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every other person carry the unerring symptoms of dissolution.

Bristol, as a commercial city, is so well known, as to render description unnecessary. The hot-well lies about a quarter of a mile from its westward boundary, in the parish of Clifton, and rises from the bottom of the cliffs that bound the Avon on the Gloucestershire side, forcibly gushing from an aperture in the solid rock of lime, and discharging about sixty gallons in a minute. It is of a milky warmth, and contains much fixed air, some magnesia, soda, and lime, in various combinations with the muriatic, vitriolic, and carbonic acids. Hence it is found serviceable in hæmorrhages, diabetes, dyspepsia, and various affections of the lungs, if not too much injured; and to its natural good effects, the purity of the air round Clifton must naturally contribute.

At all seasons this water has the same temperature and efficacy; but it is most used from the middle of April to the end of October. Every accommodation is provided for invalids; and every amusement likewise which they are capable of enjoying. A theatre, two sets of assembly-rooms, under a master of the ceremonies, circulating libraries, and other appendages to places of public resort, have long been established here. Indeed the beauty of the situation brings many persons here who are not labouring under disease; and sometimes a whole family attends for the sake of one unhappy member belonging to it, for whom the waters have been prescribed.

The views from St. Vincent's-rocks are romantic and sublime to a high degree. Indeed the whole environs are replete with beauties, and the lovers of botany and mineralogy in particular, will here find much to gratify their researches. Still, however, the sight of so many miserable objects, with some painful recollections which they excited, soon made

us weary of the place, and we hastened to our concluding station, Bath, only twelve miles distant.

BATH.

This is the most elegant of cities, and the first in reputation of all the mineral waters in England. The springs here are universally acknowledged to have the most salutary effect in gouty, bilious, and paralytic cases, and are used both internally in prescribed quantities, and as a bath.

Among the beautiful buildings with which this city abounds, and which contains about 33,000 inhabi tants, every possible accommodation for health and for pleasure is to be found.

The theatre is a new and superb edifice, and is always provided with the best provincial performers, or rather it may be considered as a nursery for the London stages. The Upper and Lower Rooms are unrivalled as places of public assembly, and need only be named.

Whatever regard the lodging, provisions, and police of the town is under the most strict controul of the magistrates, as the amusements are directed by the two masters of the ceremonies, who have each a set of rooms under their jurisdiction, and without being rivals have coextensive powers.

The price of lodgings is fixed during the season at an uniform rate, each room, without regard to the comparative superiority of different houses; and the provisions and prices of the markets receive the utmost attention. Coals, in particular, are cheap, on account of the proximity of a colliery which is at about eight miles from the city, and the ease with which they are brought down the Avon.

When I say that Bath is the most elegant of cities, I ought, perhaps, to qualify the expression, by observing, that it is rather the elegance of the buildings themselves, than of their distribution,

that is to be admired. It is an assemblage of beautiful edifices; but there is nothing of that plan and commodious intersection of streets, which ought to be supposed, when we speak of them as forming a superb city. The parades are delightfully situated; the great Crescent, the lesser ones, the squares, and the Circus, are fine piles of building ; and the town-hall is a magnificent structure, bearing some resemblance to the Vatican at Rome. The whole city is built with a cream-coloured stone; and its architects deserve considerable praise. The new streets are commodiously wide, and of great extent. The most beautiful is that called Great Pultney Street, which has been lately built on the east side of the bridge over the Avon. It is built in a uniform manner, with the elegant stone already mentioned; and the several orders of architecture having been preserved through the whole, the effect is magnificent in the extreme. Nothing can be more admirable than the new Pump-room, and the new street in its front, which form a beautiful view, with a colonnade, of considerable extent, leading down to the different baths. The Pump-room is an elegant structure, and admirably adapted to the purpose for which it is designed. An agreeable story is told of the Prince of Wales, the incident of which happened in this room some years ago. His royal highness having been conversing for some time with a lady, whose features were rather plain, was rallied by another, of some pretensions to beauty, on the civilities he had paid: "Madam,” replied the prince," Mrs. is not beautiful, but

she is very amiable."

I must not omit to notice the cathedral, or abbey church, at Bath. It is united to that of Wells, in which place the choral service, customary in every diocesan church, is performed. This sacred structure was begun by Oliver King, bishop of the diocese, in the reign of Henry VII. and it

was by this first founder that the west front was curiously carved, with angels, climbing up a ladder to heaven; a piece of antiquity which still presents itself to the eye of the most heedless observer. The death of the bishop caused the building to be neglected for a considerable time; on which occasion the following triplet was written upon one of its walls:

"O church! I wail thy doleful plight,

* Whom King, nor Card'nal, Clark, or Knight,
"Have yet restor❜d to ancient right!"

These lines alluded to Bishop King, by whom the church was begun, and Cardinal Adrian, Cardinal Wolsey, Bishop Clark, and Bishop Knight, his four successors in the see, who, during thirtyfive years, contributed nothing to the completion of the pile. The conceit, as was customary in those days, consists in puns upon their names. The whole was nearly ruined at the famous dissolution of monasteries, when the commissioners offered the building and all its materials to the townsmen, for the sum of five hundred marks. The people, however, were afraid to accept the bargain, lest they should have been thought to "cozin the king," whereupon, the glass, iron, bells, and lead, of which last there were 480 tons, provided for the finishing of the church, were sent beyond seas, and, as old writers are fond of believing, shipwrecked on their way.

In the time of Queen Elizabeth, however, collections were made throughout the land, for the necessary repairs; but the sum produced, whether from the parsimony of the givers, or the dishonesty, as it is hinted, of the collectors, was but inconsiderable. It was reserved for "honest master Billet," of whom we know little, but find a conjecture that he was executor to William Cecil, lord Burleigh, to "distribute good sums," VOL. VI.

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upon the occasion. Under this gentleman's auspices the fane began to flourish; and a second triplet maker ventured to play both the poet and the prophet upon the structure:

"Be blithe, fair kirck! when Hempe is past,
"Thine Olive, that ill winds did blast,
"Shall flourish green, for aye to last."

CASSADORE.

By the word "Hempe," we are taught by Fuller to understand "Henry VIII. Edward VI. Queen Mary, King Philip, and Queen Elizabeth ;" but I should rather suppose that, of these sovereigns, the protestant only were intended, and particularly Elizabeth, in whose time the prediction was put forth. As to the word "Olive," it is obviously a second pun upon Oliver King, the founder; and the same idea has been made use of in a curious piece of sculpture affixed to a part of the church, which represents the Parable of Jotham, (Judges ix. 8) concerning the trees, which being about to chuse a king, proffered the crown to the OLIVE. The introduction of these, and the former lines, will not, I trust, displease the reader of this tour, since they serve to show the genius of the times in which they were written; and, indeed, to this matter hangs another tale, which displays, I am afraid, the genius of all times:-these verses, it is to be told, in the construction of which there is, to be sure,

"Something like prophetic strain,"

were, in the days of the protectorate, duly applied to " one Oliver," as a writer of the ensuing reign denominates him: "So apt," exclaims the same author, "are English fancies to take fire at every spark of conceit! but seeing, since, that Olive has been blasted, root and branches, this pretended prophecy, with that observation, withered away."

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