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Author Wright praises the modern bath for its ubiquity and abundant hot water, but decries the Babbitt's delight offered in a "choice of seventy-two colours, of which pink is available in twenty-two shades." Even more lamentable is the decline of public baths, such as those at Bath, Somersetshire (founded, legend has it, by King Lear's father, Prince Bladud).
For, as a bard named Anstey rhapsodized in the Bath Poetical Guide, Oh! 'twas a glorious sight to behold the fair sex All wading with gentlemen up to their necks, And view them so prettily tumble and sprawl In a big smoking kettle as big as our hall.