The villages thicken, and the hills grow steeper as we approach Bath, and at last you are suddenly shot into a bowl of palaces and verdure—the bottom covered with gardens, and the sides with terraced crescents of architecture. I had just time to exclaim with wonder at the unexpected splendor of the hill-sides rounding us in, when the station roof slid over us like an extinguisher, and the conductor’s voice announced that we were at Bath.
LETTER V.
Boys by dozens, offering to be our guides, and six or seven rival omnibusses begging us for the hotels.
Leaving cloak and shawl, and ordering dinner at three, at the hotel adjoining the station, we sallied forth to ramble the town over, with three good hours before us—the return-cars leaving at four. As I just now said, the bottom of this vase of hills is laid out in gardens, and we crossed to the other side upon a raised road which looks down upon a beautiful parterre of gravel walks and flowers, free to the public to look at. But the stranger stops at every second step, to gaze about and wonder. I had read very glowing descriptions of Bath, but my anticipation, even of its size, was three fourths less than the reality. Its picturesqueness is theatrical. No scene painter could cluster and pile up palaces, gardens and spires, with more daring extravagance. The abundant quarries of free-stone in the neighborhood, have furnished all their building materials, and every house that is not beautifully antique, is of ornamental architecture. I saw one or two beggars, but I did not see where they could live. Splendid squares, crescents, terraces and colonades, monopolize the town.
We made straight for the “Pump-Room,” of course. It lies behind a prodigally Gothic abbey, (one of the most ornate and beautiful specimens of the Gothic I ever saw,) and with a large paved court before it, surrounded by shops. It is merely one large room in a building, which is one of a block, and though it was doubtless a very splendid hall when first built, it is now outdone by the saloons of common theatres, and by the “refreshment rooms” of railroad stations. A semicircular counter projects from the wall on one side, studded with cake and glasses of chalybeate water, a large mirror hangs opposite, and the recess at one end is filled with seats and lounges for rest or gossip. Had I been the solitary traveller I usually am, I should have sat down in a corner and “put the screws” to the ghost of Beau Nash and the belles of his brilliant time and circle—but I had better company than my own imagination, and the old master of ceremonies had only a thought sent after him.
LETTER VI.
London.
I could copy a new leaf from my memory that would be very interesting to you, for I dined yesterday in a party of admirable talkers, and heard much that I shall remember. But, though the brilliant people themselves, whose conversation we thus record, are far from being offended at the record—the critics (who were not so fortunate as to be there too) are offended for them. The giving the talk without naming the talkers would make common-place of it, I am afraid, just as taking the wooden labels from the large trees, in the botanical park at Kew, would make the exotic groves look indigenous—but we must submit to this noisy demand of the critics notwithstanding. In a world where one might, possibly, have a real fault to be defended for by his friends, it is a pity to put them to the trouble of defending them for nothing!
I hear much said of two of our countrymen who seem to have made a strong impression on society in England. Mr. Colman, the agriculturist, is one of them, and his strong good sense, and fresh originality of mind were well suited to be relished in this country. The other is a gentleman whose peculiar talent was never before brought to its best market, popular as it is in New York—“Major Jack Downing;” and of his power as a raconteur, I hear frequent and strong expressions of admiration. This, by the way, and similar talents, which are only used for the enlivening of private society, are, in our country, like gold ingots at the mine—scarce recognised as value till brought over the water and stamped. I know more than one man in America who has gifts from nature that would be most valuable to him in English society, and are of no value to him in ours.
To-night is Taglioni’s farewell performance, before quitting the stage, and I had made up my mind to go and see her, “on her last legs,” but a more tempting engagement draws me another way. I saw her a few nights since, when she was doing her best in honor of the approbation of the King of the Netherlands. It was in the new ballet of “Diana,” but though there were certainly some beautiful overcomings of “obedience to the centre of gravity,” it was dull’d in the memory by the dancing of Cerito who followed her. May this latter dancer live and stay pretty, till you see her, my dear General!