" Let The Gall'd Jade Wince; Our Withers Are Unwrung." Stat Nominis Umbra. London: Printed For G. Wilkie And J. Robinson, Paternoster-Row. xvi + 162pp. Engraved frontispiece. xvi + 162pp. Engraved frontispiece. Rebound in plain blue cloth long ago. Uncut. EXTENSIVELY ANNOTATED in pencil naming the “characters” in the book by someone very familiar with the people described therein; written somewhat like a Roman à clef. Small stain on front board. Interior crisp and clean. Very good. A review in the Satirist (Vol II, 1808) calls the author a “scurrilous scribbler”. Per the British Library: Bath Characters: or, Sketches from Life is a series of satirical dialogues mocking Bath and the people who stayed there. In the Proemium (preface), Peter Paul Pallet describes Bath as full of vanity, hypocrisy and vice. He suggests that ridiculing the people who stay in Bath will make them confront their foolishness – and, he hopes, reform their behaviour. Bath was a fashionable place to stay in the 18th and early-19th centuries, when many people believed that drinking and bathing in spa water had significant health benefits. Much of the period’s satirical literature about Bath mocks visitors to the town, labeling them as hypochondriacs, or as people who seemingly come to deal with their health but in reality to boost their social standing, attend balls or find a marriage partner.