And owns th’ inimitable fair.
Presently appeared the following epigram or impromptu composed by some divine, of which it has been truly remarked that it is difficult to say whether the author or the lady has the greater compliment!—
While numerous bards have sounded Spenser’s name,
And made her beauties heirs to lasting fame,
Her memory still to their united lays
Stands less indebted than to Watts’s praise.
What wondrous charms must to that fair be given,
Who moved a mind that dwelt so near to heaven!
Tunbridge Wells is still the pleasant resort of those who seek the mild and quiet attractions of charming scenery, refreshing breezes, and crags and downs; but the romantic season of Tunbridge Wells is to be sought for about the period when Watts and his contemporaries were visitors there, scenes open to the fancy which it would be difficult to realize now amidst its splendid palatial residences; even Nature must look less like Nature than it did then, while the superior auxiliaries of comfort and accommodation have, as in almost all such instances, been purchased at the expense of dissipating the charms and rural beauties of a place which still retains so many of them as to make one of the most attractive and satisfying haunts for a sick heart among the sanatories of England.