Domiphobia, they may be divided, as in the cafe of other diforders, into remote, proximate, and occafiOnal. On thefe I fhall not be prolix. It is a great miftake, how ever, to afcribe this diforder to low living, or a poor diet. If that were the cafe, the poor would be afflicted by it, particularly this feafon. But the fact is, it attacks perfons who live well, freely, upon a generous diet. Exceflive in dulgence never fails to bring it on, and it is remarkable, that thofe who have once indulged, are fure to have a relapfe the following year. I fcarce know an inftance to the contrary. The mental affections are alfo to be taken into the account, and I have known cafes where it was brought on merely by talking about it; a wonderful proof of the intimate connection betwixt the mind and the body. That there is an affection of the head, cannot well be doubted, from its being almost always attended with giddinefs, wanderings, vain fears, and fometimes downright raving, the patient perpetually talking of balls, dances, breakfafis, raffles, fubfcriptions, and other things, which very feldom much occupy the attention of perfons of found minds and robuft health. I have now, fir, communicated the refult of pretty accurate obfervation, and fome practice in this diforder. I am aware, that, in the curative part, I have failed to impart much information. The fact is, and I honeftly confefs it, I have fucceeded in very few cafes, and thofe were chiefly where the diforder was flight. Taken at the beginning, much may be done, but the patients are very apt to On Watering Places. From the fame. I AM a country gentleman, and enjoy an ettate in Northamptonfhire, which formerly enabled its poffeffors to affume fome degree of confequence in the country; but which, for feveral generations, has been growing lefs, only because it has not grown bigger. I mean, that though I have not yet been obliged to raortgage my land, or fell my timber its relative value is every day diminithing by the prodigious influx of wealth, real and artificial, which for fome time paft has been pouring into this kingdom. Hitherto however I have found my income equal to my wants. It has enabled me to conceal it, probably from motives of delicacy, until it acquires ftrength which common remedies will not oppofe. The indications are likewife fometimes fo complicated, that one does not know how to obviate one fyftem without encreafing the violence of another. What can be done where there is an inflammatory tendency, accompanied by lownefs and weakness, a very common form of the difeafe? I muft, therefore, close the subject for the prefent, with obferving, that an eminent phyfician of niy acquaintance, Dr. Abraham Newland, has a very elegant form of prefcription, which I never knew any patient refuse to take; but it is liable to the fame objections I have already mentioned, namely, that it will not prevent a relapse. ' I am, Sir, Your very humble fervant, Warwick-Lane, May 9th. intrabit ! inhabit a good house in town for four months of the year, and to refide amongst my tenants and neighbours for the remaining eight with credit and hofpitality. I am indeed myself fo fond of the country, and so averse in my nature to every thing of hurry and bufile, that, if I confulted only my own tatte, I should never feel a wish to leave the shelter of my own oaks in the dreariest season of the year; but I looked upon our annual vifit to London as a proper compliance with the gayer difpofition of my wife, and the natural curiofity of the younger part of the family: befides, to say the truth, it had its advantages in avoiding a round of dinners and card parties, which we must otherwise have engaged in for the winter season, or have been branded with the appellation of unsociable. Our journey gave me an opportunity of furnishing my ftudy with some new books and prints; and my wife of gratifying her neighbours with fome ornamental trifles, before their value was funk by becoming common, or of producing at her table, or in her furniture, fome new invented refinement of fashionable elegance. Our hall was the first that was lighted by the lamp d'Argand; and I ftill remember how we were gratified by the astonishment of our guests, when my wife with an audible voice called to the foot-man for the tongs to help to the alparagus with. We found it pleasant too to be enabled to talk of capital artists and favourite actors; and I made the better figure in my political debates from having heard the most popular speakers in the houfe. Once too, to recruit my wife's spirits, after a tedious confine ment from a lying-in, we patted a season at Bath. In this manner therefore things went on very well in the main, till of late my fa mily have discovered that we lead a very dull kind of life, and that it is impoffible to exist with com fort, or indeed to enjoy a tolerable share of health, without fpending a good part of every fumnier at a Watering-place. I held out as long as I could. One may be al lowed to refift the plans of diffi pation, but the plea of health cannot decently be withstood. It was foon difcovered that my eldest daughter wanted bracing, and my wife had a bilious complaint, against which our family