His relaxations from town and Temple studies further showed the respect he had for his eminent guardian. During a country excursion he stood in a blanket at the door of York Minster. He professed to be doing penance for his sins, and the clergy cut jokes with him as they passed. He performed this pretty trick for a poor wager of half-a-dozen guineas, and he performed a worse for a bet more trifling; he rode stark-naked through a quiet and astonished village,—an achievement in which he was subsequently imitated by the father of Louis Philippe. But these were little foibles the most readily forgiven by the ladies: how could they be angry with a fine gentleman, whose gallantry was so great that when he sat next one at table he made love to her then and there, and swore with the most liberal parade of oaths that he never drank any wine but such as had been “first strained through his mistress’s smock!” And then the pretty process was gone through, amid a world of wild talk that would nowadays somewhat ruffle even the Vestas of Cremorne; but the fair creatures of William’s age declared him to be “a dear, delicate,” and some Lady Bettys added, in their grapy enthusiasm, “a d—d gallant fellow.” His friend Satan must have chuckled at the word. It is quite possible that after some one of these orgies, he was, by way of a good practical joke, carried off, by a captain as drunk as himself, on board a ship to the Mediterranean. It is quite certain that he disappeared for a considerable period; and when he turned up again, he not only told the tale of his abduction, but averred that he had been in a naval battle, and had received a ball in the leg. He was one night repeating the oft-told tale in the Bath rooms, when a countess boldly expressed her disbelief of the alleged fact. Nash imprecated upon her the disease which very fine people who quarrelled used to fling at one another, and then said, as he put up his leg on her lap, “The ball is there, Madam; and if you will, you may feel it!” Such was the Beau in the Bath rooms; but at that period, the women went thither in aprons, the squires in top-boots, with pipes in their mouths. The longer they kept them there the better, for they were no sooner out than forth flowed a torrent of filthiness. But all Bath, from the days of the farewell to it of the Romans, down to a later period than this of which I am speaking, was a mere _cloaca_; and they who resorted thither were too often as dirty as the place. Its unsavouriness elicited some very stringent remarks from Queen Elizabeth, and a contribution from the royal purse for constructing a common sewer.