The origin of Bath, like that of other celebrated towns, is involved in obscurity. To its medicinal springs, however, it is solely indebted for the great reputation it has enjoyed for centuries, as a sanctuary for the afflicted, a cheerful asylum for the invalid, and as a favourite point of reunion, where social pleasure and mental cultivation were sure of a kindred reception among the many gifted spirits who have sought health or relaxation in its shades. The comparative quiet which here prevails is not without its importance to the invalid; after the dissipation of a season in Town, a retreat to Bath is like the tranquillity of a monastery after the excitement of a military campaign. This was more particularly felt and acknowledged as long as the continent remained shut; but during the last twenty years the temptation to foreign travel and the fame of certain continental spas have annually diverted from home a great many of those whose cases, it is probable, would have benefited in an equal measure by resorting to the thermal waters of Bath. Travelling, however, is of itself a sanatory process; and to this, to the changes of scene, of society, of diet, and to the mental excitement produced by a succession of new scenes and incidents, the invalid is more indebted than to any of the numerous _spas_, to which the credit of a cure is so generally ascribed by the recruited votary. This is a fact well known to the physician, and corroborated by the results of daily experience. When such means are impracticable, however, the society and the waters of Bath furnish excellent substitutes; and the testimonies in their favour are too well supported by ancient and "modern instances" to require any eulogium in a work like the present. The trade of Bath, like that of most great watering-places, is greatly dependent on its visitors. Hotels and lodging-houses are numerous, elegant, commodious, and fitted for the accommodation of all classes of society. Property, nevertheless, has suffered much depreciation of late years, owing to various causes, and not a little to the preference given to those continental spas already alluded to, by which many of the streams which used to flow in upon Bath as a regular source of prosperity have been greatly diminished or entirely dried up.