stitutions broken down by dissipation and
profligacy; and ladies afflicted with a disease peculiar, in those days,
to both sexes, called the spleen--a malady which, under that name,
has long since disappeared, and is now known by the title of nervous
affection. There was a large public room, in imitation of the more
celebrated English watering-places, where the more respectable portion
of the company met and became acquainted, and where, also, balls and
dinners were occasionally held. Not a wreck of this edifice is now
standing, although, down to the days of Swift and Delany, it possessed
considerable celebrity, as is evident from the ingenious verses written
by his friend to the Dean upon this subject.

The principal individuals assembled at it on this occasion were Squire
Manifold, whose complaint, as was evident by his three chins, consisted
in a rapid tendency to obesity, which his physician had told him might
be checked, if he could prevail on himself to eat and drink with a less
gluttonous appetite, and take more exercise. He had already had a fit
of apoplexy, and it was the apprehension of another, with which he was
threatened, that brought him to the Spa. The next was Parson Topertoe,
whose great enemy was the gout, brought on, of course, by an ascetic and
apostolic life. The third was Captain Culverin, whose constitution had
suffered severely in the wars, but which he attempted to reinvigorate
by a course of hard drinking, in which he found, to his cost, that the
remedy was worse than the disease. There were also a great variety of
others, among whom were several widows whose healthy complexions were
anything but a justification for their presence there, especially in the
character of invalids. Mr. Goodwin, his wife, and daughter, we need not
enumerate. They lodged in the house of a respectable farmer, who lived
convenient to the village, where they found themselves exceedingly snug
and comfortable. In the next house to them lodged a Father Mulrenin, a
friar, who, although he attended the room and drank the waters, was an
admirable specimen of comic humor and robust health. There was also
a Miss Rosebud, accompanied by her mother, a blooming widow, who had
married old Rosebud, a wealthy bachelor, when he was near sixty. The
mother's complaint was also the spleen, or vapors; indeed, to tell the
truth, she was moved by an unconquerable and heroic determination to
replace poor old Rosebud by a second husband. The l