The society at Ballyspellan was, as the society in such places usually is, very much mixed and heterogeneous.  Many gentry were there—­gentlemen attempting to repair constitutions broken down by dissipation and profligacy; and ladies afflicted with a disease peculiar, in those days, to both sexes, called the spleen—­a malady which, under that name, has long since disappeared, and is now known by the title of nervous affection.  There was a large public room, in imitation of the more celebrated English watering-places, where the more respectable portion of the company met and became acquainted, and where, also, balls and dinners were occasionally held.  Not a wreck of this edifice is now standing, although, down to the days of Swift and Delany, it possessed considerable celebrity, as is evident from the ingenious verses written by his friend to the Dean upon this subject.

The principal individuals assembled at it on this occasion were Squire Manifold, whose complaint, as was evident by his three chins, consisted in a rapid tendency to obesity, which his physician had told him might be checked, if he could prevail on himself to eat and drink with a less gluttonous appetite, and take more exercise.  He had already had a fit of apoplexy, and it was the apprehension of another, with which he was threatened, that brought him to the Spa.  The next was Parson Topertoe, whose great enemy was the gout, brought on, of course, by an ascetic and apostolic life.  The third was Captain Culverin, whose constitution had suffered severely in the wars, but which he attempted to reinvigorate by a course of hard drinking, in which he found, to his cost, that the remedy was worse than the disease.  There were also a great variety of others, among whom were several widows whose healthy complexions were anything but a justification for their presence there, especially in the character of invalids.  Mr. Goodwin, his wife, and daughter, we need not enumerate.  They lodged in the house of a respectable farmer, who lived convenient to the village, where they found themselves exceedingly snug and comfortable.  In the next house to them lodged a Father Mulrenin, a friar, who, although he attended the room and drank the waters, was an admirable specimen of comic humor and robust health.  There was also a Miss Rosebud, accompanied by her mother, a blooming widow, who had married old Rosebud, a wealthy bachelor, when he was near sixty.  The mother’s complaint was also the spleen, or vapors; indeed, to tell the truth, she was moved by an unconquerable and heroic determination to replace poor old Rosebud by a second husband.  The last whom we shall enumerate, although not the least, was a very remarkable character of that day, being no other than Cooke, the Pythagorean, from the county of Waterford.  He held, of course, the doctrines of Pythagoras, and believed in the transmigration of souls.  He lived upon a vegetable diet, and wore no clothing which had been taken or made from