better for you," and was about to proceed; but perceiving her grace had lost all patience, a parley ensued, when he, after much altercation, agreed to stop his hand and compound with her for thirty guineas. The duchess, however, seemed displeased the whole evening, and when he came to the table where she was playing, she bade him stand further for an ugly devil, for she hated the sight of him (this, it appears, was the wit of the last century). But her grace afterwards having a run of good luck, called Nash to her: "Come," said she, "I will be friends with you though you are a fool, and to let you see that I am not angry, there is ten guineas more for your Charity. But this I insist on, that neither my name, nor the sum shall be mentioned." Until very lately it was a condition of the hospital that no inhabitant of Bath should participate in its benefits. This absurd law has been very properly abolished. The United Hospital, which we have already spoken of, contains in itself the old City Dispensary, Infirmary, and Casualty Hospital. There are also several alms-houses and charity-schools in the city. The Grammar-school is, however, a very small establishment to supply the educational wants of such a large city as Bath, only ten boys being provided with a gratuitous classical education. We have now traced the principal streets of Bath, and noticed its more remarkable buildings and institutions, and shall conclude with a word or two about the Theatre, the life of which seems sadly on the

wane.

These boards once developed the talent of Mrs. Siddons, Mrs. Abingdon, Miss Brunton, and that of Incledon, Henderson, Edwin, and Elliston. Indeed, together with the Bristol stage, which was generally under the same management, it sent up to the metropolitan boards a greater number of eminent actors than any city in the kingdom; now, we fear, the supply of talent is entirely stopped, and the tone of the society of the city keeps away the citizens from its doors. "The New Theatre Royal," as it is called, has a handsome classic front, and its interior is excellently arranged, and very elegant in appearance: indeed, few provincial buildings of its kind can vie with it either in beauty or the excellence with which it is constructed as regards sight and sound.

THE RIVER AVON AND ITS BRIDGES.

The river which traverses the city in a winding direction, from east to west, has certainly something to complain of in the manner in which it is treated in its passage. The river God, who disports himself in the tolerably clear stream skirted by the Bathwick meadows, must, we are sure, both hold his nose and shut his eyes, or dive, or execute some other mancuvre, to escape the unpleasant odour and prospect which would otherwise meet him on his way through Bath. It would be somewhat unfair to reprove the citizens for allowing the public sewers to discharge into the stream, when great and opulent London, the centre of the sanitary movement, does the same thing; but the evil is not to be viewed by the metropolitan error, for the Thames is at least a swiftly running river, contain

ing a vast body of water, while the Avon is little better than a canal, for its sluggish stream is impeded at about every other mile of its length, between a spot high above Bath down to Bristol, with lock-gates and weirs. The consequence is, that all the filth which flows into it is merely deposited at the bottom, and there generates noxious gases at "its own sweet will." We must confess that we do not envy the fair naïads of the stream (if they have not all been scared long ago), the difficulty they must have in picking their way along the bottom of the river. We wonder again why the

Bathonians allow the banks on either side of the old bridge, the chief entrance to the city, to be lumbered with such ruinous buildings as skirt the Lower Bristol Road, and the mean cottages to be seen on every hand. The stranger would look for a promenade beside the river of such a city as Bath as a matter of course; but he finds instead every condition unfavourable to health and disgusting to the senses. But we are only at the beginning of our knowledge of the great science of Hygien, and are wrong to expect Bathonians to understand it better than their neighbours.

There

The river is spanned by a number of bridges, which differ widely in their character. The highest up the stream is a pretty little toy suspension-bridge, at the back of Grosvenor Place; then comes the Bathwick bridge, connecting the London Road and the parish of Walcot, the general appearance of which is solid and ornate. The next we arrive at is the gloomy structure which carries Bridge Street on its broad back. is something quite terrible in the appearance of this bridge, viewed from the weir in front of the Bathwick mill. The three dark arches, through which scarce any light is seen, and the sombre character of the tall houses which form the back of the Grove, and rise in all the gloomy manner of one of Dante's creation, is contrasted with the long, ghost-like, white line of foaming water which rushes over the dam, and completes a picture which stamps itself on the mind for ever. An old dramatist would instantly seize upon it for the scene of some imaginary horror. (Cut, No. 10.) After dwelling upon its strangely tragic appearance, the light effect of the North Parade Bridge seems to relieve the mind like a vaudeville after a heavy melo-drama. The span of this elegant structure is 108 feet, and its whole effect is pretty. The two railroad bridges come next, then the old bridge, and, lower down the river, towards the village of Twerton, there are two more on the suspension principle. We question if any city in England is spanned by so many roadways as Bath. The village of Twerton is well worth a visit, as in this place still lingers the old manufacture of the place, in the shape of an immense woollen factory, which turns out a vast amount of the still celebrated West of England cloth.

