down above them, and all their hinder parts were inwards. And the thickness of it was an band breadth, and the brim of it like the work of the brim of a cup, with flowers of Ilies and it received and held three thousand baths. He made also ten lavers, and put five on the right hand and five on the left, to wash in them; such things as they offered for the burnt offerings they washed in them; but the sea was for the priests to wash in."—2 Chron. In the reign of King Solomon domestic baths, fragrant oils, sweet music, and every other luxury fitted to charm the senses, were to be found in Judea; but anterior to this period the people of the holy land still used the pools and the rivers, for at one or the other was the mother of this wise and wealthy monarch enjoying the coolness of the water when she inspired David with the sinful passion that gave occasion to his birth. But luxury, with the arts, had now manifestly begun to make their way among the eastern nations: insomuch that the enervated part of mankind, no longer able to bear the rude shock of natural bathing, sought refreshment from fatigue and weariness in tepid water, while oils and essences were superadded to heighten delight and improve beauty. Before Esther was permitted to ascend the royal bed of King Ahasuerus, she underwent, a course of bathing during twelve months, "six months anointed with oil of myrth, and six months with sweet odours, and with other things for the purifying of women.”—Esth About six hundred years after Homer, we find Hippocrates recommending baths and fomentations in various diseases. And Plato tells us that Herodicus had introduced the gymnastic arts into physic, among which cold bathing and swimming bore a part. Demosthenes, the cotemporary of Hippocrates, speaks of the private baths in the houses of the Athenians; and both he and the divine Plato (who¦¦ died but three years before the birth of this unrivalled orator), in speaking of the gymnasia, describe them as villas beyond the city, ornaimented with gardens; the building as a hollow square about a quarter of a mile in circumference; its sides formed by piazzas with a colonnade; on three of its sides were large halls in which the philosophers and rhetoricians reason and declaim; on the fourth side of the square were situated the rooms for bathing and swimming. The Abbé Barthelmi, on the authority of antient writers whom he quotes, says of the Athenians" Besides the public baths whither the people flock in crowds, and which serve the poor as an asylum against the inclemencies of winter, private persons have baths in their houses, and the use of them has become so indispensible, that they are introduced even on board their vessels; they frequently take a bath after they walk, and almost always previous to a repast: they come out of the bath perfumed with spices, and these odours mingle with those they carefully sprinkle over their garments, which are distinguished by different names, according to the difference of their form and colours. But as yet no system of bathing such as soon afterwards obtained among the Romans had appeared among the Greeks. Alexander the Great, who lived immediately after Hippocrates, was immersed in a bath while he laboured under the fever that terminated his existence; but it was simply an immersion; it does not, however, appear whether the bath was cold or warm, but from the practice of the age we may presume it was at least tepid. Affusion of tepid water was in use also among the Greeks at this time; Celsus tells us that it was the usage of some among the ancient physicians to pour warm water over the head on the first attack of ague. But as yet bath. ing was used in the most simple forms only, the cold bath to preserve the vigour of the strong, the warm-bath to restore the exhausted spirits of the sick or weary; oils and unguents were applied either before or after bathing, or both, apparently without rule or system. It remained for the Romans to erect bathing into a system, and to decorate it with all the magnificence that imperial patronage could bestow on the most favourite establish ment. The baths of the Romans consisted of four parts. In the first the person was gradually heated in hot air until a sweat was produced, and gradually at this time anointed and rubbed: the more simple baths had one hot room only, others had two rooms, and many three, increasing gradually in temperature: from the hot bath, which was adjoining the hottest room, the floors declined, that the water thrown over the side might cover each room and keep the air full of warm vapour raised by the hot flues that ran underneath the floors. From the warm room the bather passed into the hot bath, from the hot bath into a warm buth, and thesce into a cooler bath. The manner of bathing did not consist in simple immersion; the bather usually sat ou a low seat in the bath, immersed in the water to the knees, the attendants pouring water This from pitchers or urns on the head. mode of using the bath is preserved in various antiques and basso-relievos, as well as in the descriptions of Galen. After bathing in the cooler water they were dried, anointed, and perfumed, and after making a short stay in the last apartment met the air of the open day without the least danger of taking cold. We are not acquainted with the degrees of heat employed by the Romans in their baths, as the ancients had no instruments to measure it. There is reason, however, from the effects, to think it considerable; and when people are used to bathing, the extremes of heat constitate the luxury. In general the bath consisted of vapour only, since the water was only occasionally and partially poured on; and we know that the degrees of heat that can be borne either in hot air or in vapour are very considerable. The stay in the different rooms was