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 fireplace 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. Richard of Cirencester, a monk of the fourteenth century, in his 'Itinerarium,' describes 'Aqua Solis' as "the scat of a colony, and the perpetual residence of the Romans, who possessed this part of Britain. It was a famous city, situated upon the river Abona, remarkable for its hot-springs, which were formed into baths at a great expense. Apollo and Minerva were the tutelary deities, in whose temples the perpetual fire never fell into ashes, but, as it wasted away, turned into globes of stone."

Once these baths must have witnessed a thousand diversified scenes, as they were the great places of resort of the Roman people. Perhaps 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 car 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 some twenty feet below the present level of the soil, and four feet above them were discovered several 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 porticoes of temples to Minerva and Apollo, and other deities of the Roman worship. Some of these must have been of 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 buried; while in one instance the pieces have been placed together, and 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 mighty people who worshipped at their shrines. Here, too, in the morning sun, glittered 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 almost as sharply

and distinctly upon the surrounding background of hills as did any of the antique towns of Italy herself.

Aqua Solis remained a place of great resort during the whole period of the Roman occupation; 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 healthy system-that the glory and beauty of the place were levelled to the dust.

6

All that remains of this once splendid city is now stowed away in the vaults and passages of the Literary Institution, and hardly another English city can produce such a display of local Roman remains as are here deposited. As you pass along them to read the Times' of a morning, or to cut open the wet sheets of a Quarterly,' 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 lecture-room, 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.

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, Aqua Solis remained in comparative peace. The Saxons, in the year 577, became masters of the city and the neighbouring country, and the Latin name of Aquæ Solis, or the Waters of the Sun, was changed to the homely, but more appropriate, Æt Hátum Bathum, or Hot Baths, or Bathan Byrig, Bath Town, and sometimes Acemanne's Ceaster, which Bosworth (Ang. Sax. Dict.) renders Sick Man's City. 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 a necessary of life. The succeeding history of the city, up to the beginning of the eighteenth century, might be turned over without any remarkable loss. 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.

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: but the Cornish musqueteers, under Sir Bevil Granville, managed to retrieve the day, with the loss of their gallant commander, 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.

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 chimney-pieces, 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! From such 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. These 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 re-construction 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 gayest 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, after quitting the university, entered 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. Having got tired of the law, as he had of the army, 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 accomodations were contemptible: its houses and public places lacked the 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."

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. He 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: the spirit of the man so gained their good will, that he was speedily voted Master of the Ceremonies, and soon was recognized as 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 erected in the city: and he set about composing a code of laws for his new subjects. The public balls under his management, were conducted with the greatest decorum. They commenced at six, and concluded at eleven. This rule he maintained so rigidly, that the Princess Amelia once applying to him for one dance more after his authoritative finger had given the signal for the band to withdraw, was refused, with the remark that his laws were like those of Lycurgus, which would admit of no alteration without an utter subversion of all authority. Nash had some difficulty in regulating the dress to be worn at the Assembly; but he went boldly to work, and chid even the most exalted in rank, when they departed from his rules. On one occasion he signified his dislike of the practice of wearing white aprons at the Assembly, by stripping the Duchess of Queensberry of one valued at five hundred guineas, and throwing it at the hinder benches, amongst the ladies' women. He tried in vain, for a long time, to prevent the wearing of swords, on the plea that they tore the ladies' dresses; but, in fact, to put a stop to the numerous duels which arose out of the intrigues of gallants, or disputes at the gaming-table. It was not, however, until an encounter took place, in which one of the combatants was mortally wounded, that he succeeded in abolishing the use of the sword in the city of Bath; henceforward, whenever he heard of a challenge, he instantly had both parties placed under arrest. The gentlemen's boots made the most determined stand against him. The squires were, however, at length shamed out of their boorishness; still at times, a gentleman through ignorance or haste, would appear in the rooms in the forbidden boots; but Nash always made up to him, and bowing with much mock gravity, would tell him that he had forgotten to bring his horse.

Beau Nash, like other potentates, had his crown. The old German emperors fumed and fretted under an iron diadem: the king of Bath wore a white hat, which he wished to be taken as an emblem of the purity of his mind! He might be considered to have reached the apogee of his reign between the years 1730-40. Within that time, Bath was honoured with the visits of two royal personages the Prince of Orange and the Prince of Wales, both of whom he managed to turn to account. Those who have visited Bath have doubtless been struck with the prevalence of obelisks in that city,

the peculiarly mournful form of which seems to give a character to the place. The obelisk in the Orange Grove was erected by Nash, to commemorate the visit of the Prince of Orange to the city for the benefit of his health, in 1734. Nash, who appears to have combined a most ecstatic loyalty with a shrewd eye to the benefit of his little kingdom, was so impressed with the Prince's recovery, that he immediately had this building erected, inscribing a seasonable puff upon it of the virtues of the Bath waters. Again, in 1738, when the Prince of Wales visited Bath, Nash ran up another obelisk in Queen Square, and in order to make it all the more worthy of the personage it was dedicated to, he asked Pope to write its inscription. The poet's answer, declining the honour, is a master-piece of irony.

In his day of pride, Nash might be seen going forth upon a progress to the colony of Tunbridge he had founded, in his post-chariot and six greys, with outriders, footmen, and French horns; and at the side of his equipage his famous running footman, Murphy, who thought nothing of going a message for his master to London in a day. Had not Bath reason to be proud of a king who kept such sumptuous state? It might be asked how Nash managed to support all this extravagance, as he received no remuneration in consideration of his office as Master of the Ceremonies. One word will explain all-play filled his overflowing purse. Hazard, lansquenet, and loo, were the milder forms of excitement in which the ladies joined: the sterner sex indulged in more desperate games, and an incredible deal of money was lost to the sharpers, who made the city their head-quarters during the dead metropolitan season. To such a height was gambling carried, that at last the Government interfered, and by Act of Parliament suppressed all the games of chance of the day. Public gaming thus being checked, the whole source of Nash's income was cut off at once. He managed to recover it, however, for a time, but with a total loss of all honour, and a great portion of that consideration with which his Bath subjects had hitherto treated him. He received this fall through entering into a confederation with the keepers of a new game, called 'E.O.,' set up on purpose to evade the law.

Nash died in 1761, and for some time no dispute as to the succession arose; but in 1769, a civil war took place, in consequence of two Masters of the Ceremonies being elected. The partisans of the rival monarchs, among whom the ladies were most prominent, actually came to blows in the Pump-room, whose walls witnessed the most extraordinary scenes that perhaps ever took place in a polite assembly. Imagine, good reader, a crowd of fashionables of the present day falling to pulling noses, and tearing caps and dresses! Yet such deeds took place among the 'mode' in Bath, not seventy years ago. And it was not until the Riot Act had been read three times, that the fury of the combatants was appeased!

We have before dwelt upon the insignificant appearance of the city at the beginning of the eighteenth century. At that time, it contained but two houses fit to receive any personages of condition; but before its close it was one of the most splendidly-built places in Europe. In the few minutes' breathing time which is allowed at Bath, in the rapid rush from London to the West, the traveller has, from the platform of the railway-station, a splendid view of the city. The foreground he sees filled with spires of churches--the Abbey sitting like a mother in the midst; the background closed in by the Lansdowne hills, up which terrace and crescent climb, until they appear almost to reach the clouds. Amid this splendid scene, however, he singles out one mass of buildings immediately beneath his eye, which stands with an air of great dignity, and seems to carry with it recollections of bygone glory. The North and South Parade, which we allude to, was one of the earliest works of Wood. Its broad and ample terraces, -where now but a few invalids catch the warmth of the sunny South, or breathe