Oil l/ie Neglect of the Bath }yaters. 29 



sunk in reputation; how undeservedly, will appear in the sequel. 

 Had they not been possessed of active properties, but, like 

 many fountains that might be named, derived a spurious cha- 

 racter from some saint or legend, it might be imagined that a 

 superstitious belief in their efficacy had yielded to the general 

 spread of knowledge in this enlightened age. But even those 

 who mainly contribute towards their decline, have never pre- 

 sumed to tax them with inefficiency ; and it will not be difficult 

 to shew that if, in any instances, they have proved hurtful, they 

 are infinitely less so than the remedies which their opposers 

 would fain have preferred to them. 



Without further preamble, then, I shall proceed to answer 

 the question proposed. In the first place, it appears to be the 

 effect of one of those revolutions which are continually happen- 

 ing in the moral, as well as in the natural, world ; and from 

 that view of the subject we shall derive satisfaction, for it would 

 be as absurd now to suppose that these salutary springs will 

 not recover their celebrity, as it was a few years since to dread 

 an approaching assimilation of our climate to that of Spitzber- 

 gen or Nova Zembla, because a few successive summers had 

 proved below the average temperature. Let it not, however, be 

 conceived that I am so sanguine as to expect they will as sud- 

 denly regain their character, as the climate has through the 

 occurrence of the hot and dry summer of 181>^. In the moral 

 world the progress of change is somewhat more slow, but 

 scarcely less certain than in the natural ; and therefore I feel 

 persuaded that, although we may not " return to nature" with 

 Mr. Newton and Sir Richard Phillips, v/e shall certainly, one 

 day or other, return to the use of the Bath waters with common 

 sense and experience for our guides. 



It is not enough, however, to have referred these phenomena 

 to certain revolutions. It will be necessary to inquire by what 

 agency they have been produced. As it is not my object, 

 however, to compose a treatise upon climate, I shall confine 

 my remarks to the immediate agents through which the moral, 

 or rather medical, change under consideration appears to have 

 been effected. 



