<p><SPAN name="link2H_4_0016" id="link2H_4_0016"></SPAN></p>
<h2> To Dr LEWIS. BATH, April 23. DEAR DOCTOR, </h2>
<p>If I did not know that the exercise of your profession has habituated you
to the hearing of complaints, I should make a conscience of troubling you
with my correspondence, which may be truly called the lamentations of
Matthew Bramble. Yet I cannot help thinking I have some right to discharge
the overflowings of my spleen upon you, whose province it is to remove
those disorders that occasioned it; and let me tell you, it is no small
alleviation of my grievances, that I have a sensible friend, to whom I can
communicate my crusty humours, which, by retention, would grow intolerably
acrimonious.</p>
<p>You must know, I find nothing but disappointment at Bath; which is so
altered, that I can scarce believe it is the same place that I frequented
about thirty years ago. Methinks I hear you say, 'Altered it is, without
all doubt: but then it is altered for the better; a truth which, perhaps,
you would own without hesitation, if you yourself was not altered for the
worse.' The reflection may, for aught I know, be just. The inconveniences
which I overlooked in the high-day of health, will naturally strike with
exaggerated impression on the irritable nerves of an invalid, surprised by
premature old age, and shattered with long-suffering—But, I believe,
you will not deny, that this place, which Nature and Providence seem to
have intended as a resource from distemper and disquiet, is become the
very centre of racket and dissipation. Instead of that peace,
tranquillity, and case, so necessary to those who labour under bad health,
weak nerves, and irregular spirits; here we have nothing but noise,
tumult, and hurry; with the fatigue and slavery of maintaining a
ceremonial, more stiff, formal, and oppressive, than the etiquette of a
German elector. A national hospital it may be, but one would imagine that
none but lunatics are admitted; and truly, I will give you leave to call
me so, if I stay much longer at Bath.—But I shall take another
opportunity to explain my sentiments at greater length on this subject—I
was impatient to see the boasted improvements in architecture, for which
the upper parts of the town have been so much celebrated and t'other day I
made a circuit of all the new buildings. The Square, though irregular, is,
on the whole, pretty well laid out, spacious, open, and airy; and, in my
opinion, by far the most wholesome and agreeable situation in Bath,
especially the upper side of it; but the avenues to it are mean, dirty,
dangerous, and indirect. Its communication with the Baths, is through the
yard of an inn, where the poor trembling valetudinarian is carried in a
chair, betwixt the heels of a double row of horses, wincing under the
curry-combs of grooms and postilions, over and above the hazard of being
obstructed, or overturned by the carriages which are continually making
their exit or their entrance—I suppose after some chairmen shall
have been maimed, and a few lives lost by those accidents, the corporation
will think, in earnest, about providing a more safe and commodious
passage. The Circus is a pretty bauble, contrived for shew, and looks like
Vespasian's amphitheatre turned outside in. If we consider it in point of
magnificence, the great number of small doors belonging to the separate
houses, the inconsiderable height of the different orders, the affected
ornaments of the architrave, which are both childish and misplaced, and
the areas projecting into the street, surrounded with iron rails, destroy
a good part of its effect upon the eye; and, perhaps, we shall find it
still more defective, if we view it in the light of convenience. The
figure of each separate dwelling-house, being the segment of a circle,
must spoil the symmetry of the rooms, by contracting them towards the
street windows, and leaving a larger sweep in the space behind. If,
instead of the areas and iron rails, which seem to be of very little use,
there had been a corridore with arcades all round, as in Covent-garden,
the appearance of the whole would have been more magnificent and striking;
those arcades would have afforded an agreeable covered walk, and sheltered
the poor chairmen and their carriages from the rain, which is here almost
perpetual. At present, the chairs stand soaking in the open street, from
morning to night, till they become so many boxes of wet leather, for the
benefit of the gouty and rheumatic, who are transported in them from place
to place. Indeed this is a shocking inconvenience that extends over the
whole city; and, I am persuaded, it produces infinite mischief to the
delicate and infirm; even the close chairs, contrived for the sick, by
standing in the open air, have their frize linings impregnated like so
many spunges, with the moisture of the atmosphere, and those cases of cold
vapour must give a charming check to the perspiration of a patient, piping
hot from the Bath, with all his pores wide open.</p>
<p>But, to return to the Circus; it is inconvenient from its situation, at so
great a distance from all the markets, baths, and places of public
entertainment. The only entrance to it, through Gay-street, is so
difficult, steep, and slippery, that in wet weather, it must be
exceedingly dangerous, both for those that ride in carriages, and those
that walk a-foot; and when the street is covered with snow, as it was for
fifteen days successively this very winter, I don't see how any individual
could go either up or down, without the most imminent hazard of broken
bones. In blowing weather, I am told, most of the houses in this hill are
smothered with smoke, forced down the chimneys, by the gusts of wind
reverberated from the hill behind, which (I apprehend likewise) must
render the atmosphere here more humid and unwholesome than it is in the
square below; for the clouds, formed by the constant evaporation from the
baths and rivers in the bottom, will, in their ascent this way, be first
attracted and detained by the hill that rises close behind the Circus, and
load the air with a perpetual succession of vapours: this point, however,
may be easily ascertained by means of an hygrometer, or a paper of salt of
tartar exposed to the action of the atmosphere. The same artist who
planned the Circus, has likewise projected a Crescent; when that is
