were composed of brick, covered with a strong coat of terras, and supported by pillars of brick, each brick being nine inches square, and two inches in thickness. The pillars were four feet and a half high, and set about fourteen inches asunder, composing a hypocaust, or vault, for the purpose of retaining the heat necessary for the rooms above. The interior walls of the apartment were set round with tubulated bricks or panels about eighteen inches long, with a small orifice opening inwards, by which the stream of heat was communicated to the apartments. The fire-place from which the heat was conveyed, was composed of a small conical arch at a little distance from the outward wall; and on each side of it, adjoining to the above-mentioned rooms, were two other small sudatories of a circular shape, with several small square baths, and a variety of apartments which the Romans used preparatory to their entering either the hot-baths or sudatories; such as the Frigidarium, where the bathers undressed themselves, which was not heated at all; the Tepidarium, which was moderately heated; and the Eleothesion, which was a small room, containing oil, ointments, and perfumes. These rooms had a communication with each other, and some of them were paved with flag-stones and others were beautifully tesselated with dies of various colours. A regular set of well-wrought channels conveyed the superfluous water from the baths into the Avon." These sumptuous buildings were upwards of 240 feet in length, and 120 in breadth.

Once these baths must have witnessed a thousand diversified scenes, as they were the great places of resort of the Roman people. The poet here recited his last composition, and the athletes excited the luxurious bather with a thousand feats of strength; and the song and the loud laugh caught the ear of many an old warrior as he anointed himself luxuriously with the precious ointments then in use, and little did the busy crowd beneath its portico imagine that a few centuries would bury it deep in the earth, and that the conqueror who was to come after them would inter their dead over the very spot that once contributed to the vigour of the living. Yet so it was: these baths were found full twenty feet below the present level of the soil, and four feet above them were discovered a number of stone coffins, evidently Saxon, thus denoting that the place was used by our ancestors as a place of sepulture.

In the immediate neighbourhood of these baths arose the stately portices of temples to Minerva and Apollo and other deities of the Roman worship. Some of these must have been of a very imposing size, as portions of Corinthian pillars, measuring nearly three feet in diameter, have been exhumed, and are now preserved in the Literary Institution. Large and massive pieces of pediment have also been rescued from the depths in which they had been submerged; and in one instance the pieces have been placed together, until we see before us the façade of some highly-sculptured building.

The Bath, (or Aqua Solis, as it was then called,) of

fifteen centuries ago, must have presented a beautiful appearance. Where the heart of the present city stands, dimly seen through its canopy of smoke, in that distant age the columns of the temples shone white against the dark blue of the surrounding hills, and many a noble-browed pediment seemed to watch majestically over the fortunes of the grand people who worshipped at their shrines. Here, too, in the morning sun, shone the beautiful gilt statue of Apollo, or the evening twilight dwelt upon the calm brow of some imaged Minerva. In those days there was little or no coal smoke to obscure the beautiful details of the classic city; and the whole stamped itself as sharply and distinctly upon the surrounding background of hills as did any of the antique towns of Italy herself.

But the sumptuousness and grandeur of Aquæ Solis served other purposes, according to Tacitus, than merely to minister to the wants and to please the sensuous eye of the Roman colonists. To this city flocked the Britons of the surrounding country, and, by participating in the luxuries of the place, gradually sunk beneath its sensualities and sacrificed their liberty at the altars of pleasure. "By these insidious means," says the historian, "the people were more effectually subjugated than by the Roman sword.”

Aquæ Solis remained a place of great resort during the whole period of the Roman occupation; and even after their departure, which event took place in the year 400, the half-civilized Britons maintained it with a diminished splendour and it was not until the coming of those rude workers, our Saxon ancestors, - who destroyed but to sow the germ of a more healthful state of things,-that the glory and beauty of the place were levelled to the dust.

All that remains of this once splendid city is now stowed away in the vaults and passages of the Literary Institution. As you pass along them to read the Times' of a morning, or to cut open the wet sheets of Blackwood,' your coat brushes against votive altars, wrought by the hands of this antique people. As you wander along the basement-rooms of the building your eye catches mouldering fragments, which the learned have placed together upon conjecture, as the child despairingly builds up its puzzle. Upon the tables are scattered about fragments of drinking-vessels, out of which the soldiers of the twentieth legion once pledged each other; and by stepping into the lectureroom, you will see upon the mantel-piece, amid a crowd of modern ornaments, the gilt head of the Apollo Medicus-a fragment of the grand statue of the deity who watched over the city, and who endued the springs with all their healing powers. The beautiful face of the god once so venerated, now claims no more respect (except as a piece of antiquity) than the bronze letterweigher that stands beside it!