phyfician declared, that fea bathing would be particularly serviceable. Therefore, though it was my own private opinion that my daughters nerves might have been as well braced by morning rides upon the Northamptonshire hills, as by evening dances in the pub lic rooms, and that my wife's bile, would have been greatly leifened by compliance with her husband, I acquiefced; and preparations were made for our journey. Thefn indeed were but flight, for the chief gratification proposed in this fcheme was, an entire freedom from care and form find every thing requifite in our lodgings; it was of no confequence whether the rooms we thould occu py for a few months in the fummer, were elegant or not, the fimplicity of a country life would be the more enjoyed by the littlethifts we should be put to, and all neceffaries would be provided in our lodgings. It was not there fore till atter we had taken them, that We thould that we difcovered how far ready furnished lodgings were from affording every article in the catalogue of neceffaries. We did not indeed give them a very fcrupulous examination, for the place was fo full, that when we arrived late at night and tired with our journey, all the beds at the inn were taken up, and an easy chair and a carpet were all the accommodations we could obtain for our repofe. The next morning, therefore, we eagerly engaged the firft lodgings we found vacant, and have ever fince been difputing about the terms, which from the hurry were not fufficiently ascertained; and it is not even yet fettled whether the little blue garret which ferves us as a powdering room, is ours of right or by favour. The want of all forts of conveniences is a conftant excufe for the want of all order and neatnefs, which is fo vifible in our apartment; and we are continually lamenting that we are obliged to buy things of which we have fuch plenty at home. It is my misfortune that I can do nothing without all my little conveniences about me; and in order to write a common letter I must have my study table to lean my elbows on in fedentary luxury; you will judge therefore how little I am able to employ my leifure, when I tell you, that the only room they have been able to allot for my ufe is fo filled and crowded with my daughters hat-boxes, band boxes, wig-boxes, &c. that I can fcarcely move about in it, and am this moment writing upon a fpare trunk for want of a table. I am therefore driven to faunter about with the reft of the party; but in ftead of the fine clumps of trees, and waving fields of corn I have been accustomed to have before my eyes, I fee nothing but a naked beach, almoft without a tree, expofed by turns to the cutting eaftern blaft, and the glare of a July fun, and covered with a fand equally painful to the eyes and to the feet. The ocean is indeed an object of unfpeakable grandeur; but when it has been contemplated in a ftorm and in a calm, when we have feen the fun rife out of its bofom and the moon filver its extended furface, its variety is exhaufted, and the eye begins to require the fofter and more interefting fcenes of cultivated nature, My family have indeed been perfuaded feveral times to enjoy the fea itill more, by engaging in a little failing party; but as, unfortunately, Northamptonshire has not afforded them any opportunity of becoming feasoned failors, thete parties of pleafure are always attended with the moft dreadful ficknefs. This likewife I am told is very good for the conftitution; it may be fo for aught I know, but I confefs I am apt to imagine that taking an emetic at home would be equally falutary, and I am sure it would be more decent. Nor can I help imagining that my youngest daughter's lover has been lefs affiduous, fince he has contemplated her in the indelicate fituation of a fhip cabin. I have endeavoured to amufe myself with the company, but without much fuccefs; it confifts of a few very great people, who make a fet by themselves, and think they are entitled, by the freedom of a watering place, to indulge themselves in all manner of polijonneries; and the reft is a motley motley group of fharpers, merchants' clerks, kept miftreffes, idle men, and nervous women. I have been accustomed to be nice in my choice of acquaintance, efpecially for my family; but the greater part of our connections here, are fuch as we fhould be afhamed to acknowledge any where elfe, and the few we have feen above ourselves will equally difclaim us when we meet in town next winter. As to the fettled inhabitants of the place, all who do not get by us view us with diflike, because we raise the price of provifions; and thofe who do, which, in one way or other, comprehends all the lower clafs, have loft every trace of rural fimplicity, and are verfed in all the arts of low cunning and chicane. The fpirit of greedinefs and rapacity is no where fo confpicuous as in the lodging-houses. At our feat in the country, our domeftic concerns went on as by clock-work; a quarter of an hour in a week fettled the bills, and few tradefmen wifhed, and none dared, to practise any impofition where all were known, and the confequence of their different behaviour muft have been their being marked, for life, for encouragement or for