Now, a priori, I doe conclude that if one were on the south side
of the river opposite to this elegant house, that there must of
necessity be a good echo returned from the house; and probably if one
stand east or west from the house at a due distance, the wings will
afford a double echo.
[Part of this once fine and interesting mansion still remains, but
wofully degraded and mutilated. It is called Kingston House, having
been formerly the residence of a Duke of Kingston. It appears to have
been built by the same architect as the mansion of Longleat, which was
erected between the years 1567 and 1579, and for which, it is
believed, John of Padua was employed to make designs.-J. B.]
CHAPTER II
SPRINGS MEDICINALL.
[IN Aubrey's time the mineral waters of Bath, Tonbridge, and other
places, were very extensively resorted to for medical purposes, and
great importance was attached to them in a sanatory point of view. The
extracts which have been selected from this chapter sufficiently shew
the limited extent of the author's chemical knowledge, in the analysis
of waters; which he appears to have seldom carried beyond
precipitation or evaporation. He mentions several other springs in
Wiltshire and elsewhere, attributing various healing properties to
some of them; but of others merely observing, with great simplicity,
whether or not their water was adapted to wash linen, boil pease, or
affect the fermentation of beer. The chapter comprises a few remarks
on droughts; and particularly mentions a remarkable cure of cancer by
an "emplaster" or "cataplasme" of a kind of unctuous earth found in
Bradon forest.
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