i

And once again, imploringly,

She glances at her foes,

To know if she may soften thus

The sorrow of his woes!

His whom she loved!--but one fierce glance
Hath flashed upon her heart,
And hollow tones now follow it,
To tell her they must part!

'Nay-that may never be-his cell
Hath only room for one;

And if we make him prisoner now,

Our work is bravely done!'

And he lifted the gyves with a blood-red hand,
And grinned with a visage grim-

If women wailed and children wept,
What were their tears to him?

Lord Bertram to his breast hath raised

And clasped his dear child now

And he hath printed one cold kiss
Upon his bride's pale brow ;-

And he is led away begirt,

With fetter, gyve, and chain,

They have parted!-they have parted!—
Will they ever meet again?

A FEW WORDS ON BATHING.

H.

As there is now some prospect of fine, warm, summer weather, we have thought it advisable to address a few words of seasonable admonition to such of our readers as delight in the manly and most salutary practice of bathing. Now we, in our youth, were most desperate, and most daring bathers: in storm or calm, in winter or summer, in flood or drought, sea or river, no matter, we "buffeted the saucy wave," and, like Lord Byron, delighted in a sort of amphibious existence. True it is, we could not compete with his fordship in the noble accomplishment of swimming, because he was perfectly unrivalled in that acquirement, as well as in many others-good, bad, and indifferent; but we think we might, without any undue or glaring vanity, place ourselves second on the list: we willingly yield the superiority to his lordship, but we never yet knew a second, except ourselves.

Now bathing, besides being a most delicious pastime, is a more effectual mode of "prolonging and invigorating life," than the perusal of a hundred works written on this very interesting subject. If Dr. Kitchener had merely confined his luminous lucubrations to the subject of bathing, and left all his pills, potions, and "peris

taltic persuaders," where they ought to have been left, in the druggist's shop, he would have done some good in his generation; but the Doctor was no bather himself, and, therefore, he wanted genius and taste for the task; and so, wisely and modestly, left it alone. Bathing, as a part of the dietetic system, is practised freely by various nations-by the English, not at all. True it is, your fashionable idler, and your elegant ennuyée "at home," will betake themselves to Brighton, or Broadstairs, and there achieve the extraordinary feat of gently dipping their delicate bodies in the sea, stepping in and out of a machine-" Heaven save the mark!” -with as much grace and gentility, as they would step in and out of their carriage! And, encased in a bathing-gown, too! Then, in the evening-after wasting the day in idleness, they add to their absurdity by spending those hours, which ought to be devoted to rest and quietude, in gambling, dancing, talking scandal and scurrility—at balls and assemblies-and this they call bathing for a season! Poor noodles!-they know as much about bathing as a bat-and are as much benefitted thereby, and no more!

Now, bathing, practised as it ought to be, is a poetical art,-for, as poetry consists of the forcible expression of sundry moral perfections, so does bathing comprise the active exercise of sundry physical perfections. Look, for one moment, at the lusty swimmer, cleaving the cool, pellucid water of the Derwent or the Tamarobserve the agile and beautiful play of his muscles, and, see, with what noble vigour his manly form rides buoyantly over the waters! This is bathing-and we shall now proceed to tell you, not only how and when to practise it, but what great benefit your health will derive from its constant and careful accomplishment.

We knew a person "at home," who made bathing, as he used to express it, a part of his religion. He bathed in the summer, and he bathed in the autumn. Winter-even when the river's edge was fringed with ice, had no terrors for him, and his lavatory propensities, were in full play in the spring. He was a thick set, pudgy, dumpy little man, of a sedentary profession, and the father of six lovely children. This man was never ill! The doctors detested him, and his wife, a good and careful body, rejoiced amazingly in his healthful habit. An old uncle, rich, and very sagacious, especially in matters connected with physic-for he had BUCHAN'S "Domestic Medicine" at his finger's end-once told him that he was apoplectic, and that bathing-cold bathing, as he particularly and emphatically expressed it-was the only mode of averting any serious attack; and, really, his advice, as far as we have been able to learn, has been perfectly efficacious. Our pudgy, dumpy friend was in good health, according to our last advices," and his six lovely children-not to mention his careful wife—were, like young and juicy olive-branches, thriving apace—estote perpetui ! one and all say we !

From this brief history, we may gather much useful information, touching the judicious practice of bathing-a practice by no means

so extensively used as it might be. The Russians are desperate bathers, and where do you see a more hardy and healthy people? They stew themselves well in a warm bath for half an hour, and then, reeking with the heat, they roll themselves in the snow, by way of a cooler. Here is Lyall's account of the business. In a short time (after they enter the warm bath) such a profuse perspiration breaks out all over the body, as cannot be conceived without being seen, or from actual experiment. Every pore is opened; the whole system is thrown into a delightful lassitude, and the pleasurable feelings are not to be described. The enjoyment is still heightened by a servant pouring buckets of warm water over your reclining body. It is a common practice, also, for Russian bathers to be rubbed and even flogged by the bathing women, with viniks, or bunches of the leafy twigs of birch (why not say birch rods at once ?) and then to be rubbed down with linen, cotton, or woollen cloths. From time to time they descend from their heights, stand in a tub of cold water, and have hot or cold water, and sometimes both, alternately, poured or dashed from buckets on their heads and over their whole bodies........ In summer and autumn, the Russians also run from the baths while the perspiration is trickling off them, and plunge into the adjoining river, and in winter roll themselves in the snow, and some repeat this practice two or three times before quitting the banya."-LYALL'S RUSSIA, 113, 114.