regulated by the physician according to the nature of the disease. When the object was to relax, the patient was detained for some time in the moderately warm bath, but passed very quickly through the sweating rooms, where he was anointed, and only rinsed himself with the water of the last bath. When the constitution was weak and relaxed, he was well sweatcd and rubbed in the first bath, and had a large quantity of cold water poured on him in the third, while his stay in the second bath was very short. When the baths were remedial, the first bath was less hot, and the last bath less cold than when used by the healthy for the gratification of sensation. Public baths were not instituted at Rome prior to the reign of Augustus, and we are told that they were introduced by Mæcenas. Agrippa followed his example. It was soon carried to an astonishing height; and the construction of baths where the people might be accommodated gratis, was an established and successful method of gaining their affec tions. The magnitude of such buildings may be estimated when we are informed that the hot baths of Dioclesian would accommodate eighteen hundred bathers at one time; and the importance of this luxury to the Romans may be appreciated when we are assured that there were above eight hundred public baths at Rome. The regulation of these establishments occupied the legislators of Rome; several of the Emperors visited the bath five or six times a day, and Adrian condescended to bathe with the people in the public baths; by his example be restored order, and corrected many abuses which had crept into the conduct of the baths. In the days of Seneca the hottest baths were most in estimation; but those of Nero seem to have exceeded all others in heat. A person was employed at one time to regulate the heat of the baths, but in Seneca's days this had fallen into disuse. The rage for bathing was checked by Adrian, as above hinted, and regulated by Severus. The fashion of heating the baths to this extraordinary degree did not continue long; we have the authority of Galen, who flourished soon after Sencca, that in his days very hot baths were no longer in use. The magnificence and grandeur of the edi fices which contained the Roman baths would meet discredit, did not the ruins still remain. The Therma Dioclesiane, which occupied one hundred and forty thousand men several years in constructing, surpassed all the rest in magnificence; a great part of them are still standing, and the vast arches, the beautiful and stately pillars, the extraordinary plenty of foreign marble, the curious vaulting of the roofs, the prodigious number of spacious apartments, the large swimming bath, and a thousand other ornaments, not only increased the splendour of ancient, but form at this day one of the chief ornaments of modern Rome; MR. EDITOR, ADULTEROUS MARRIAGES. If there be a point on which the happiness and true dignity of the British character more decidedly rests than on any other, it is the sanctity of the matrimonial contract. High above all other European people do we stand in the purity of our national opinions and conduct relative to this great source and foundation stone of all moral duties. That domestic plague which poisons the very heart's core of social enjoyment, I mean adul tery, lifts his shapeless front in the courts and palaces of other countries; but with us it is self-condemned, fearful, and shame-faced, and pays a voluntary tribute to virtue, by forbearing to intrude into its presence. The virtues and vices of nations may be traced historically. Our pre-eminence in this respect is clearly deducible from the pure characters, and wise, reflecting maxims of our early reformers in religion. Their laws, civil and ecclesiastical, fenced round the married state with so many itself, whose brightness ought to surpass the noon." guards as gave it an inestimable lustre and value in the eyes of the people, who in their turn adopted the bands of custom, stronger Upon such, and still more profound conthan law, and conducing with it to the same siderations, no doubt it was, that the House happyeffect. Hence, even in the midst of youth-of Lords in its judicial capacity not long since ful follies, men looked towards marriage as a established a standing order, that in all bills secure haven for the enjoyment and comfort for divorcing parties from the bond of marof after-life; and much more so did women,riage by reason of adultery, a clause should be who, knowing that they could not attain so honourable a distinction without an unspotted reputation, became from their youth up, patterns of purity and decorum. Hence their modest retirement from public affairs, unlike the intriguing she-politicians of France; and their dignified innocence of demeanour, a thousand times more captivating than the forward inviting warmth of Spanish or Italian females. Hence, lastly, a subordination of the sexual desires to the impulses of reason and nature, which has distinguished and still distinguishes our nation from those who (to use the language of our old Church Homily), "in their wifeless state, run into open abominations, without any grudge of conscience." It is obvious that marriage cannot long maintain its high estimation in public opinion, if they who openly violate it be not marked with opprobrium by the institutions of society. Not with any excess of severity, therefore if viewed with even the eye of justice, did many ancient nations condemn the adultress to death, or slavery, or the mutilation of those features which formed their chief vanity. These harsh laws (as they would now be called) are in some measure supplied amongst us by an expulsion from all respectable society. Fatal, indeed, would it be to our public morals, if a woman once convicted of this crime could ever again be permitted to resume her