and intention of the apostolic injunctions, but have entirely perverted the words as well as the objects of some of them; and what is still worse, you have interpolated and mixed up with the worship of the Founder of our religion, the worship of many of his sainted followers, constituting them and addressing them as mediators or intercessors between God and his creatures; whereas the only mediator is, and can only be, the Divine Founder himself.

"You have been unmindful of the apostolic counsel to the Colossians, Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the TRADITIONS of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ.'

"You have, in fact, so altered the substance as well as the principles of the christian worship, that, compared with the best account we possess of the primitive church, it would be difficult to believe the religion of that church and yours to have sprung from the same source: and these vast differences you only began to introduce two, three, and even four hundred years after the foundation of the faith, and some of them even at a much later epoch.

"Had the christian religion, like all the human systems of knowledge, been one susceptible of gradual improvement, then the progressive changes you have introduced into it might have been accepted, if necessary, in order to forward its amelioration. But the religion of Christ, like himself, was perfect at its birth; and his injunctions to the Apostles were not to amend, improve, or add to the code of doctrines, principles, and precepts which during his lifetime he had revealed, preached, and enforced by his example; but to go and preach the kingdom of God,' in the manner he had himself taught, as necessary to constitute a christian, and to ensure his salvation.

"That church, therefore, is less likely to be wrong which is the least removed from the rites, tenets, and doctrines of those primitive times; and such is the case with the Angli

can church and may God vouchsafe that the church of Rome of the last sixteen hundred years may return to the state of faith and practice of the church of Rome of seventeen or eighteen hundred years ago, resuming her former purity and sanctitude."

218

CHAPTER X.

LEAMINGTON.

ORIGIN and rapid Progress of Leamington-What it was, and what it is -The ROYAL HOTEL-Company-Table d'Hôte-Socialism-Accommodation -The MORE FASHIONABLE HOTELS-The Lansdowne and the Clarendon-The Imperial-The Regent and its Table d'Hôte-Charges extravagant LODGINGS and Furnished Houses-New Buildings— Eligible Situations-Streets and Shops-Reckless Speculations-Ruin rather than Fortune-Who is the Cause ?-The ROYAL PUMPROOMIts Architecture and Defects-The SALOON-The Public Walks and MALL-Aristocratic Patients-North-west Winds and Early FogsThe MINERAL WATER-Pumping again-Physical Character and Taste of the Saline-First Impressions-Its Use in Medicine-The FIVE WELLS-Analysis of Leamington Water-Pretended Sulphur Water at the Pumproom-Its probable Source-MRS. LEE's Sulphur Well -Lawyers not friendly to Mineral Waters-The OLD WELL-to be Preferred Mode of Drinking it-The ORIGINAL WELL-Goold's Establishment the best at Leamington-BATHS-The Leamington Salts -Mineral Water genuine and abundant at Leamington.

Few of my readers who have reached "years of discretion" will fail to recollect that eighteen or twenty years ago Leamington was almost a terra incognita to the élite of society in this country. What is it then which has changed so quickly the station of that Spa in the estimation of the public, and, for the last ten years, but particularly within the last seven years, has caused the said élite to congregate together

in that place in countless numbers, determined to go thither and nowhere else? For that there are at that Spa, at this very moment of my writing, dukes and their duchesses, marquesses, earls, and barons, with their coroneted partners -not to mention the many Ladies Augustas and Louisas, baronets and their spouses, besides military knights and their ladies-no one can affect to be ignorant, who peruses those daily gossips of fashion, the newspapers.

This is a problem we must endeavour to solve.

Dr. Short, a learned Theban in his days, howbeit he dwelt and wrote in such a place as Sheffield, proclaimed in his two large quarto volumes on the mineral waters of England, exactly one hundred years ago, that people strove in vain to make something of the mineral springs of Leamington; for that, instead of containing nitre, as it had been pretended by some cunning resident doctor, they were nothing but "a puddle of weak briny water."

There was, therefore, a Leamington, and something of a mineral water in it, even a century ago; but nobody thought of the one nor cared for the other, until a rhyming cobbler, Satchwell, assisted by an honest friend, set about erecting baths for the invalids, and procure decent accommodation for their service. Success so far crowned his endeavours, that it was soon found necessary to look out for some more mineral water besides the one already known, in the discovery of which Satchwell and his friend were not disappointed.

Still the place continued in obscurity for many years, notwithstanding the preceding efforts of half-a-dozen physicians from Coventry, Birmingham, and Northampton, to bring it into notice; and the visit of a solitary specimen of aristocracy to the Wells, "an Honourable Mistress Leigh," is recorded in the history of the times, as a proof of the wonderful progress the Spa had made towards notoriety.

It was Dr. Lambe who, in 1794, in a paper descriptive of the Leamington waters, published in one of the volumes of

the "Memoirs of the Manchester Philosophical Society," first gave Leamington that lift to fame, which attracted thither not fewer than three duchesses in one season, who determined at once to bring Leamington to a par with Cheltenham, then in great vogue, and likely to cast Bath and every other Spa into the shade.

A search was instituted for more water, and again it was found. This made the fourth spring discovered in the place since the "briny puddle" of Dr. Short. A fifth, a sixth, and a seventh, however, came in sight in the course of time; so that, by the end of the year 1816, just twentyfive years ago, Leamington Priors boasted altogether of as many mineral springs as Cheltenham. Indeed, it seems to me that, as fast as the last-mentioned fashionable wateringplace added to its discovered treasures of mineral waters, Leamington, to keep pace, as it were, with its rival, never failed to discover soon after an equal number of springs.

All these, nearly clustered together, were found in what is called the Old Town, or more properly speaking, in the original village south of the river Leam, with the exception of one which lies to the north, and close to the bank of that river. Beginning at that spot, over which what is called the Royal Pumproom has been raised, a new town, spreading wide to the eastward and to the westward, and creeping up a gentle acclivity northwards, has been forming within the last twelve years, and is still progressing.

Such is the brief history of this now highly fashionable Spa, which, a little more than thirty years ago, had only "The Dog" and the " Bowling Green" as houses of entertainment to tempt the visiters withal; besides a few rustic cottages for the convenience of the invalids; but which now boasts of a dozen of the most superb hotels in England.

My pied à terre on this, as upon a former occasion, was the Royal Hotel, for it lies handy in the way of one who