To return, however, to the history of the city after the departure of the Romans, and during the early part of that bloody struggle which took place between the Britons, and the Saxons whom they had invited over to their assistance, Aquæ Solis remained in comparative

peace. In the year 493, however, the city was besieged by a Saxon army, under Ella and his three sons, when there doubted King Arthur came to its assistance, and defeated the invaders with terrible slaughter. Again, in the year 520, this legendary hero evinced his prowess by defeating Cedric and his powerful army on the scene of his former victories, killing with his own hand, it is said, no less than four hundred and forty Saxons! After such sharp work as this, his famous brand, Excalibar, must have deserved a thorough grind. As King Arthur without doubt carried his round table among his baggage, who shall say that he did not set it up in the rescued city, and that the voices of Launcelot du Lake and of the other redoubted knights, did not make ring again its ancient walls?

The Saxons, in the year 577, became masters of the city and the neighbouring country, and the Latin name of Aquæ Solis, or City of the Sun, was changed to the homely, but more appropriate, Hat Bathun, or Hot Baths. During the Saxon period there can be no doubt that the hot springs were carefully attended to; as the tepid bath was considered by our ancestors as an absolute necessary of life. The succeeding history of the city, up to the beginning of the eighteenth century, might be turned over without disadvantage. A place of no military strength, scarcely any event of importance occurred in it during the wars of succession of our early English kings; and during the great Rebellion it made but a sorry figure, the Royalist commandant giving up the place to the Parliamentarians in the most ignominious manner. He, according to the famous Prynne's representations in Parliament, upon the approach only of two dragooners to one of the city gates, discharging their dragoons and setting some straw on fire before the gate, and the sight of twenty men brandishing their swords upon Beechen Cliff, presently sent out for a parley, and making conditions only for himself and his officers to march away with their bag and baggage, and live quietly at their own houses without molestation, valiantly quitted the city without the least assault. The

captain then leaping over the wall for haste, and running away into Wales for shelter, before any other forces appeared to summon this strong fortified city, leaves all the common souldiers and citizens to their enemies' mercy, who were thereupon imprisoned, pillaged, or fined."

If much prowess was not shown by the commandant of the city, however, the neighbouring hill of Lansdowne has found a place in history from the bloody battle that was fought upon it on the 5th of July, 1643, between the forces of Sir William Waller and those of the Prince Maurice and the Earl of Carnarvon, in which both parties claimed the victory.

In this action Sir Arthur Hazelrig's Regiment of Lobsters, as they were called from being encased in iron plates, were first brought into service, and completely routed the king's horse, who fled through amazement at such a terrible-looking foe. The Cornish musqueteers, under Sir Beville Granville, managed to

retrieve the day, with the loss of their gallant commander, however, who was slain in their impetuous charge. To commemorate his loss, a monument was erected to his memory, in 1720, by the Honourable George Granville, Lord Lansdowne, on the very spot upon which he fell. This monument is handsomely built of freestone, and on its north tablet is the following inscription, written by Cartwright, in the laudatory style of his day:

"When now th' incensed rebels proudly came
Down like a torrent without bank or dam,
When undeserved success urged on their force,
That thunder must come down to stop their course,
Or Granville must step in; then Granville stood,
And with himself opposed and checked the flood.
Conquest or death was all his thought; so fire
Either o'ercomes, or doth itself expire.

His courage work'd like flames, cast heat about,
Here, there, on this, on that side, none gave out;
Not any pike in that renowned stand
But took new force from his inspiring hand:
Soldier encouraged soldier, man urged man,
And he urged all; so far example can.
Hurt upon hurt, wound upon wound did fall,
He was the butt, the mark, the aim of all:
His soul, the while, retired from cell to cell,
At last flew up from all, and then he fell!
But the devoted stand, enraged the more
From that his fate, plied hotter than before,
And proud to fall with him, swore not to yield,
Each sought an honour'd grave, and gain'd the field.
Thus he being fallen, his actions fought anew,
And the dead conquer'd whilst the living flew."
During the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, Bath,
in common with Bristol, and many other places in the
west of England, was the seat of an extensive woollen
trade; but during the Stuart period these manufactures
declined, and the city became by degrees a place of
resort for health-seekers.

Pepys visited the city in 1668, and leaves us the following account of it in his Diary :-" Having dined very well, 10s., we came before night to the Bath; when I presently stepped out with my landlord, and saw the Baths with people in them. They are not so large as I expected, but yet pleasant; and the town most of stone, and clean, though the streets generally narrow. I home, and being weary, went to bed without supper; the rest supping." Pepys, however, only saw the fair outside of things. Wood, the famous architect, takes us behind the scenes, and shows us domestic Bath up to the beginning of the eighteenth century. The boards of the dining-rooms," he tells us," and most other floors, in the houses of Bath, were made of a brown colour with soot and small beer, to hide the dirt as well as their own imperfections; and if the walls of any of the rooms were covered with wainscot, it was such as was mean, and never painted. The chimneypieces, hearths, and slabs, were all of freestone; and these were daily cleaned with a particular kind of whitewash, which, by paying tribute to everything that touched it, soon rendered the brown floors like the starry firmament. With Kidderminster stuff, or

at best with chene, the woollen furniture of the principal rooms was made; and such as were of linen consisted only of corded dimity or coarse fustian; the matrons of the city, their daughters, and their maids, flowering the latter with worsted during the intervals between the seasons, to give the beds a gaudy look. Add to this, also, the houses of the richest inhabitants of the city were, for the most part, of the meanest architecture, and only two of them could show the modern comforts of sash-windows." The city seems to have stood still at this point for a century at least; for between the years 1592 and 1692, it had only increased by seventeen houses!

