 scourings of a foul gun. - It is generally supposed to be strongly
impregnated with sulphur; and Dr. Shaw, in his book upon mineral waters, says,
he has seen flakes of sulphur floating in the well. - Pace tanti viri; I, for my
part, have never observed any thing like sulphur, either in or about the well,
neither do I find that any brimstone has ever been extracted from the water. As
for the smell, if I may be allowed to judge from my own organs, it is exactly
that of bilge-water; and the saline taste of it seems to declare that it is
nothing else than salt water putrified in the bowels of the earth. I was obliged
to hold my nose with one hand, while I advanced the glass to my mouth with the
other; and after I had made shift to swallow it, my stomach could hardly retain
what it had received. - The only effects it produced were sickness, griping, and
insurmountable disgust. - I can hardly mention it without puking. - The world is
strangely misled by the affectation of singularity. I cannot help suspecting,
that this water owes its reputation in a great measure to its being so
strikingly offensive. - On the same kind of analogy, a German doctor has
introduced hemlock and other poisons, as specifics, into the materia medica. - I
am persuaded, that all the cures ascribed to the Harrigate water, would have
been as efficaciously, and infinitely more agreeably performed, by the internal
and external use of sea-water. Sure I am, this last is much less nauseous to the
taste and smell, and much more gentle in its operation as a purge, as well as
more extensive in its medical qualities.
    Two days ago, we went across the country to visit 'squire Burdock, who
married a first cousin of my father, an heiress, who brought him an estate of a
thousand a year. This gentleman is a declared opponent of the ministry in
parliament; and having an opulent fortune, piques himself upon living in the
country, and maintaining old English hospitality. - By the bye, this is a phrase
very much used by the English themselves, both in words and writing; but I never
heard of it out of the island, except by way of irony and sarcasm. What the
hospitality of our fore-fathers has been I should be glad to see recorded,
rather in the memoirs of strangers who have visited our country, and were the
proper objects and judges of such hospitality, than in the discourse and
lucubrations of the modern English
