It is not to be wondered at, that, reared in the midst of the luxury, in the enjoyment of their Balneæ or Thermæ, the Romans should have carried with them their longing for the bath wheresoever they went, wheresoever their victorious armies forced themselves a way; and that, possessing a mastery over England and Wales, which they maintained for nearly four hundred years, they should have founded baths in their chief settlements in this country. Thus we have remains of Roman baths in London, in Chester, in Bath, at Wroxeter (Uriconium) in the neighbourhood of Shrewsbury, at Cirencester (Corinium), at Carisbrooke, in Colchester (Camulodunum), and in several other places besides. But here we are compelled to draw a line of distinction between those grand institutions of their own metropolis, which comprised, as I have just described, their places of recreation, of exercise, of amusement, of diversion, as well as their temples of health; which were, in fact, a centralization of almost all the public institutions of their city into one--and those particular parts of these institutions which were specially devoted to health. Although the remains of the Roman thermæ in England are large, although their construction evinces a great perfection in many of the arts of social life, particularly in the manufacture of bricks and pottery, yet they scarcely bear comparison with the grander thermæ of ancient Rome, and for this reason: that all that was simply ornamental--or, if I might be permitted to say so, that was superfluous--has been omitted, and nothing but the substantial and the wholesome allowed to remain--that portion, in fact, which was purely devoted to health and strength. We thus prune the bath down to its simpler elements, and we prepare the way for the consideration of the bath as it has been revived amongst us at the present day.