MODERN BATH.

From such an abject condition as we have described, the city was destined to be raised to the highest degree of magnificence, and to be made the resort of the 'quality' of the land by the genius of two men-Beau Nash and Wood. Those individuals might be said to have supplied the very soul and body of modern Bath: the former by the elegant social life he infused into it; and the latter, by his superb reconstruction of its buildings.

To Richard Nash, however, Bath must mainly attribute the rapidity with which it sprang from an insignificant place, into the focus of fashionable life, and the most pleasurable' city in the kingdom. His genius for trifles, his taste, and his shrewdness, serving him better than more profound abilities would have done in erecting a kingdom of his own, and in governing it in so absolute a manner as he did. Nash commenced life in the army, but speedily becoming tired of the profession he turned to the law, that is, he entered his name on the books at the Temple, and spent his time as a man about town; and his genius for gay life, and his love of intrigue, soon led him into the society of the young bloods of the day. It was a mystery to all his acquaintances, however, how he managed to support the various extravagances he was led into, as he was known to be without fortune. In these days we should look for the secret sources of income of such a person in the columns of the broad sheet, or in the poetical epistles of a puffing tailor; but Nash seems to have been suspected of a much more direct method of replenishing his exhausted purse. His friends, indeed, charged him with procuring money by robbery on the highway! We might guess the state of society when such an accusation could even suggest itself. Nash, full of indignation, replied to the charge, and cleared his honour (!) by handing round to his accusers a billet doux he had just received, enclosing a large sum of money. Having, for some reason or other, got sick of the law, as he had done of his Majesty's service; not, we apprehend, because he "found his mind superior to both," as Dr. Oliver, one of his fulsome eulogists, absurdly hath it, but most probably, that his inclinations suited neither. In a lucky hour he retired to Bath, and there found a pathway to fame

which he would have never reached by the study of Coke upon Littleton.'

The condition of the city upon the advent of the Beau, which took place about 1703, was peculiarly favourable to the development of his particular talent. Its accommodations were most contemptible: its houses and public places lacked those elegances and amusements which are calculated to attract those who seek for passing pleasure, or are mainly desirous to kill ennui. The only place where the amusement of the dance could be enjoyed was upon the bowling-green, where a fiddle and a hautboy formed the whole band: the only promenade was a grove of sycamore trees. Of the varied appliances of the gaming-table Bath was then innocent; but the chairmen were so rude, that no respectable female durst pass along the street unprotected, in the evening. The Pump-house was without a director; "and," says Goldsmith, in his Life of Nash,' "to add to all this, one of the greatest physicians of his age (we believe it was Dr. Radcliffe) conceived a design of ruining the city, by writing against the efficacy of its waters. It was from a resentment of some affront he had received there that he took this resolution; and accordingly published a pamphlet, by which, he said, he would cast a toad in the spring."

He

Nash, at this auspicious moment for his fortune, arrived at Bath, and made a hit at once by assuring the people that he would charm away the poison, as the venom of the tarantula was charmed--by music. only asked for a band of performers, to make the Doctor's toad perfectly harmless. His proposition was at once agreed to, and the Pump-room immediately received the benefit, by attracting a full and fashionable company; and the spirit of the man so gained their goodwill, that he was speedily voted Master of the Ceremonies-or King of Bath.

Nash commenced his reign by repairing the roads of the city,-a strange duty for a master of the ceremonies to discharge, but one which speaks volumes as to the condition of the thoroughfares at the beginning of the last century. The company, which had hitherto been obliged to assemble in a booth to drink tea and chocolate, or to game, were, under his direction, accommodated with a handsome Assembly-room-the first ever erected in the city. He now set about composing a code of laws for his new subjects; and the conditions he drew up for the observance of a polite society were doubtless intended to smack of wit; but we must confess that, viewed in this light, they fully justified his own admission, that the pen was his torpedo,-whenever he grasped it, it benumbed his faculties. composition, which was hung up in a conspicuous place in the Pump-room, strongly savours of the Beau's idiosyncrasies.

Rules to be observed at Bath.

This

1. That a visit of ceremony at first coming, and another at going away, are all that are expected or