LITERARY ASSOCIATIONS OF BATH AND ITS NEIGH

BOURHOOD.

For those associations, of which Bath has most reason to be proud, we must sweep the horizon. To

the north-west, stands the solitary tower, on Lansdowne, built by that great and magnificent genius Beckford; to the south-east, where Coomb Down rises four hundred feet above the vale, Prior Park rears its long and splendid façade. This mansion, once the seat of Ralph Allen, Esquire-the Allworthy of Fielding's novel of Tom Jones,'-is now erected into a Roman Catholic College. To get to it we must cross the Old Bridge-having in our face the bold acclivity of Beechen Cliff, which rises to several hundred feet in height, and seems to hang with its woody summit directly over the city-and proceed for some little distance along the left bank of the Avon, until we turn up the lovely Vale of Lyncomb. This beautifully wooded valley is studded with cottage ornées and handsome residences, and is evidently a favourite spot with those who desire a mild and sheltered situation. At length our footsteps are arrested by a couple of gates, forming the entrance respectively to the New Bath Abbey Cemetery, and to the Catholic College of Prior Park. If we scale the greater height, we shall soon find ourselves in front of the latter building. Prior Park was erected in 1743, by Mr. Allen, who was originally a clerk in the Bath Post-office; but having luckily been enabled to give General Wade some intimation of a wagon-load of arms coming to the town for the use of the Pretender's adherents during the rising of 1715, he was rewarded by the Government, at the recommendation of that officer, with the situation of Postmaster of the city. Whilst in this trust he got the Government to adopt an ingenious plan of his for the multiplication of cross posts, by which the revenue was vastly increased, and the proposer, who formed the department, was rendered independent.

The Post-office seems to have been mainly indebted to Bathonians for the improvements which have been made in its management; for the first revolution which took place in the speed with which letters were transmitted was brought about by another of her sons, Mr. Palmer, who originated the plan of despatching the letter-bags by mail-coaches, and who was rewarded for his idea by the post of surveyor and controller of the Post-office, and by a grant of £50,000. But to return to Prior Park and its builder, between whom and Pope an intimacy had sprung up, occasioned by Allen's admiration of the letters of the poet, published in 1734. Pope, who loved "to fall in pleasant places," if his lines did not, was a constant visitor to the palatial residence of his friend, and to this day a walk in the neighbourhood is known as 'Pope's Walk.' It was to his worthy host that his fine compliment is paid which has passed into so common a quotation :

"Let humble Allen with ingenuous shame

Do good by stealth, and blush to find it fame."

It was originally written, "Let low-born Allen," &c.; but the best of us have a vein of pride lurking about our hearts, and Pope did not exactly please his friend by this allusion to his early life, and, at the suggestion of Warburton, he substituted the phrase as it at present

stands. The way in which the Bishop became acquainted with Allen is a singular instance of the manner in which a whole life--nay, the destinies of a family,might be decided by an accident. It is related that whilst Pope was on a visit at Prior Park he was handed a letter, the reading of which seemed to give him some perplexity; and his host inquiring the cause, was informed that a Lincolnshire clergyman had written him word that he would be with him at Twickenham in a few days. Mr. Allen suggested that the friends could as well meet at Prior Park as on the banks of the Thames; and the result was, that Warburton arrived, and in process of time married Allen's niece, became, through his influence, Bishop of Gloucester, and ultimately inherited Prior Park and a large portion of his estates. Pope, we must confess, did not behave towards Allen with very much delicacy, for he actually brought down to his house his mistress, Martha Blount; but his friend even bore this insult with temper: a coldness, however, took place between the lady and Mrs. Allen, as might have been expected. The only wonder is, that her visit should have been allowed; but that such was the case might be seen, from Allen's conversations with Pope on the subject, and his letters to Mrs. Blount, which appear in Bowles's edition of Pope's Works. Warburton took up his residence here after Allen's death, and from this place issued the major part of that divine's controversial works. In 1829, Dr. Baines, the Roman Catholic Vicar-Apostolic of the Western district, purchased Prior Park, and converted it into a college for the instruction of youth. For this purpose he enlarged the building by adding two very extensive wings to the original fabric, and the whole façade has now a very noble appearance. The gardens were remodelled by the same tasteful hand, and the interior enriched with statues and paintings, which the vicar had brought from Italy. A theatre and an observatory were also added to the building, and such was the magnificence to which the whole establishment had attained under Dr. Baines's guidance, that a few years ago the place was the lion of the neighbourhood. A very disastrous fire took place, however, in 1836, which entirely consumed the interior of the centre, or old portion of the building erected by Allen, and property to the amount of £18,000 was destroyed. This loss, together with the death of Dr. Baines, in 1843, seems to have reduced the fortunes of the place, and now visitors are not so easily allowed admittance; the present head of the establishment not wishing, it is said, to expose the reduced fortunes of the place.

