If it has such a transforming power on the brains of the by-no-means brilliant, is it any wonder that men of bright intellect like Sir Erasmus Wilson and David Urquhart, should write or talk so prettily about this, their favourite mode of bathing. As a rule there is not much room for poetry in the medical profession, albeit Dr Jenner, carried away by a pardonable enthusiasm, described the vaccination pustule of the ninth day, with its crimson areola as "the pearl upon the rose." Yet we cannot read the glowing and graphic description given by the great dermatologist, concerning his visit to the bath at Riverside, without wishing that he had marshalled his thoughts, for once in a way, in the splendid hexameters of a Longfellow. A bath like that of Mr Urquhart's, from which one emerged with "the body shining like alabaster, fragrant as the cistus, sleek as satin and soft as velvet," is surely worthy of the high honours of blank verse. And this thermal paradise is sketched by Sir Erasmus in language as brilliant and beautiful, as any that ever the _other_ professor Wilson puts into the month of the bard of Ettrick, in his inimitable Noctes Ambrosianae. We must be forgiven, if we pick a plum or two from the description, and hand them round to our readers, there are plenty more on the tree which they may cull for themselves [Note 1]. At the door of the Frigidarium or cool room, the would-be bather loosens the latchets of his shoes, and leaves them behind the lintel; the portal opens and he enters. This apartment though not large is sunny and bright. It is a morning in early summer, and, through the glass doors, can be seen a balcony festooned with roses; beyond the parapet of the balcony are terraces of which the rose is still the favoured flower, while further on can be seen the rippling surface of a noisy stream, then meadows with grazing herds and flocks, and beyond these the wooded hill arching like an eyebrow around the bright spot in which as the apple of the eye, sparkles the bath. By his side is a _dureta_ over against him a reclining chair, around the sides of the apartment are cushioned divans; books, and chibouques, and many a Turkish ornament are around, and the floor is spread with carpets of Persia, and the clean fresh mattings of India. Opposite the glass doors is an immense sheet of plate glass; through it are seen marble steps, and in the aqueous depths to which these steps descend, is the reflection of the morning sun. Here he may court the rays of Phoebus, smiling through festoons of roses to visit the deepest pool of his bath. Here he can swim while the sun glistens in the crystal drops that linger on his skin, or makes mimic rainbows in the spray that he dashes before him in his plunging revel.