as varied. And in this respect Cheltenham has a superiority over Leamington which the latter can never attain.

There is so imposing an air of formality and antiquity in that beautiful avenue of elm-trees, called "The Old Well Walk," which forms the principal feature of the "Original Spa," that one is tempted to select it, in preference to the more gay, varied, and improving gardens and pleasure-grounds of the Montpellier, for a morning "constitutional walk."* A double line of lofty, and well-feathered trees, forming a vista of twelve hundred feet in a direct line, terminated by the oldest church in Cheltenham, which is seen through the iron gate that admits the stranger into the walk from the Crescent, presents a stately promenade, highly calculated for the display of the gay and fashionable company which should frequent this, the oldest and the most genuine Spa in the place. In this respect the short and insignificant walk before the Long Room or entrance into the Montpellier Rotunda, is decidedly inferior to it; and as a well-wisher to Cheltenham, I venture to express a hope that the sacrilegious hand of the joint-stock company which has been committing havocks on the Bays Hill estate, once the favourite retreat of royalty, will not level to the ground this beautiful feature of the Old Spa.

On the other hand, we look in vain to the latter establishment for that magnificence and grandeur in its pump-room, which we had noticed in the Rotunda, or Central Saloon of the Montpellier.

Here, on the contrary, modest and unassuming, as every thing that smacks of old age is, the Pump or Promenaderoom consists of an ordinary long and narrow apartment, placed about the middle of the avenue, in which, as at the Rotunda, are seen the many spouts supplying, through the pumping system, that variety of mineral waters which it seems

It is represented by the vignette in the title-page of this volume.

to be the mania or fashion to require. There is, however, less of quackery in the present case; for, although No. 1 and No. 2, as well as No. 3 and No. 4, and even 5, all in a row, stare you in the face, at the good lady's counter who manages the concern, and you might feel disposed to look with doubt upon the source of all these waters,-yet, by walking a short distance away from the building, the several wells may be actually visited and examined. Among them is conspicuous the Original, or Old Well, situated in the very centre of the walk. This was opened on two occasions at my request, and water obtained immediately from it by means. of buckets, on which my observations were made and conclusions drawn, as was the case with water No. 2, already alluded to, and also with No. 5, or the strong muriated saline from the Orchard Well, which, however, is not now drank.

To another well in the garden, my attention was directed, the water of which is not brought into the Pumproom. I found in it manifest, though extremely slight indications of sulphureted gas, which I could no more detect in the socalled sulphureted saline of the Pumproom, than I or Sir Charles Scudamore had in the so-called sulphureted waters at No. 1 and No. 2 of the Rotunda. The fact is, there is not a genuine sulphureted water in Cheltenham.

Sir George Baker, one of the most amiable and classical physicians of the last century, first stamped the character and celebrity of the Original Spa by recommending the water of what has since been called the Old Well before alluded to, to the most illustrious patient in the realm-his sovereign, George III.-who was supposed to have recovered from a severe indisposition by drinking that particular water. That may be looked upon as having been the era in which the obscure little town of Cheltenham took its elan or first spring towards notoriety, and which led to all its subsequent brilliant and almost unexampled success.

Holding the mineral water of Cheltenham to be one and

the same in reality, though differing in intensity in some of the wells, it is not likely that we shall find any material variation in the taste of this or that number out of the great many that are exhibited, whether at the Original Spa, the Montpellier Spa, or at the Pittville. The general physical character is that of a gently saltish and rather bitter water. This impression, as usual, is modified by the addition of heat, or by dilution with ordinary hot water. But in the latter case its sensible effects on the system are considerably quickened.

299

CHAPTER XV.

CHELTENHAM CONCLUDED.

GENUINE Water at Cheltenham-Geological Structure-SOURCES of the Mineral Water-Author's Inquiries-Medical Effect-My Own Experience-ERRORS and CASES-Liver and Dyspepsia-The PITTVILLE -Its Superb Structure and Gardens-Its Mineral Springs-The CAMBRAY SPA-Recapitulation of the Good Effects of Cheltenham Water-The MONTPELLIER BATHS-Medical Attendants-The FOUR LEADING Physicians-A Growing Town and a Declining Spa-Building Mania-Value of Houses, and Architectural Taste-Aspect of Houses-The PROMENADE-JEARRAD the Beautifier of CheltenhamThe IMPERIAL HOTEL-Widow Joseph-Old Bachelors and Crusty Port-"THE QUEEN"-Inside and Out-EXPENSES at Hotels-A Specimen-Character of Society at Cheltenham-The HIGHER CLASSES Thirlestane House and LORD NORTHWICH'S Gallery—Arts, Letters, and Sciences-Periodicals and Reading-Rooms-AN ABOMINATION— Is Cheltenham a Dull Place ?-Subscription Balls-Musical Promenades-Out-of-door Amusements-CLIMATE.

Ir is a growing error on the part of the public, especially in the metropolis, to think that genuine mineral water is not now, or was never to be found in Cheltenham, and to talk flippantly, as one hears people do occasionally, nowadays, of the supposed prevalent practice of manufacturing and messing (as I heard a medical person say) the mineral waters. Take it as it is, whether as issuing, according to Mr. Murchison's supposition, from below the lias bed which overlays the whole vale of Gloucester, in the centre of which stands Cheltenham; or from between the lower strata only of the

said lias bed, according to another geologist of the place, and my own personal observation,—a mineral water charged principally with from twenty to fifty grains of common salt, and from a half to a drachm of glauber-salts, also with three to eight grains of the muriates of both lime and magnesia in a pint, exists, and may any day be found in Cheltenham, by sinking a well less than one hundred feet deep.*

Such a water, in passing through the several beds of lias and sometimes of the detritus from the oolitic rocks of the neighbouring hills, here and there spread over the subincumbent stratum of lias clay, is probably modified in its composition, and may acquire other properties. Still, the great and fundamental principles will ever be the same as originally

* At the back of Lansdowne-place not fewer than five wells have been sunk, communicating with each other by pipes gathered up into a pump, placed under cover. The springs, which run north and south, were found at a depth of one hundred feet, where the two estates of Mr. Thompson and Bays-hill adjoin. The blue clay was here found as deep as the borings had proceeded, namely, one hundred and fifteen feet, and it might be deeper. Conversing, one day, with the well-digger who was engaged at the time in an operation of that sort on the confines of the Bays-hill estate, I learned that the water of the five wells just mentioned, and that which he was then in search of, and which, indeed, he had found, was the same that had been discovered and much used for preparing the famed Thompson's salts twenty years ago. It was then distinguished from the rest by the number four; but since the alleged discovery of iodine and bromine in it by Mr. Cooper, it had been qualified still farther by the affix (a). To find this 4 (a) the diggers had seldom to proceed deeper than seventy feet, when the first "weepage" would be seen running horizontally (and not ascending perpendicularly) along with the dip of the strata of the lias, which is here from east to west. In order to find a full reservoir, however, they had frequently to go down as deep as one hundred feet; and it had been constantly observed by this man that the water was more strongly impregnated with saline particles the lower in the west end of the strata of clay they searched for it. That the spring of No. 4 (a) in the present instance ran westwardly, was proved by the sinking of the very well my informant was then engaged in completing which was done with the view to cut off the mineral water from the Bays-hill estate lying close and at the east.