I don’t know anything more strange and agreeable than the feeling of promenading the Parades, North and South—a feeling compounded of awe, reverence, and exciting interest. The tranquil repose and dignity of these low, solid houses, the broad flagged Promenade, the unmistakable air of old fashion, the sort of reality and self-persuasion that they might in a moment be re-peopled with all these eminent persons—much as Boz called up the ghosts of the old mail-coach passengers in his telling ghost story—the sombre grey of the walls, the brightness of the windows: these elements join to leave an extraordinary impression. The houses on these Parades
are charming from their solid proportions, adapted, as it were, to the breadth of the Parade. Execrable, by the way, are the modern attempts seen side by side; feeble and incapable, not attempting any expression at all. There is a row of meagre tenements beside the Abbey—attempts at pinnacled gables—which it is a sorrowful thing to look on, so cheap and starved is it. Even the newer shops, in places like Milsom Street, with nothing to do but to copy what is before them, show the same platitude. Here and there you are constantly coming upon one of these beautifully designed old mansions piteously disguised, cut up in two or three it may be, or the lower portion fashioned into a shop.
II.—The Pump Room and Assembly Rooms
No group of architectural objects is more effective or touches one more nearly than the buildings gathered about the Baths. There is something quaint and old-fashioned in the arrangement, and I am never tired of coming back to the pretty, open colonnade, the faded yet dignified Pump-room, with the ambitious hotel and the solemn Abbey rising solemnly behind. Then there is the delightful Promenade opposite, under the arcades—a genuine bit of old fashion—under whose shadow the capricious Fanny Burney had often strolled. Everything about this latter conglomeration—the shape of the ground, the knowledge that the marvellous Roman baths are below, and even the older portion of the municipal buildings whose elegant decorations, sculptured garlands, &c., bespeak the influence of the graceful Adam, whose pupil or imitator Mr. Baldwin may have been.
Boz’s description of the tarnished Pump-room answers to what is seen now, save as to the tone of the decorations. I say “Boz’s,” for Pickwick, it should be recollected, was not actually acknowledged by the author, under his proper name. It was thought that the well-known and popular “Boz” of the “Sketches” would attract far more than the obscure C. Dickens. Now Boz and the Sketches have receded and are little thought of. Boz and Pickwick go far better together than do Pickwick and Dickens. There is an old-fashioned solemnity over this Pump-room which speaks of the old classical taste
over a hundred years ago. How quaint and suitable the inscription, “’Αριστον yεν υδορ,” in faded gilt characters. Within it is one stately chamber, not altered a bit since the day, sixty-three years ago, that Boz strolled in and wrote this inscription: As I sat with a friend beside me in the newly finished concert-room, which is in happy keeping, I called up the old genial Pickwick promenading about under the direction of Bantam, M.C., and the genial tone of the old gaiety and good spirits.
The “Tompion Clock,” which is carefully noted by Boz, seems to have been always regarded as a sort of monument. It is like an overgrown eight-day clock, without any adornment and plain to a degree—no doubt relying upon its Tompion works. It is in exactly the same place as it was over sixty years ago, and goes with the old regularity. Nay, for that matter, it stands where it did a hundred years ago—in the old recess by Nash’s statue and inscription, and was no doubt ordered at the opening of the rooms. In an old account of Bath, at the opening of the century, attention is called to the Tompion clock with a sort of pride. The steep and shadowy Gay Street, which leads up to the inviting Crescent and the more sombre Queen’s Square, affects one curiously. Then we come to the old Assembly Rooms close by the Circus, between Alfred Street and Bennell Street—a stately, dignified pile—in the good old classical style of Bath. One looks on it with a mysterious reverence: it seems charged with all sorts of memories of old, bygone state. For here all the rank and fashion of Bath used to make its way of Assembly nights. Many years ago, there was here given a morning concert to which I found my way, mainly for the purpose of calling up ghostly memories of the Thrales, and Doctor Johnson, and Miss Burney, and, above all, of Mr. Pickwick. Though the music was the immortal “Passion” of Bach, my eyes were travelling all the while from one piece of faded rococo work and decoration. Boz never fails to secure the tone of any strange place he is describing. We all, for instance, have that pleased, elated feeling on the first morning after our arrival over night at a new place—the general brightness, surprise, and air of novelty. We are willing to be pleased with everything, and pass from object to object with enjoyment.
Now all this is difficult to seize or to describe. Boz does not do the latter, but he conveys it perfectly. We see the new arrivals seated at breakfast, and the entrance of the Dowlers with the M.C., and the party setting off to see the “Lions,” the securing tickets for the Assembly, the writing down their names in “the book,” Sam sent specially up to Queen’s Square, and so on. All which is very exhilarating, and reveals one’s own feeling on such an occasion. The “Pump-room books” are formally mentioned in the regulations. We can see the interior of the Assembly Rooms in Phiz’s plate, with its huge and elaborately framed oval mirrors and chandeliers—the dancing-room set round with raised benches. After the pattern of Ridotto rooms abroad, there were the card-rooms and tea-rooms, where Mr. Pickwick played whist with Miss Bolo. We note the sort of Adam or Chippendale chair on which the whist Dowager is sitting with her back to us.
Considering that the rules of dress were so strict, pumps and silk stockings being of necessity, we may wonder how it was that the President of the Pickwick Club was admitted in his morning dress, his kerseymere tights, white waistcoat, and black gaiters. It is clear that he never changed his dress for evening parties, save on one occasion. Mr. Pickwick’s costume was certainly in defiance of all rules and regulations. It is laid in the regulations of Mr. Tyson, M.C., who directed that “no gentleman in boots or half-boots be admitted into the rooms on ball nights or card nights.” Half-boots might certainly cover Mr. Pickwick’s gaiters. So accurate is the picture that speculation arises whether Phiz went specially to Bath to make his sketches; for he has caught in the most perfect way the whole tone of a Bath Assembly, and he could not have obtained this from descriptions by others. So, too, with this picture of the Circus in Mr. Winkle’s escapade. It will be remembered that Boz was rather particular about this picture, and suggested some minute alterations. Bantam, the M.C., or “the Grand Master” as Boz oddly calls him, was drawn from life from an eccentric functionary named Jervoise. I have never been quite able to understand his odd hypothesis about Mr. Pickwick being “the gentleman who had the waters bottled and sent to Clapham.” But how characteristic the dialogue on the occasion! It will be seen that
this M.C. cannot credit the notion of anyone of such importance as Mr. Pickwick “never having been in Ba-ath.” His ludicrous and absurd, “Not bad—not bad! Good—good. He, he, re-markable!” showed how it struck him. A man of such a position, too; it was incredible. With a delightful sense of this theory, he began: “It is long—very long, Mr. Pickwick, since you drank the waters—it appears an age.” Mr. Pickwick protested that it was certainly long since he had drunk the waters, and his proof was that he had never been in Bath in his life. After a moment’s reflection the M.C. saw the solution. “Oh, I see; yes, yes; good, good; better and better. You are the gentleman residing on Clapham Green who lost the use of your limbs from imprudently taking cold after port wine, who could not be moved in consequence of acute suffering, and who had the water from the King’s Bath bottled at 103 degrees and sent by waggon to his bed-room in town, where he bathed, sneezed, and same day recovered.” This amusing concatenation is, besides, an admirable and very minute stroke of character, and the frivolous M.C. is brought before us perfectly. While a capital touch is that when he saw young Mr. Mutanhead approaching. “Hush! draw a little nearer, Mr. Pickwick. You see that splendidly dressed young man coming this way—the richest young man in Bath!”