“Sandleford, February 10, 1779. ... I am inform’d that our minister at Lisbon sends an account that Admiral Rodney fell in with the Spanish fleet in the Gulf of Gibraltar, has blown up the admiral’s ship of ninety guns, taken four or five ships, and only one has got into Cadiz. This news is but just arrived. Rule, Brittannia, rule the waves. There is an admirable work of Mr. Anstey’s just published called ‘Speculation; or, a Defence of Manhood,’ a poem.
“... Montagu is still at Harrow.... His master says more of him than it becomes me to repeat; so I will, for once in my life, show more discretion than vanity.”
To Mrs. Robinson. “Sandleford, June ye 13th, 1779. ... As I had not been to Bath since the Circus was finished and the Crescent began, I was much struck with the beauty of the town. In point of society and amusement, it comes next (but after a long interval) to London. There are many people established at Bath who were once of the polite and busy world, so they retain a certain politeness of manner and vivacity of mind which one cannot find in many country towns. All contracted societies, where there are no great objects of pursuit, must in time grow a little narrow and un peu fade; but then there is an addition of company by people who come to the waters, from all the active parts of life, and they throw a vivacity into conversation which we must not expect from persons whose chief object was the odd trick or a sans prendre. Cards is the great business of the inhabitants of Bath. The ladies, as is usual in little societies, are some of them a little gossiping and apt to find fault with the cap, the gown, the manner, or the understandings of their neighbours. But that does not much concern the water-drinkers, who, not being resident, are not the objects of their envy; and, I must say, they are all very obliging to strangers. As the primate of Ireland was at Bath almost all the time I was there, I had the daily pleasure of passing my time in the most agreable society; for such is that of a person of his noble mind, endeared still more by his friendship to our family.
“I did not go at all to the publick rooms, which are hot and noisy. As much as I could, I excused myself from private assemblies. So, when the primate, Lord Stormont, and some others of my acquaintance who happened to be at Bath, had an idle hour, they bestowed it on me. The Bishop of Peterborough, very unluckily for me, went away the day I came to Bath. We just met at Marlbro’. Another agreable acquaintance of mine, the Provost of Eton, arrived only just before I came away. Mr. Anstey was often with me, and you will believe he is very droll and entertaining; but what recommends him more, is his great attention to his family. He has eight children. He instructs his boys in the Greek and Latin, so that they are fitted for the upper forms of Eton School, where their education is finished. He has a house in the Crescent, at which he resides the greatest part of the year. Mrs. Anstey is a very sensible, amiable woman, and does not deal in the gossip of the place. There is also Mr. Hamilton in the Crescent. He is very polite, agreable, and has been much abroad and lived much in the great world.
“I should dislike the Bath much less, if the houses were larger. I always take the largest that can be got in the Circus or Crescent. On the outside it appears a good stone edifice; in the inside, it is a nest of boxes, in which I should be stifled, if the masonry were not so bad as to admit winds at many places. The society and mode of life are infinitely preferable to what one can find in any other country town, but much less agreable than London. I believe if I was to act the part of Minos in this World, I should use it as a kind of purgatory, to which I should send those who had not the taste or qualifications which deserved to be put into the capital city, nor were yet so disagreably unsociable as to merit suffering the terrors and horrors of a long winter in the country.”
The devotion of Bath visitors to cards has been satirised in many an epigram, more or less pointed. There were certain individuals among them who were not likely to come under the eye of Mrs. Montagu, but who did not escape the notice of Fielding. “I have known a stranger at Bath,” he says, in the first volume of “Amelia,” “who has happened fortunately (I might almost say unfortunately) to have four by honours in his hand almost every time he dealt for a whole evening, shunned universally by the whole company the next day!”
“Mr. Anstey, in a little excursion from home, called here on his way to London, where he arrived just to behold the horrors of the conflagration. On his return back, he made me another visit, and his countenance bore the impression of horror, from the dreadful things he had beheld. He got back to Bath just in time to be present at ye riots there.
“Tho’ I am not personally acquainted with the family of Sir E. Knatchbull, I cannot help being glad the heir of it has made so proper a match. I have heard a good character of the young lady. She has a noble fortune, and, by her mother, must be allied to the best families in Kent. Commerce has so enriched this kingdom, that in every county there are some new gentry who eclypse those ancient families which once had the superiority, and I must own I love to see it return to them. The mellow dignity of a gentleman is infinitely preferable to the crude pride of a nabob. I believe you are acquainted with Sir Archer and Lady Croft. They are now come to live in their house in this neighbourhood. It had been lett to a mad West Indian, who ruined his fortune, and then shot himself; after that, to a nabob. I never visit the West Indians in my neighbourhood, because they would teach my servants to drink rum; nor the nabobs, lest they should teach them to want to eat turtle and rich dainties. So I had not been at Dunstan till the other day, since the old proprietor left it.
“I find the lower kind of neighbours are not pleased with Sir A. and Lady Croft, because they are not so profuse as the West, nor magnificent as the East, Indian; but they seem to me very well-bred people.
“My nephew Robinson, according to the primate’s advice, is studying hard at Cambridge this vacation. He has very good sense and an uncommon memory, so he will reap great advantage from application to study. The generality of young people in these days spend all their time in travelling from place to place. Such a life may fit them to be surveyors of highroads, or, if very ingenious, to make maps of England, but for nothing better. An uniformity of life goes far in forming a consistency of character.