We have not many particulars of Fielding's connection with Prior Park, but there is no doubt that he laid the early scenes of Tom Jones' at this place. The novelist must have been a bit of a courtier as well as the Bishop; for his portrait of Allworthy drew from the original a present of £500. A description of Mr. Allen's grounds and the distant landscape is given in Tom Jones,' which, as one of the old guide-books says, "allowing for the introduction of an imaginary. sea, distant island, and ruined abbey, is tolerably cor

rect!" The objects the imaginative painter has introduced into his landscape are evidently drawn from some high point near neighbouring Clifton, where the features of a river and sea, and a distant island, lie before the spectator. Fielding might have copied faithfully, however, the prospect from Coomb Down; for if he had no ocean-prospect to terminate his view, the city, with its picturesque spires, and its noble buildings was there to supply the scene with a moral life far more attractive than a monotonous expanse of ocean. Allen, independently of his patronage of men of letters and his abundant benevolence, might be considered as having been a very important agent in the construction of modern Bath. It was he that opened the vast quarries of oolite or freestone upon Coomb Down, from which, as from a womb, the splendid city at its side sprang forth. This quarry is well worth a visit in itself. The great oolite formation in which it works is 130 feet in thickness, and the blocks taken out are sometimes of an enormous size. The roof of this quarry is supported by numerous lofty pillars and arches, through which the subterranean passages extend a considerable distance. A tram-road, on an inclined plane, conveys the stone to the Avon, whence it is shipped in barges to all parts of the kingdom-its hardness and durability making it a favourite material with builders.

There is an air about all cemeteries of insincerity : the grief is too gilded-the sentiments too strained— by which survivors attempt to keep alive the memory of those buried in them. The churches in such places are but pretty toy-buildings, to which neither veneration nor respect attaches. The Saxon edifice in this Cemetery is particularly wanting in dignity. Looking, the other day, from this spot, down the vale towards the antique little church at Widcomb, over which old Time has been for ages festooning the ivy, we could not help contrasting in our mind the country churchyard and church with the genteel cemeteries of modern growth. The church was only a few hundred yards distance, and we walked towards it, expecting to have a ramble among its "forgotten graves," but found the hatch shut and locked; so instead of musing among the silent tombs-a privilege which should not be denied any man; for to close "God's acre" is to fasten down a leaf of that great book of mortality which all of us are the better for sometimes reading-we were perforce obliged to take a survey of the impounded dead over the low churchyard wall, and soon saw that none but the elite of the departed were here buried. The whole place wore an air of mouldering exclusiveness, which a distant view of the picturesque little tower did not lead us to expect. More lieutenant-colonels and

have here their glorious deeds blazoned forth on urn and slab, and we turned away with a full persuasion that Bath was the natural resting-place of that class of individuals, the type of which Ingoldsby has given to us in his 'Legend of Hamilton Tighe,' as follows:

Returning by the way we came, through Lyncomb Valley, the Abbey Cemetery must claim our attention for a few minutes. A more beautiful spot for the purpose it is devoted to could not have been chosen, and the most has been made of the natural beauties of the ground by the art of Loudon, who laid it out. There are not as yet very many monuments, for the Cemetery was only formed in 1843. The remains of Mr. Beckford were interred here in 1844, but his body has lately been removed to its resting-place within his own. grounds on Lansdowne. When the workmen were making the roadway to the chapel in this Cemetery, they discovered three stone coffins containing skeletons, together with another skeleton, and two Roman coins, one of Carausius, the other of Constantine. A monument has been erected over these coffins, the presence of which prove that the spot must have been a place of burial at a very early period.

A person walking over the ground cannot help remarking the number of Indian officers among the dead. Every third tombstone, almost, rises resplendent to the merits of some lieutenant-colonel or major-general in the Bombay or Madras armies. "Bath must indeed be a great place for bad livers," are we should think the unconscious words that arise in most people's

minds who visit it.

"There is an old yellow Admiral living at Bath, As gray as a badger, as thin as a lath;

And his very queer eyes have such very queer leers, They seem to be trying to peep at his ears. That old yellow Admiral goes to the Rooms, And he plays long whist, and he frets and he fumes." &c. &c. &c.

The portrait is undeniable; we meet the original at every turn in the more aristocratic portions of the city, and we have seen by the obituaries in the churchyards and cemeteries that they make Bath their last long home.

