If the Author of "Spadacrene Anglica" could see our modern Harrogate,
for whose existence he is to no small extent responsible, he would be
justly entitled to consider his labours as well spent, however surprised
he might be at the change that had taken place in the village as he knew
it in the year 1626. For so was Harrogate in those years, a small
scattered hamlet, part of that great Royal Forest of Knaresborough,
extending westward from the town of Knaresborough for about 20 miles
towards Bolton Abbey, with an average depth of about 8 miles from North
to South, a Royal Forest, as Grainge in his History thereof premises,
from the year 1130 until 1775. Not only the change in the physical
aspect of Harrogate would have been noted by our author. Since his days,
within a radius of a few miles, have been found over 80 mineral springs,
whereby Harrogate is distinguished from all other European health
resorts. Not that the curative powers of these waters were altogether
unknown before Edmund Deane extolled the merits of the Tuewhit Well in
"Spadacrene Anglica." Indeed, he would be a bold man who would
dogmatically lay down at what period the powers of these waters were
unknown. Thus, in mediæval times the waters of St. Mungo's and St.
Robert's were accredited with miraculous powers. The Tuewhit Well itself
derives its name, according to some authorities, from its association in
pre-Roman times with the pagan God Teut.

"Spadacrene Anglica" was published by Dr. Edmund Deane, an eminent
physician of York, in the year 1626, and passed through three editions
after his death. All these editions are very scarce, and although there
are copies of the four editions in the British Museum, there are only
two other copies known to exist. I was indeed fortunate, therefore, when
some seventeen years ago I picked up a copy in a well-known second-hand
book shop in Harrogate. Now I am reprinting it, not so much for its