former rank in the community. The public must not, cannot compound with such offenders. inserted prohibiting the future marriage of the guilty person with the sharer in guilt. || Standing orders of Courts of Justice are solemn things, not lightly to be made; but when once adopted, they are still less lightly to be revoked, or set at nought. I am sure that all the serious part of the nation will hear with alarm and deep sorrow, that the wise, Christian, moderate rule, to which I have alluded, has already been rendered inefficient in two cases; one of which at least was most gross and flagrant, affording strong reason to appre. bend that the adulterer and adultress were bent upon profaning the ceremony of marriage by an immediate union. The public papers state that this decision took place in one instance on a division of no more than sixteen to eight, and in the other without any division! Let the disgraced and cowardly General again take the command of an army; let the perjured and pilloried swindler show his face once more upon the Exchange; but let not chastity he insulted by the public honours paid to an abandoned and profligate woman: let not such an "unseemly affront to the sequestered and veiled modesty of the sex" be tolerated. Least of all let the law in its highest administration "begin to write indulgence to vulgar uncleanness;" for, as Milton observes, "if the law allow sin, it enters into a kind of covenant therewith;" and, "if it be possible that sin with his darkness may come to composition with law, it cannot be without foul eclipse and twilight to the law It is not, perhaps, consistent with the respect due to so high a court, to canvass the motives which may be supposed to have influenced the Judges in this determination; but the nation at large has a deep interest in the question, and it is no more than the boundea duty of all those to whom such subjects are in any degree familiar, to weigh the reasons popularly urged in support of the rejection, and to demonstrate the fallacies which they contain. 1. It is said that the clause is unnecessary, inasmuch as since its adoption no such marriage has taken place. A poor and pitiful argument! It is necessary to the severe majesty of that eminent jurisdiction, to attest its horror of so possible, so probable a crime. And why should it not? Out of tenderness to these convicted criminals? From an apprehension that the silken panders of vice may take alarm at the odiousness of their profligacy? Or from a new act of liberality, which considers reproof and admoniton as too severe treatment for so venial an offence? But further, the fact, if it be true in the letter, is impudently false in the spirit. If no marriages between adulterers and adultresses have been lately contracted, there are many which still exist. Are there no konourable personages, no members of the Peerage itself, whs have taken to their bosoms such helps meet for them? 2. If this, then, be a mere futile and senseless assertion, what shall we say to the still more senseless plea, that such a prohibition comes upon the guilty parties, with the grievance of an ex post fucto law? In other words that they committed adultery with an express view to a divorce and subsequent marriage, which they were then encouraged to by the law itself! How any person can be found, who have so stultified their moral sense, as to imagine that this is reasoning, it is wonderful to conceive. The law, which prohibits the crime, is not only a law not subsequent to it, but one of the first precepts of reason, one of the chief commands of God. The prohibitory Jaw contains in its essence much heavier penalties than a mere refusal of marriage between the offenders; it condemns them to a life of penitence and chastity; it enjoins a thorough hatred of the sin, of all its acts and circumstances, and especially of the external and personal form which constituted its temptation. To individuals so circumstanced, marriage is no common right from which they are cut off by the probibitory clause of the Divorce Bill: it is an unholy state into which they are, for their own good, wisely restricted from entering. amity;" that the relation of man and wife de- -Medio de fonte leporum Such a life is far, indeed, from the state of a Christian marriage, as it is described in the service of our Church, or in the old Homily, to which I trust I may again refer without offending the refined taste of your readers. Marriage is there said to be "instituted of God, to the intent that man and woman shall live lawfully in perpetual friendship;” but what perpetuity can there be in the co-parnership of wicked3. This leads to a third important consider- ness; what friendship between those who have ation, namely, whether, apart from the pro- entailed on each other misery and disgrace? visions of human law, the union of an adul Instead of being one flesh," says Milton, terer with an adultress be not in the eye of "they will be rather two carcases chained moral virtue, and according to the strict pre- unnaturally together;" and "the blessing cepts of the Gospel, a profanation of the sacred of matrimony will be changed into a familiar rites. Milton, the great supporter of divorce, and co-inhabiting mischief, at least into a was far from contending, "that licence, or drooping and disconsolate household captilevity, or unconsented breach of faith, should|vity." If, therefore, only the comfort and haptherein be contenanced." Although that mo- piness of the parties themselves were condification of the law which he recommends becerned, pradence would dissuade such an by no means advisable, and, perhaps less so at present than in his own times, yet the noble eloquence with which he has touched upon the first principles of the conjugal union will ever deserve admiration. He says, that it should be "a fit union of sons, such as may even incorporate them to love and union; but according to the doctrine of the ON THE PROBABILITY OF THE LAND BEING AGAIN SUBMERGED IN THE OCEAN. I HAVE Sometimes been induced to con. little higher than the ocean, would be formed; clude, that all the matter which is unceasingly by which means the latter would occupy a less falling from the mountains to the plains, and part of the surface of the globe, and the land, from thence carried to the sea, would there from its greater extent, be capable of mainaccumulate, and so continue to increase fortaining a larger number of inhabitants, on millions of ages, until a new land, all flat, and one immense meadow: but the probability of PROBABILITY OF THE LAND BEING SUBMERGED IN THE OCEAN, 303 it in proportion to its bulk, and its extremities will be driven thereby over the land wherewith it is bounded; while its flux and reflux assist in drawing these particles imperceptibly towards the deepest waters of the globe; say at equal distance between the continents, where it is slowly, but eternally accumulating, and will in an infinite space of time so swell · these sides as to increase their globosity, and the earth be again, though in a solid state, immersed in the ocean: for it appears evident to me, even to couviction, that the loose this theory, however pleasing it might be, for the idea of the land's being all absorbed and the world occupied again only by fish, though it might not happen for an hundred millions of centuries to come, scems not so pleasant as the former to reflect on; yet, without the interference of the Deity, I believe it will at last be the case for the first conjecture seems to me to be considerably outweighed by the second, as the water has actually made great progress towards the accomplishment of its purpose, in proportion to what has been done by the increase of land; which I shall endea-particles of matter are compelled by their vour to prove by the following observations. : Of the encroachment of the sea upon the land, we have annual proofs in many parts of this island; and much has been lost since the commencement of our history, viz. great part of Kent, near half the county of Cornwall (if the survey be correct that was made in the reign of Edward I), the town of Winchelsea, and a considerable part of Merionethshire in North Wales; the bottom of Torbay was once above its surface, is plain from the vast number of the stumps of trees found at low water, rooted in the clay in the same manner they were in when growing. Trees are here oftentimes torn from the ground, when ships draw up their anchors, at the distance of some miles from the shore, and though their appearance be quite fresh, yet they must be immersed many ages. Some acres of the high land round this bay have fallen into it since my remembrance, and I doubt not but part of the English and Irish channels, and for a considerable distance from most of the shores in the world, was earth above the ocean when first it emerged therefrom; for the dashing of the waves (even against the sides of the rocks) fret, undermine, and by incessant battering encroach on its boundary, which in all probability extended so far as to cause the water to be very deep close to the shore, like the lands and mountains that bound the Mediterranean sea; where it cannot have made great progress, as appears by its narrowness aud depth. I know that many writers think the laud gains as much from the sea as it loses; a little sand may be accumulated at the mouth of a river, so as to form a small island, or even a piece of low land, and a port thereby blocked up. These banks are brought down by the river from the high grounds over which it has wandered, but the land gained in this manner bears a small proportion to what we are certain has been absorbed by the ocean. Surely all the matter that falls into the sea must rise specific gravity to tend towards those parts nearest the centre, on the same principle as other heavy bodies slide down an inclined plane, and this all atoms may continue to do until the land becomes nearly as spherical as the water itself. If the particles of earth were not drawn to those parts nearest the centre, there would be an immense accumulation of land at or near the mouth of all rivers, as the banks now seen there owe their existence to the earthy matter being brought down by the stream faster than they can be taken off, by their common tendency towards the most excavated places of the world; and I believe these banks are generally found where the obliquity of the land under the sea increases very gradually, or the particles meet with some obstacles which retard their progress to the places nearest the centre; hence we may expect to find more banks of sand at the mouth of the Thames, and the German rivers that empty themselves between Calais and the entrance of the Baltic sea, than many others; the earthy matter brought down by these rivers being obliged to make a more circuitous route, and that by the Thames particularly so, from the proximity of its estuary to France. Many low and flat tracts of land exhibit strata of sands and marine substances beneath the vegetable earth, though situated so far from the sea as never to have been visited thereby since it first emerged therefrom; this might be the original surface when the earth was round, and beneath the water: when lands of this description are the immediate boundary of the ocean, many have been induced to believe that the latter diminished; but it is as probable to assert, that the high grounds which hitherto protected it were beaten down by it in its progress towards absorbing the earth: we are certain, however, the softest land is always crumbling away before it, whilst the promontories and capes of more obdurate matter, still braving the vio |