We have never been in Russia, and cannot therefore, from our own experience, speak of the ineffable delight, which Dr. Lyall describes to be caused by bathing in the banya, with the pleasant accompaniment of being scourged with viniks; but we have found the matter described as perfectly accordant with the Doctor's eulogy

Bathing operates upon the human frame in various ways, imparting its salutary effects by modes not commonly cognizant. One chief mode, however, is by its action on the skin, an organ of most elaborate construction, and of the utmost importance in the animal economy.

In structure the skin is exceedingly complicated, being formed of a series of delicate membranes, which in the aggregate constitutes an organ capable of performing many important functions. It is a test or sort of meter by which is indicated the correctness of the circulation of the general mass of the nutritious fluid; it is an organ of transpiration, by which various materials-the retention of which would produce fever and other serious maladies—are discharged in an almost imperceptible manner, and in a gaseous form. It is a medium of absorption through which both poisons and remedies are conveyed to the most distant recesses of the body; and it is an organ of sensation, of which the minutest point may be so touched or affected as to produce the most pleasing or the most painful impressions. Lax, soft, delicate and beautiful as it seems, and as it really is, it is nevertheless equal to the finest stretched monochord, of which no division can be struck independently of the whole, either in actual feeling or in actual influence.

Covering the whole body as it does, and connected as it is with all the important internal parts, it is, as may be supposed, an extensive conductor of physical sympathy. With the brain and the stomach it possesses a quick and powerful sympathy, which is proved, as regards the former, by blushing and paleness; and, as connected with the latter, by perspiration from the effect of medi cine, by certain eruptions, particularly those caused by eating muscles and other indigestible food, and by certain uneasy sensations, especially those of itching and tingling caused, in the same way, and, in some constitutions, by taking opium and other narcotics. We must recollect, also, in considering the sympathetic influence of the skin, that it is a continuation of the membrane, which lines the different internal cavities. For instance, the membrane lining the nose, mouth, throat, stomach, bowels, &c., is directly connected with the skin, and is in fact, as it were, expanded into it: this will account for many affections of external organs, and will explain how much their cure depends upon a healthy state of the stomach and bowels. This doctrine of continuous membranes is extremely interesting, and fraught with infinite utility to the practitioner in the treatment of local disorders: it is one of those leading practical points, which he should always bear diligently in mind, in connection, of course, with the extensive sympathy of the stomach.

Independently of its uses as the organ of touch, the skin has other important functions to perform. These functions are chiefly subservient to the abstraction of superfluous heat from the bodyan operation of great importance, as regards the preservation of health. Before, however, I explain its functions in this particular, it will be necessary that I should here present the reader with some brief observations on animal heat upon which bathing has a great and immediate influence.

Few subjects connected with the animal economy have given rise to so much speculation as the cause of animal heat, or, in other words, of the unvarying temperature of the animal body. One of the most distinguishing attributes of a living being is its faculty of resisting extremes of temperature. The porpoise, which lies buried beneath mountains of polar ice, is as warm as any of its own species, which may be swimming beneath the line: the Ethiopian, who pants beneath a vertical sun, and the Laplander, who is cradled in the snowy bosom of the North, enjoy the same degree of animal heat, while man, wherever born, can go through the wide range of external temperature, which lies between the freezing and the boiling points, without undergoing the slightest alteration in that of his own body.* Were this not the case, and were the animal frame not furnished with a power capable of thus counter

Next to the man the pig is the animal that best bears the extremes of tempe rature: it will live and thrive almost any where.

acting the ill effects of an increased temperature, the circulation of the blood would be interrupted or even arrested; at one time the fluids would be congealed, at another evaporated, and the current of life would flow unequally, or, would wholly cease. To obviate this evil, the body is furnished by means of animal heat, with one uniform temperature, which, in all animals, is somewhat above that of the medium in which they live.

After much careful investigation, and the adoption and rejection of various theories, it is now ascertained, chiefly by the patient and talented experiments of Dr. Crawford, that animal heat is produced and maintained by means of respiration, that is-to speak learnedly by the combination of the oxygen of the air with the carbon of the blood, thus constantly evolving caloric.

This, at once, brings us to the application of bathing, as a means of effecting animal heat-for, as the skin is a great and quick sympathiser with the lungs, and as it must be considerably affected by bathing, we see, at once, the connection, and its importance.

In addition to its obvious operation of cleansing the skin, and thus preserving its pores free and open, bathing produces a stimulant effect upon the whole frame, highly beneficial to its health. The shock produced by sudden immersion in cold water has an extensive influence upon the body: the blood is propelled from the surface into the internal cavities, whence it again rushes out to the surface, producing that delightful and salutary glow, which is the test of the beneficial effects of bathing. In order, therefore, to insure this benefit, the bather should never plunge into the water, if he feels chilly: let him always go in with his body moderately heated, not indeed reeking with perspiration, but in a comfortable glow; and while he is in the aqueous element, let him dive and dabble and swim about unceasingly. This will circulate his blood vigorously, and exercise his limbs handsomely, to the great benefit of his health, and the manifest comfort of his sensations. Let him, however, avoid bathing on a full stomach. The different organs of his frame will have enough to do to contend with the attack of the shock, without having their own ordinary avocations to attend to besides: it is no small matter to withstand the sudden impulse of so large and forcible a quantity of blood, rushing like a torrent, through every nook and cranny of the body; and if the stomach be clogged, it will stand in the way of all this, and, perhaps, drive more than its share of blood into the brain, to the great risk of apoplexy and, consequent, annihilation.

Neither should the stomach be quite empty. A biscuit, or crust of bread, with a glass of wine, will be a sufficient filip to its energies, and will keep it in good humour, so as to enable it to act

* We hear of the frequent fatal occurrence of cramp in bathing. May not death be sometimes caused by the sudden pressure of blood upon the brain, in those weakly constitutions, where the reaction of the shock is retarded, or delayed?