several faces which we left at Bath, although the majority are of the northern counties, and many come from Scotland for the benefit of these waters. In such a variety there must be some originals, among whom Mrs Tabitha Bramble is not the most inconsiderable. No place, where there is such an intercourse between the sexes, can be disagreeable to a lady of her views and temperament. She has had some warm disputes at table, with a lame parson from Northumberland, on the new birth, and the insignificance of moral virtue; and her arguments have been reinforced by an old Scotch lawyer, in a tye-periwig, who, though he has lost his teeth, and the use of his limbs, can still wag his tongue with great volubility. He has paid her such fulsome compliments, upon her piety and learning, as seem to have won her heart; and she, in her turn, treats him with such attention, as indicates a design upon his person; but, by all accounts, he is too much a fox to be inveigled into any snare that she can lay for his affection.

We do not propose to stay long at Harrowgate, though at present it is our head quarters, from whence we shall make some excursions, to visit two or three of our rich relations, who are settled in this county. Pray remember me to all our friends of Jesus, and allow me to be still, yours affectionately, J. MELFORD.

HARROWGATE, JUNE 23.

TO DR LEWIS.

Dear Doctor,-Considering the tax we pay for turnpikes, the roads of this country constitute a most intolerable grievance. Between Newark and Weatherby, I have suffered more from jolting and swinging, than ever I felt in the whole course of my life, although the carriage is remarkably commodious and well hung, and the postillions were very careful in driving. I am now safely housed at the New Inn at Harrowgate, whither I came to satisfy my curiosity, rather than with any view of advantage to my health; and truly, after having considered all the parts and particulars of the place, I cannot account for the concourse of people one finds here upon any other principle but that of caprice, which seems to be the character of our nation.

Harrowgate is a wild common, bare and bleak, without tree or shrub, or the least signs of cultivation; and the people who come to drink the water are crowded together in paltry inns, where the few tolerable rooms are monopolized by the friends and favourites of the house, and all the rest of the lodgers are obliged to put up with dirty holes, where there is neither space, air, nor convenience. My apartment is about ten feet square; and when the folding bed is down, there is just room sufficient to pass between it and the fire. One might expect, indeed, that there would be no occasion for a fire at midsummer; but

here the climate is so backward, that an ash tree, which our landlord has planted before my window, is just beginning to put forth its leaves; and I am fain to have my bed warmed every night.

As for the water, which is said to have effected so many surprising cures, I have drank it once, and the first draught has cured me of all desire to repeat the medicine. Some people say it smells of rotten eggs, and others compare it to the scourings of a foul gun. It is generally supposed to be strongly impregnated with sulphur; and Dr Shaw, in his book upon mineral waters, says, he has seen flakes of sulphur floating in the well-Pace tanti viri-I, for my part, have never observed any thing like sulphur, either in or about the well; neither do I find that any brimstone has ever been extracted from the water. As for the smell, if I may be allowed to judge from my own organs, it is exactly that of bilge water; and the saline taste of it seems to declare that it is nothing else than salt water putrified in the bowels of the earth. I was obliged to hold my nose with one hand, while I advanced the glass to my mouth with the other; and after I had made shift to swallow it, my stomach could hardly retain what it had received. The only effects it produced were sickness, griping, and insurmountable disgust-I can hardly mention it without puking. The world is strangely misled by the affectation of singularity. I cannot help suspecting that this water owes its reputation in a

great measure to its being so strikingly offensive. On the same kind of analogy, a German doctor has introduced hemlock, and other poisons, as specifics, into the materia medica. I am persuaded that all the cures ascribed to the Harrowgate water would have been as efficaciously, and infinitely more agreeably performed, by the internal and external use of seawater. Sure I am, this last is much less nauseous to the taste and smell, and much more gentle in its operation as a purge, as well as more extensive in its medical qualities.

Two days ago we went across the country to visit Squire Burdock, who married a first cousin of my father, an heiress, who brought him an estate of a thousand a-year. This gentleman is a declared opponent of the ministry in parliament; and, having an opulent fortune, piques himself upon living in the country, and maintaining old English hospitality. -By the bye, this is a phrase very much used by the English themselves, both in words and writing; but I never heard of it out of the island, except by way of irony and sarcasm. What the hospitality of our forefathers has been, I should be glad to see recorded. rather in the memoirs of strangers who have visited our country, and were the proper objects of such hospitality, than in the discourse and lucubrations of the modern English, who seem to describe it from theory and conjecture. Certain it is, we are generally looked upon by foreigners as a people totally