a public ball by fubfcription 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 diffipation-with this difference, however, that here we are more fociable and familiar. One of the inns is already full up to the very garrets, having no less than fifty lodgers, and as many fervants. Our family does not exceed thirty-fix; and I fhould be forry 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 affemblage of perfons, who are utter ftrangers to one another-There feems to be a general difpofitir among us to maintain good fellowship, and promr tethe purposes of humanity, in favour of those who come hither on the score of health. I fee feveral 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 fuch a variety there must be fome originals, among whom Mrs Tabitha Bramble is not the most inconfiderableNo place, where there is such an intercourse between the fexes, can be disagreeable to a lady of her views and temperament-She has had fome warm difputes at table, with a lame parfon from Northumberland, on the new birth, and the infignificance of moral virtue; and her arguments have been reinforced by an old Scotch lawyer, in a tye-periwig, who, though he has loft his teeth, and the ufe of his limbs, can ftill wag his tongue with great volubility. He has paid her fuch fulfome 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 defign upon his perfon; but, by all accounts, he is too much a fox to be inveigled into any fnare that the can lay for his affection.

We do not propofe to ftay long at Harrowgate, though at present it is our head quarters, from whence we shall make some excurfions, to vifit two or three of our rich relations, who are fettled in this county. Pray remem

ber me to all our friends of Jesus, and allow me to

be ftill

Yours affectionately,

Harrowgate, June 23.

J. MELFORD.

DEAR DOCTOR,

C

To Dr LEWIS.

ONSIDERING the tax we pay for turnpikes, the roads of this country constitute a most intolerable grievance. Between Newark and Weatherby, I have fuffered more from jolting and swinging, than ever I felt in the whole courfe of my life, although the carriage is remarkably commodious and well hung, and the poftillions were very careful in driving. I am now fafely housed at the New Inn at Harrowgate, whither I came to fatisfy my curiofity, rather than with any view of advantage to my health; and truly, after having confidered all the parts and particulars of the place, I cannot account for the concourfe of people one finds here, upon any other principle but that of caprice, which feems to be the character of our nation.

HARROW GATE is a wild common, bare and bleak, without tree or fhrub, or the least signs of cultivation; and the people who come to drink the water, are crouded 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 fquare; and when the folding-bed is down, there is just room fufficient to pafs between it and the fire. One might expect, indeed, that there would be no occafion for a fire at midsummer; but here the climate is fo backward, that an afh tree, which our landlord has planted before my window, is juft beginning to put forth its leaves: And I am fain to have my bed warmed every night.

As for the water, which is faid to have effected fo many furprising cures, I have drank it once, and the first draught has cured me of all defire to repeat the medicine. Some people fay it fmells of rotten eggs, and others compare it to the fcourings of a foul gun-It is generally fuppofed to be strongly impregnated with fulphur; and Dr Shaw, in his book upon mineral waters, fays, he has feen flakes of fulphur floating in the well-Pace tanti viri-I, for my part, have never obferved any thing like fulphur, either in or about the well; neither do I find that any brimftone has ever been extracted from the water. As for the fmell, if I may be allowed to judge from my own organs, it is exactly that of bilge water; and the faline tafte of it seems to declare, that it is nothing else than falt water putrified in the bowels of the earth. I was obliged to hold my nofe with one hand, while I advanced the glafs to my mouth with the other; and after I had made fhift to fwallow it, my ftomach could hardly retain what it had received

The only effects it produced were fickness, griping, and infurmountable difguft-I can hardly mention it without puking. The world is ftrangely mifled by the affectation of fingularity. I cannot help fufpecting, that this water owes its reputation in a great measure to its being fo ftrikingly offenfive-On the fame kind of analogy, a German doctor has introduced hemlock and other poisons, as fpecifics, into the materia medica. I am perfuaded, that all the cures afcribed to the Harrowgate water, would have been as efficacioufly, and infinitely more agreeably performed, by the internal and external use of fea-water. Sure I am, this laft is much lefs naufeous to the taste and fmell, and much more gentle in its operation as a purge, as well as more extenfive in its medical qualities.

