or have there been good and substantial reasons for the change? At one time it was Cheltenham and Boisragon; now it is Leamington and Jephson! In the meanwhile, the former place, in ceasing to be a Spa, has become a town of great resort and importance, even to the obtaining of the high privilege of being represented in parliament: while the latter is as yet only striving to be what its more successful rival and predecessor in popular favour is become already, even at the same risk and penalty of ceasing to be a Spa.

Be that as it may, no doubt exists but that a particular mineral water, and its due application to the cure of disease, was the main cause of giving to Cheltenham a locality and a name; and as such, therefore, I visited it on the occasion of which I am about to record all such particulars as are likely to interest or be useful to my readers.

The approach to the region of this Spa from Warwickshire is far more interesting to an observing traveller than either of the southern roads leading to it. Traversing for a considerable distance the same flat and tame sort of country as was observed around Stratford, our way laid at length to the top of a considerable eminence, from which a very extensive and rich valley opens to view, Worcestershire on the right, and Gloucester on the left sharing its beauties. Rounded hillocks appeared in successive lines, like the halves of so many gigantic beads laid on the ground, many of them thickly wooded, others in a state of more profitable cultivation.

The nearest road from the Victoria Spa to Cheltenham, would be that which passes at the foot of that remarkable range of hills which traverses nearly the whole length of the vale of Gloucester, in a north-east and south-west direction. But the conductor of a public conveyance often prefers a more circuitous route, for many and very substantial reasons ;· and such was the case on the present occasion, when a détour by Alcester and Evesham was made in consequence.

Passing the latter town, which is well placed and clean looking, and crossing the Avon, over a narrow, ancient bridge, the road insensibly deviates more westwardly, as if intending to reach Tewkesbury. But it has no sooner neared that imposing peak, Bredon-hill, noticed in our chapter on Malvern, when coursing between it and two other important hills, the great and little Washbourn, the latter of which, richly cultivated all over, it skirts nearly parallel-it suddenly deflects southwardly at Teddington Cross, and descends continuously in nearly a straight line down into Cheltenham.

The sun was lighting up the broad western face of the Cleave-hills, which rise nearly twelve hundred feet in height, and shelter the town from the north-eastern gales; and the undulating and ever changing character of the high ground on our left, variously coloured by its rays, as we rapidly passed in front, offered a striking as well as pleasing contrast with the table-land at the foot of it, cultivated to the very edge of the road, though the soil be far from favourable for that purpose.

The entrance into the precincts of Cheltenham, by the Evesham gate, as one might call it, is calculated to make a most favourable impression on the stranger. The templelike Spa building, called PITTVILLE, which first presents itself with its many columned portico facing the road, and the Pittville gardens that follow, with their fine row of houses flanking them to the east for a quarter of a mile, are the objects that rivet the attention of the traveller. His eye tracing afterwards the line of the Pitville-parade, and Portlandstreet, which runs thence southwardly down into the town, sees the latter spread as it were below him, at the bottom of a broad cup, with the outlines of an imposing mass of human habitations, crossed by the oldest street, High-street, right and left, and by the insignificant Chelt, a stream hardly known to visiters.

For old acquaintance-sake I put up at the Plough, an establishment which, with all the bustle and appearance of a large country inn, combines the comforts and neatness of one of your best hotels of a more townly character. That it is liked by many of the easy and upper classes of society is proved by the fact that it is almost always full; and but for the migratory nature of its inmates, the chances of getting even a mere pied à terre in it would be poor indeed. But of this and other hotels something more anon. My present purpose must be with the spa-features of Cheltenham.

There are four establishments in this far-famed wateringplace, which have contributed to give it the character it once enjoyed in London, and to which it still clings, of a first-rate Spa, or the Spa of spas in fact. These vie with each other, by all arts and schemes imaginable, to centre individually in themselves the attention and patronage of the visiters.

If importance, as determined by public opinion only, often capricious and not rarely fallacious, instead of mere chronology, were to decide to which of the four ought to be assigned the first place, the palm should unquestionably be yielded to "the Montpellier," and next to the "Original Spa," followed by the Pittville and the Cambray Chalybeate.

The first of these, in its present or more modern shape, is a giant of comparatively recent growth, (as compared to the second,) which has absorbed almost all other establishments, and annihilated almost every competitor. Through which means and upon what grounds will be seen hereafter. The second, besides the sort of venerability that attaches to the seniors in anything, has the charm of historical recollections connected with it-recollections which are intimately mixed up with the inherent loyalty of a most loyal nation. Its means of maintaining its ground with the public have not been of so dashing a description as those resorted to by its more successful rival; and yet its grounds for maintaining a

high standing, a standing equal, and in one respect, as a mineral-water source, superior, to that of its rival, are indisputable. The Pittville, for grandeur and beauty of architecture (barring some provoking eyesores) for its situation, and, let me add, for the genuineness of its spring (for such is my conviction), commands admiration, and is, perhaps, the finest establishment of the sort in England. As for "the Chalybeate," or Cambray Spa, the fourth and last of the Cheltenham Spas under consideration, no effort will ever make it rise to more than its present mediocre station. In the light of an auxiliary, in the treatment of diseases through the agency of the Cheltenham saline waters, the Chalybeate may be considered as useful. But to render it a paramount source of general patronage and important results, like the chalybeates in Germany, it should, like them, be sparkling with a profusion of carbonic-acid gas, instead of lying, as it does, flat and stale at its source, with its heavy mineral.

To the first of these four establishments the reader will now be pleased to accompany me, ascending for that purpose the bustling street in which the Plough is situated, as far as what is called the Colonnade, and thence, following a dashing line of promenades and drives, flanked on the right by handsome and first-rate houses, and terminated by the showy hotel, called "the Queen"-enter by a crooked and narrow avenue," into the Montpellier Walk-and so on into the Great Rotunda. Here it is, principally, that the mineral water, which during the last thirty years has enjoyed so extensive a renown under the name of Cheltenham water, is distributed; and here it was, that in the palmy days of Cheltenham, the visiters thronged in almost countless numbers. They still frequent the place during the summer season, which extends from May to the end of October; but an idea may be formed of the diminution in their numbers, when I state that the Subscribers'-book in the room, which I inspected on my

arrival, could boast of eighty-two names only, inscribed during the entire of that month.

Many thousand pounds (so public report says) were expended in the erection of this splendid room and adjoining premises, by the successor of a gentleman to whom it is yet doubtful whether Cheltenham will owe any very heavy debt of gratitude. Henry Thompson, Esq., a person endowed with a spirit of adventurous enterprise, which from early life had led him to various parts of the world, came at length to settle in Cheltenham, in 1809, attracted by the reputation of its mineral water, at that time derived only from what has since been called "the Royal Old Wells." With the eye of a skilful speculator, he saw at once how much there was to be done in the place by energy and some ready cash. Having brought with him a sum of ten thousand pounds, he instantly set about buying land in the immediate vicinity of the Old Well; sinking wells in his, turn; discovering some new mineral water at every step, each differing from the other;