A TRIP TO THE SPAS.
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CHAPTER II.
The Spas--Medicinal Properties--Interesting specimens of
the Picturesque--"Spasmodic Affections from Spa Waters"--
Grotesque Scripture--The Goddess Hygeia--Humorous Epitaph--
Characters in the High Street--Traveller's Hall, or Sketches
in the Commercial Room at the Bell Inn, Cheltenham.
"For walks and for waters, for beaux and for belles,
There's nothing in nature to rival their wells."
Inquisitive traveller, if you would see the Well-walks in perfection,
you must rise early, and take a sip of the saline aperients before you
taste of the more substantial meal which the _Plough_-man. Naylor, or
the Cheltenham _Bell_-man, or the _Shep-herd_ of the _Fleece_, will be
sure to prepare for your morning mastication. Fashion always requires
some talismanic power to draw her votaries together, beyond the mere
healthful attractions of salubrious air, pleasant rides, romantic
scenery, and cheerful society; and this magnet the Chelts possess in the
acknowledged medicinal properties of their numerous spas, the superior
qualities of which have been thus pleasantly poetized:--
"They're a healthful, and harmless, and purgative potion,
And as purely saline as the wave of the ocean,
Whilst their rapid effects like a----
----Hush! never mind;
We'll leave their effects altogether behind.
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