Two days ago, we went across the country, to visit Squire Burdock, who married a firft coufin of my father, an heiress, who brought him an estate of a thoufand 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 hofpitality-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 ifland, except by way of irony and farcafm. What the hofpitality of our forefathers has been I fhould be glad to fee recorded rather in the memoirs of strangers who have vifited our country, and were the proper objects and judges of fuch hofpitality, than in the difcourfe and lucubrations of the modern English, who feem to describe it from theory and conjecture. Certain it is, we are generally looked upon by foreigners as a people totally deftitute of this virtue; and I never was in any country abroad, where I did not meet with perfons of diftinction who complained of having been inhospitably ufed in Great Britain. A gentleman of France, Italy, or Germany, who has entertained and lodged an Eng. lishman at his house, when he afterwards meets with his gueft at London, is afked to dinner at the Saracen's Head, the Turk's Head, the Boar's Head, or the Bear, eats raw beef and butter, drinks execrable port, and is allowed to pay his fhare of the reckoning.

BUT, to return from this digreffion, which my feeling for the honour of my country obliged me to make -Our Yorkshire coufin has been a mighty fox-hunter before the Lord; but now he is too fat and unwieldy to leap ditches and five-bar gates; nevertheless, he ftill keeps a pack of hounds, which are well exercifed, and his huntsman every night entertains him with the adventures of the day's chace, which he recites in a tone and terms that are extremely curious and fignificant. In the mean time, his broad brawn is fcratched by one of his grooms-This fell w, it seems, having no inclination to curry any beaft out of the ftable, was at great pains to fcollop his nails in fuch a manner, that the blood followed at every ftroke.-He was in hopes that he would be difmiffed from this difagreeable office, but the event turned out contrary to his expectation-His mafter declared he was the best scratcher in the family; and now he will not fuffer any other fervant to draw a nail upon his carcafe.

THE fquire's lady is very proud, without being ftiff or inacceffible.-She receives even her inferiors in point of fortune with a kind of arrogant civility; but then she thinks fhe has a right to treat them with the most un

gracious freedoms of speech, and never fails to let them know fhe is fenfible of her own fuperior affluence.--In a word, the speaks well of no living foul, and has not one fingle friend in the world. Her husband hates her mortally; but altho' the brute is fometimes fo very powerful in him, that he will have his own way, he generally truckles to her dominion, and dreads like a school-boy the lash of her tongue. On the other hand, fhe is afraid of provoking him too far, left he fhould make fome defperate effort to shake off her yoke. She therefore acquiefces in the proofs he daily gives of his attachment to the liberty of an English freeholder, by faying and doing, at his own table, whatever gratifies the brutality of his difpofition, or contributes to the cafe of his perfon. The house, though large, is neither elegant nor comfortable-It looks like a great inn, crouded with travellers, who dine at the landlord's ordinary, where there is a great profufion of victuals and drink; but mine hoft seems to be mifplaced-and I would rather dine upon filberts with a hermit, than feed upon venifon with a hog. The footmen might be aptly compared to the waiters of a tavern, if they were more ferviceable, and lefs rapacious; but they are generally infolent and inattentive, and fo greedy, that, I think, I can dine better, and for lefs expence, at the Star and Garter in Pall-mall, than at our coufin's castle in Yorkshire. The fquire is not only accommodated with a wife, but he is also bleffed with an only son, about two and twenty, juft returned from Italy, a complete fiddler and dilettante; and he flips no opportunity of manifefting the moft perfect contempt for his own father.

WHEN we arrived, there was a family of foreigners at the house, on a vifit to this virtuofo, with whom they had been acquainted at the Spa: It was the Count de Melville, with his lady, on their way to Scotland. Mr Burdock had met with an accident, in confequence of which both the count and I would have retired; but the young gentleman and his mother infifted upon our ftaying dinner, and their ferenity feemed to be fo little ruffled by what had happened, that we complied with their invitation. The fquire had been brought home over-night in his post-chaife, so terribly belabourVOL. VI. A a