14* THE HIST ORY Book K dale and upoa the margin of a. muddy lethargic current at Bath. The Roraan&pf Britain carefully marked and colle&ed for ufe the mineral-tin&ured fprings of the ifland, which had rilled oa for ages, either utterly unnoticed by the Brkons axound them, or wafting their liquid treafures upon the folitary waftes of the country. And the Britons foon adopted the cuftom of their conquerors, They faw the Romans, among them, in aa habi- tual conformity to their native manners,, often laving their bo- dies in baths : and they foon copied the idle refinement.. They law the Romans among them* in the injudicious luxury of their native climes, ftill more injudicious as it was beneath the chiL- ling atmofphexe of Britain,, often laving; their bodies in Thermae pr hot batlis :. and they imitated the enervating feftnefs* The fprings that fteamed as, they gufhed from the mixing minerals of our Britifh hills were^ collected together into bafons, and the Roman and the Briton ftewed equally amid the relaxing waters*. Hence we find the hot baths of Britain mentioned particularly by Boadicea, by Richard, by Ptolemy* and by Antoninus V Hence we fee ti/aK §tym in Ptotemy, Therms in Richard, and Aquae Softs both in Richard and Antoninus, to.be all the cha-- ra&eriftiok appellation? of our Bath in. Somerfetfhire r . And hence, we meet with Aquse in Richard as the defignatioa equally q£ Bath and of Wells % and Aquae in Ravennas as the title of
- town which lies lbmewhere between Lindum ox Lincoln uport
the one fide and Canwlodulum or Slack upon the other, and which for. the. expreffive. particularity of the name is in all pro- bability Buxton 10 .. Thefe towns th&Britons muft have probably diftinguilhed by the denomination of BathamrChefters or the cities of wafhing. And thefe tpwns the Saxons certainly diftinguifhed afterwards by theie own. kindred appellation of Baths.. Thus the Aquae Solis of the
- Romans and our prefent Bath, in, Someriet/hire is denominated
jtathanrcefter as early even as the fixth. century ". And hence* the Roman road which, traverfes the Moors from the neigh- iKwring Brough to. Buxton " is popularly ftiled Batham-Gate «..:■• among
