 with him all the knavish chicanery of the lowest pettifogger,
together with a wife whom he had purchased of a drayman for twenty pounds; and
he soon found means to obtain a dedimus as an acting justice of peace. He is not
only a sordid miser in his disposition, but his avarice is mingled with a spirit
of despotism, which is truly diabolical. - He is a brutal husband, an unnatural
parent, a harsh master, an oppressive landlord, a litigious neighbour, and a
partial magistrate. - Friends he has none; and in point of hospitality and good
breeding, our cousin Burdock is a prince in comparison of this ungracious
miscreant, whose house is the lively representation of a gaol. Our reception was
suitable to the character I have sketched. Had it depended upon the wife, we
should have been kindly treated. - She is really a good sort of a woman, in
spite of her low original, and well respected in the county; but she has not
interest enough in her own house to command a draught of table-beer, far less to
bestow any kind of education on her children, who run about like ragged colts,
in a state of nature. - Pox on him! he is such a dirty fellow, that I have not
patience to prosecute the subject.
    By that time we reached Harrigate, I began to be visited-by certain
rheumatic symptoms. The Scotch lawyer, Mr. Micklewhimmen, recommended a hot bath
of these waters so earnestly, that I was over-persuaded to try the experiment. -
He had used it often with success, and always stayed an hour in the bath, which
was a tub filled with Harrigate water, heated for the purpose. If I could hardly
bear the smell of a single tumbler when cold, you may guess how my nose was
regaled by the steams arising from a hot bath of the same fluid. At night, I was
conducted into a dark hole on the ground floor, where the tub smoaked and stunk
like the pot of Acheron, in one corner, and in another stood a dirty bed
provided with thick blankets, in which I was to sweat after coming out of the
bath. My heart seemed to die within me when I entered this dismal bagnio, and
found my brain assaulted by such insufferable effluvia. - I cursed Micklewhimmen
for not considering that my organs were formed on this side of the Tweed; but
being ashamed to recoil upon the threshold, I submitted to the process.
    After having endured all but real suffocation for above a quarter of an hour
in the tub, I was moved