finished, we shall probably have a Star; and those who are living thirty
years hence, may, perhaps, see all the signs of the Zodiac exhibited in
architecture at Bath. These, however fantastical, are still designs that
denote some ingenuity and knowledge in the architect; but the rage of
building has laid hold on such a number of adventurers, that one sees new
houses starting up in every out-let and every corner of Bath; contrived
without judgment, executed without solidity, and stuck together with so
little regard to plan and propriety, that the different lines of the new
rows and buildings interfere with, and intersect one another in every
different angle of conjunction. They look like the wreck of streets and
squares disjointed by an earthquake, which hath broken the ground into a
variety of holes and hillocks; or as if some Gothic devil had stuffed them
altogether in a bag, and left them to stand higgledy piggledy, just as
chance directed. What sort of a monster Bath will become in a few years,
with those growing excrescences, may be easily conceived: but the want of
beauty and proportion is not the worst effect of these new mansions; they
are built so slight, with the soft crumbling stone found in this
neighbourhood, that I shall never sleep quietly in one of them, when it
blowed (as the sailors say) a cap-full of wind; and, I am persuaded, that
my hind, Roger Williams, or any man of equal strength, would be able to
push his foot through the strongest part of their walls, without any great
exertion of his muscles. All these absurdities arise from the general tide
of luxury, which hath overspread the nation, and swept away all, even the
very dregs of the people. Every upstart of fortune, harnessed in the
trappings of the mode, presents himself at Bath, as in the very focus of
observation—Clerks and factors from the East Indies, loaded with the
spoil of plundered provinces; planters, negro-drivers, and hucksters from
our American plantations, enriched they know not how; agents,
commissaries, and contractors, who have fattened, in two successive wars,
on the blood of the nation; usurers, brokers, and jobbers of every kind;
men of low birth, and no breeding, have found themselves suddenly
translated into a state of affluence, unknown to former ages; and no
wonder that their brains should be intoxicated with pride, vanity, and
presumption. Knowing no other criterion of greatness, but the ostentation
of wealth, they discharge their affluence without taste or conduct,
through every channel of the most absurd extravagance; and all of them
hurry to Bath, because here, without any further qualification, they can
mingle with the princes and nobles of the land. Even the wives and
daughters of low tradesmen, who, like shovel-nosed sharks, prey upon the
blubber of those uncouth whales of fortune, are infected with the same
rage of displaying their importance; and the slightest indisposition
serves them for a pretext to insist upon being conveyed to Bath, where
they may hobble country-dances and cotillons among lordlings, squires,
counsellors, and clergy. These delicate creatures from Bedfordbury,
Butcher-row, Crutched-friers, and Botolph-lane, cannot breathe in the
gross air of the Lower Town, or conform to the vulgar rules of a common
lodging-house; the husband, therefore, must provide an entire house, or
elegant apartments in the new buildings. Such is the composition of what
is called the fashionable company at Bath; where a very inconsiderable
proportion of genteel people are lost in a mob of impudent plebeians, who
have neither understanding nor judgment, nor the least idea of propriety
and decorum; and seem to enjoy nothing so much as an opportunity of
insulting their betters.</p>
<p>Thus the number of people, and the number of houses continue to increase;
and this will ever be the case, till the streams that swell this
irresistible torrent of folly and extravagance, shall either be exhausted,
or turned into other channels, by incidents and events which I do not
pretend to foresee. This, I own, is a subject on which I cannot write with
any degree of patience; for the mob is a monster I never could abide,
either in its head, tail, midriff, or members; I detest the whole of it,
as a mass of ignorance, presumption, malice and brutality; and, in this
term of reprobation, I include, without respect of rank, station, or
quality, all those of both sexes, who affect its manners, and court its
society.</p>
<p>But I have written till my fingers are crampt, and my nausea begins to
return—By your advice, I sent to London a few days ago for half a
pound of Gengzeng; though I doubt much, whether that which comes from
America is equally efficacious with what is brought from the East Indies.
Some years ago a friend of mine paid sixteen guineas for two ounces of it;
and, in six months after, it was sold in the same shop for five shillings
the pound. In short, we live in a vile world of fraud and sophistication;
so that I know nothing of equal value with the genuine friendship of a
sensible man; a rare jewel! which I cannot help thinking myself in
possession of, while I repeat the old declaration, that I am, as usual,</p>
<p>Dear Lewis, Your affectionate M. BRAMBLE,</p>
<p>After having been agitated in a short hurricane, on my first arrival, I
have taken a small house in Milsham-street, where I am tolerably well
lodged, for five guineas a week. I was yesterday at the Pump-room, and
drank about a pint of water, which seems to agree with my stomach; and
to-morrow morning I shall bathe, for the first time; so that in a few
posts you may expect farther trouble; mean while, I am glad to find that
the inoculation has succeeded so well with poor Joyce, and that her face
will be but little marked. If my friend Sir Thomas was a single man, I
would not trust such a handsome wench in his family; but as I have
recommended her, in a particular manner, to the protection of lady G—,
who is one of the best women in the world, she may go thither without
hesitation as soon as she is quite recovered and fit for service—Let
her mother have money to provide her with necessaries, and she may ride
behind her brother on Bucks; but you must lay strong injunctions on Jack,
to take particular care of the trusty old veteran, who has faithfully
earned his present ease by his past services.</p>
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