We must mount again to the hill-top to seek the retreat of genius. Beckford's Tower, to which we bend our steps, stands on the brow of Lansdowne Hill; full eight hundred feet above the level of the city. Our way is along Belmont and Belvedere, toiling painfully up the steep, but everywhere meeting with signs of the aristocratic nature of the quarter we are traversing. At length we reach Lansdowne Crescent, one of the highest buildings in the city, and only second to the Royal Crescent in beauty. Mr. Beckford used to occupy two houses here, one of which formed the corner of a wing detached from the main building by a narrow roadway. In order to form a communication between the two, he threw an arch across, of good proportions and simple form; and in this Siamese residence lived the great

recluse, a puzzle, nay almost a fear, to the good citizens of Bath. His retreat was a kind of Blue Beard chamber, of which all kinds of mysterious reports were spread. Mr. Beckford had a dwarf, who served as porter to his habitation; this unit the good gossips multiplied into a dozen, and gave each some weird employment. The proud, reserved nature of Beckford aided the mysterious awe in which everything belonging to him was held. Toned as his mind was so far above that of the fribbles who constitute the ton of Bath, and despising as he did their petty conventionalities and common-places, he neither sought their company nor would permit their vulgar curiosity to intrude upon himself. A few artists and literary men, in consequence, formed his only society, and the only times in which he was seen in public was when he dashed along the thoroughfares on his white Arabian. To those with whom he did chose to associate, however, his affability was extreme, and his conversation one of the most charming things in the world. His residence was the repository of the rarest works of art; but it was in his tower on the hill that he realized all his Eastern dreams. Here, too, he walled himself up from the rest of the world, and played the great Caliph to perfection. The Lansdowne Tower is so conspicuous an object, that every one who has travelled the Great Western road must have seen its exterior; yet very few of late years gained admittance to its interior, or into the charmed circle of its grounds. When it was first erected, Mr. Beckford allowed persons freely into it; but he afterwards shut it up almost entirely. This elegant building (of which we have given a Cut) is, at the base, constructed like an Italian villa, upon which rises a campanile, and this in its turn is crowned with a Grecian Lantern. The interior of the tower was a precious jewel-house,-cabinets of ebony, inlaid with lapis lazuli, onyx and agates, vases of verd, antique pieces of statuary, and the rarest pictures of the first masters, adorned its walls and chambers. At one time the value of these works of art was not less than £100,000; but an attempt having been made to break into the tower, the more precious portions of its contents were taken to his residence. (Cut, No. 11.)

The Lantern was the favourite room of Mr. Beckford, he had so constructed it that each window formed a frame to some splendid natural landscape; the view from the west opening is especially beautiful. The river Avon winds along the valley like a thread of silver, and in the distance the mountains of Wales rear their purple heads. In the middle distance runs a line of hills that used to displease Mr. Beckford by the monotonous appearance of its outline, and the manner in which he proposed to remedy this defect shows the originality and daring character of his mind. He endeavoured to buy the highest of the range, with the idea of planting it with firs, so as to have made it resemble Rembrandt's famous etching of "The Three Trees." A person to whom he related this extraordinary idea of copying in nature a grand effort of art, objected that the trees would require some time

to grow; Beckford replied, iron ones, then, until they did!" This notion of "making up" Nature after the manner of some favourite painters effects was carried out by him in his own garden to a considerable degree. He converted an old quarry into a charming, half-cultivated scene, reminding one of a picture by Polemburg. Cype and Paul Potter he reproduced in his little meadow, spotted with his favourite cows; and the more gloomy spots of his shrubbery brought N. Poussin to mind, with his classic melancholy landscapes.

"that he should put up cast

in.

A rapid effect was a thing which Beckford delighted He used to chuckle over the sudden change he made one winter in the appearance of a considerable portion of Lansdowne Hill, by planting a vast quantity of trees. "The Bristol folks," said he, "who travel the Lower Road, seeing trees upon Lansdowne, where none appeared before, rub their eyes-they can't believe their sight." Mr. Beckford died in 1844, almost suddenly. His last note, summoning his beloved daughter, the Duchess of Hamilton, is very touching; it contains only these three words-" Come, quick! quick!" His remains were deposited in the monument he had constructed for himself, (which visitors must have remembered to have seen, during his lifetime, standing amid the Shrubbery, just under the tower, and close to the little tomb he had erected to his dog "Tiny,") and transferred to the Bath Abbey Cemetery. This removal was contrary to his instructions, and as it proved to be the decree of fate; for upon the property being sold, it fell into the hands of a person who determined to make it a place of public amusement: but the Duchess of Hamilton could not brook this desecration of the spot she held sacred; the grounds were accordingly repurchased by her, and presented to the Rector of Walcot as a Cemetery; the first person who was buried here being its late owner, and in the very spot he had chosen for himself. His tomb, formed of red granite, simple and massive in effect, seems like, what it is, an expression of his own mind. On each end of the mausoleum is this inscription:* WILLIAM BECKFORD, ESQ., late of Fonthill, Wilts, died May, 2nd, 1844, aged 84.

Beneath this, at one end, is a quotation from 'Vathek :' "Enjoying humbly the most precious gift of Heaven-hope!" and on the other, the following lines from a prayer composed by himself: