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'Letters from Portugal,' which we give on the autho- | pervaded the upper-classes towards the end of the last rity of a paper in 'The New Monthly,' some years since, century, when scribbling poetry of the Della Cruscan written by those who knew him, cannot be without school was all the rage, and which Gifford so unmercideep interest. We do not know, indeed, whether the fully lashed in his 'Baviad and Mæviad :' Mrs. Piozzi, associations that cling to Lansdowne are not more who, when Mr. Thrale was the friend and intimate of pleasant than those attaching to Prior Park. The Johnson, joined the Della Cruscans, when on a visit to former building certainly bears the impress of a Italy, with her husband, and was one of the most active stranger individuality. contributors to the Florence Miscellany,' but this was long after the break-up of the Batheaston poetasters. Mrs. Piozzi died in Bath at a very advanced age, in 1821, writing love verses almost up to the day of her dissolution. Bath can at the present moment, however, boast of the residence of a true poet, and one of the most delicate, graceful, and original prose writers of the age, in the gifted Walter Savage Landor. In artists also the city has not been wanting. Barker has made himself a name as a landscape painter, and Gainsborough, although not a Bathonian, yet lived many years here and sketched much from its surrounding scenery. The celebrated Wick Rocks in the neighbourhood was one of his favourite haunts and supplied his portfolio with numberless sketches.

The only other direction in which we can look for any literary associations connected with Bath, is to the beautiful suburb of Batheaston; but these we are afraid are only bastard ones. Sir John and Lady Miller (the lions of the neighbourhood) had, it appears, purchased while on their tour in Italy (of which Lady Miller published an account), an antique vase found at Frescati in 1759: this was brought home and placed in their villa at Batheaston, which was now converted into a temple of Apollo; the Lady being the high-priestess and the vase the shrine of the deity. A general invitation was issued to all the sons and daughters of fashion of the neighbouring city "the mob of gentlemen who write with ease," every Thursday and Friday. Here the company were ushered into a room where they found the old Etruscan vase was placed upon a modern altar, and decorated with sprigs of laurel; and as each gentleman or lady passed the venerable relic, an offering was made of some original composition in verse: at first merely of what the French term bouts rimés or rhyming terminations, which had been filled up by the candidates for poetical fame; but afterwards of short papers on particular subjects given out the preceding week. The assembly having all contributed their morceaux, a lady was selected from the circle who, dipping her fair hand into the vase, drew the papers out haphazard as they occurred, and gave them to a gentleman to read aloud. This process being concluded, a select committee was named to determine upon the merits of the poems and adjudge the prizes; these retired into an adjoining room and fixed upon the four best productions-the blushing authors of which, when they had identified their compositions, were presented by the high-priestess, the lady of the mansion, with a fillet of myrtle, and crowned amidst the plaudits of the company. The most sensible part of the gala, a genteel collation, concluded the business. This attic pastime continued for several years; till the wicked wit of an unknown wag having contaminated the purity of the urn by some licentious and satirical composition, to the extreme horror of the ladies assembled to hear the productions recited, and the equal chagrin of the host and hostess, who expected the usual weekly tribute of adulatory compliment: the sacred vessel was henceforth closed, and the meetings were discontinued for ever. Such is the account given of this namby-pamby affair, by Warner the Bath historian; and we should scarcely have thought it worth our while to repeat it, still less to place the silly actors in it beside those bright literary lights whose memories still illumine the horizon of the city, but that these proceedings show the tone of the literary spirit which

THE SANITARY CONDITION OF THE CITY. It is now as common to inquire respecting the sanitary condition of a town, as of the health of a person. Necessity forces us to deal with man in the aggregate as well as with the individual. Sir Henry De la Beche's report of the condition of the city is a rather favourable one, and doubtless from the situation of a greater portion of it, the city should be eminently healthy. The buildings on Lansdowne Hill, for instance, are based on the inferior oolite sands which, together with the rapidly sloping nature of the ground, renders them dry and healthy in the extreme. Other portions, again, of the city, are constructed on marl and limestone foundations, which make them tolerably wholesome. The lowest parts of Bath, however, such as Great Pulteney Street, Bathwick, and the neighbourhoods bordering the river, stand entirely on alluvial ground, composed of clay, which naturally causes damp, and produces disease. Great Pulteney Street is, however, protected in a measure from this evil by the deep vaulting on which the houses are erected. The number of deaths, in proportion to the population, is fewer than in most towns; but we scarcely think the public health is so good as it might be, when we consider the natural advantages of the place as regards drainage and the free currents of air which circulate through the valley in which it lies.. It might be said that the average length of life in the city is lowered by the number of invalids who come here merely to die; but this is, we think, quite balanced by the vast proportion of persons it contains who live in comfortable circumstances, and many of whom attain to a great age. Bath, it must be remembered, has no manufactures, and does not, therefore, breed up on its bosom a class of persons who are peculiarly open to the attacks of disease: that there is a vast amount of squalor in the lower parts of the

town there can be no doubt, but it does not amount, that is the preponderance of females over males in the

we think, to that existing in many other places. When we consider all these favourable circumstances, then we can only account for the public health not being still more favourable than it is, by an insufficient system of drainage, and by the very bad plan of allowing the public sewers to empty themselves into the almost stagnant river. A remedy to the evil can scarcely be looked for, we suppose, until some well-devised plan of collecting the refuse of towns and applying it to agricultural purposes has been arrived at. One very singular fact is elicited by the population returns, and

city. By the census of 1841, this excess was no less than 8,546! So that Bath is the last place in the world for a managing mother with a large family of daughters to come to. What a pity it is that so many of them should

"Wither on the virgin thorn,"

when at Adelaide and other Australian cities, they are so impatient for wives that young men come off in boats when emigrant ships arrive on purpose to secure them!

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