diftruft. But here the continual ⚫ fluctuation of company takes away all regard to character; the moit refpectable and ancient families have no influence any farther than as they scatter their ready cafh, and neither gratitude nor refpect are felt where there is no bond of mutual attachment, befides the neceffities of the prefent day. I fhould be happy if we had only to contend with this fpirit during our prefent excursion, but the effect it VOL. XXXVIII, has upon fervants is moft pernicious. Our family ufed to be remarkable for having its domeftics grow grey in its fervice, but this expedition has already corrupted them; two we have this evening parted with, and the reft have learned fo much of the tricks of their ftation, that we fhall be obliged to difcharge them as foon as we return home. In the country, I had been accustomed to do good to the poor; there are charities here too; we have joined in a subfcription for a crazy poetefs, a raffle for the fupport of a fharper, who paffes under the title of a German Count, and a benefit play for a gentleman on board the Hulks. Unfortunately, to balance thefe various expences, this place, which happens to be a great refort of fmugglers, affords daily oppor tunities of making bargains. We drink fpoiled teas, under the idea of their being cheap, and the little room we have is made lefs by the reception of cargoes of India taffeties, fhawl-muilins, and real chintzes. chintzes. All my authority here would be exerted in vain; for, I do not know whether you know it or no, the buying of a bargain is a temptation which it is not in the nature of any woman to refift 'I am in hopes however the business may receive fome little check from an incident which happened a little time fince: an acquaintance of our's returning from Margate, had his carriage feized by the Cuftonhoufe officers, on account of a piece of filk, which one of his female coufins, without his knowledge, had ftowed in it; and it was only releafed by its bing proved that what fhe had bought with fo much fatisfaction as conLi traband, traband, was in reality the homebred manufacture of Spital-fields. My family used to be remarkable for regularity in their attendance on public worthip; but that too here is numbered amongst the amusements of the place. Lady Huntingdon has a chapel, which sometimes attracts us; and when nothing promises us any particular entertainment, a tea-drinking at the rooms, or a concert of what is called facred mufic, is fufficient to draw us from a church, where no one will remark either our abfence or our presence. Thus we daily become more lax in our conduct, for want of the falutary restraint imposed upon us by the confcioufness of being looked up to as an example by others. In this manner, fir, has the fea-fon past away. I spend a great deal of money and make no figure; I am in the country and fee nothing of country fimplicity, or country occupations; I am in an obscure village, and yet cannot ftir out without more observers than if I were walking in St. James's Park; I am cooped up in Jess room than my own dog-kennel, while my spacious halls are injured by ftanding empty; and I am paying for tasteless unripe fruit, while my own choice wall-fruit is rotting by buthels under the trees. -In recompenfe for all this, we have the fatisfaction of knowing that we orcupy the very rooms which my lord-bad just quitted; of picking up anecdotes, true or falte, of people in bigh life; and of feizing the ridicule of every character as they pats by us in the moving thow glats of the place, a pattime which often affords us a good deal of mirth, but which, I confefs, I can never join in without reflecting that what is our amusement is their's likewife. As to the great oftenfible object of our excursion, health, I am afraid we cannot boast of much improvement. We have had a wet and cold fummer; and these houses, which are either old tenements vamped up, or new ones flightly run up for the accommodation of bathers during the season, have more contrivances for letting in the cooling breezes than for keeping them out, a circumftance which I should prefume fagacious physicians, do not always attend to, when they or. der patients from their own warm, compact, substantial houses, to take the air in country lodgings, of which the best apartments, during the winter, have only been inhabited by the rats, and where the poverty of the landlord prevents him from laying out more in repairs than will ferve to give them a thowy and attractive appearance. Be that as it may, the rooms we at present inhabit are so pervious to the breeze, that in spite of all the ingenious expedients of litting doors, pafting paper on the infide of cupboards, laying fand bag, puttying crevices, and condemning closet-doors, it has given me a severe touch of my old rheumatiim, and all my family are in one way or other affected with it; my eideft daughter too has got cold with ber bathing, though the fea water never gives any body cold. In anfwer to these complaints, I am told by the good company here, that I have itayed too long in the fame air, and that now I ought to take a trip to the con tinent, and spend the winter at Nice, which would complete the bylinela |