certainly possessed of every requisite for the promotion of felicity. “But you will perhaps wish to know what are the virtues of the waters. Their virtues are various and manifold; but they have one quality, which is truly wonderful, and in a manner divine. I believe there are no baths in the world more efficacious in promoting the propagation of the human species. This may indeed be in some measure accounted for by the following circumstance.—An innumerable multitude of persons of all ranks repair to this place from the distance of two hundred miles; not with a view of recruiting their health, but of enjoying life. These baths are the general resort of lovers and their mistresses, of all, in short, who are fond of pleasure. Many ladies pretend to be sick, merely with a view of being sent for cure to this watering place. You consequently see here a great number of handsome females without their husbands, and not protected by any male relations, but attended by a couple of maids and a man servant, or some elderly cousin, who is very easily imposed upon. And they come adorned with such costly apparel, that you would suppose they were coming to a wedding, rather than to a watering place. Here we find Vestal, or to speak more correctly, Floral virgins. Here we meet with abbots, monks, friars, and priests, who live with greater license than the rest of the company. These ecclesiastics, forgetting the gravity of their profession, sometimes bathe with the ladies, and adorn their hair with silken ribbons. For all people here concur in banishing sorrow, and courting mirth. Their object is, not to divide that which is common, but to communicate that which is appropriated. It is an astonishing circumstance, that in so great a multitude (nearly a thousand persons) of various dispositions, and so much given to riot, no discord or dissension ever arises. The husbands see their wives gallanted, and even attended tête à tête by strangers, and yet they are not disturbed or rendered uneasy. Hence it happens, that the name of jealousy, that plague, which is elsewhere productive of so much misery, is here unknown. How unlike are the manners of these people to ours, who always see things on the dark side, and who are so much given to censoriousness, that in our minds the slightest suspicion instantly grows into full proof of guilt. I often envy the apathy of these Germans, and I execrate our perversity, who are always wishing for what we have not, and are continually exposed to present calamity by our dread of the future. But these people, content with little, enjoy their day of life in mirth and merriment; they do not hanker after wealth; they are not anxious for the morrow; and they bear adversity with patience. Thus are they rich by the mere disposition of their minds. Their motto is, “_live while you live_.” But of this enough—it is not my object to extol my new friends at the expense of my countrymen.