The baths connected with this building were the only ones we visited, and are a sample of the others. The visitor pays his shilling (24 cents), and receives a ticket which admits him to another part of the edifice, where he finds dressingrooms and toilet conveniences. He presently passes out into a small room, about four feet wide by eight feet long, closed on three sides; the fourth partly open, but protected by a screen reaching two thirds up to the top of the opening. The floor is covered with hot water, four feet deep, and stone steps lead into it. The bather can remain inside, or he may enter the great swimming-bath, filled with the same water. That is precisely what we did. Opening the screen, we found the great reservoir to be perhaps seventy-five feet square. Three sides were enclosed by rooms, similar to ours; the fourth side was a very ancient wall of stone, reaching ten feet or more above the water, in which were antique tablets telling of the foundation of the baths. The space was open to the sky. The water was so warm as at first to disincline one to enter it, but by degrees the sensation became far from unpleasant. Steam was constantly arising. The water was not clear, though clean, but had a dull clay-water, yellowish look, and was quiet, except in a space of ten feet square at the centre, where it constantly boiled up, at times with a rushing noise. We remained there nearly an hour, admiring and wondering.
In the great pump-room is a statue of the celebrated Richard Nash, familiarly known as Beau Nash, who died at Bath in 1761. He was at one time the leader of fashion. At the entertainment given by members of the Middle Temple to William III. he was employed to conduct the festivities. So marked was his success that the king offered to knight him, but conscious of his lack of means to support the honor, he declined it. More than any other person he aided in making Bath a place of fashionable resort. By his labors, propriety in dress and civility of manners were enforced in public resorts, till at length he was styled the King of Bath. He was an eccentric, and obtained his living at the gaming-table. He lived in great style, travelled in a coach with six outriders, and dispensed charity in a prodigal and reckless manner. Near the close of his life an act of Parliament was passed prohibiting gambling. Having depended entirely upon that, he afterwards lived in comparative indigence, and died in poverty, Feb. 3, 1761. Strange to say, he was ungainly in person, having coarse and even ugly features, and dressed in a tawdry style. It is remarkable that such a person could induce a system of public refinement, and be honored by this statue. Goldsmith was so interested in his strange career, that he anonymously published a biography of him in 1762, the year after his decease.
We can readily imagine what the place was prior to the time of Nash. Macaulay, quoting from Wood's "History of Bath," written in 1747, says:—
A writer who published an account of that city sixty years after the Revolution, has accurately described the changes which had taken place within his own recollections. He assures us that, in his younger days, the gentlemen who visited the springs slept in rooms hardly as good as the garrets which he lived to see occupied by footmen. The floors of the dining-rooms were uncarpeted, and were colored brown with a wash made of soot and small beer, in order to hide the dirt. Not a wainscot was painted. Not a hearth or chimney-piece was of marble. A slab of common freestone, and fire-irons which had cost from three to four shillings, were sufficient for any fireplace. The best apartments were hung with coarse woollen stuff, and were furnished with rush-bottomed chairs.
Samuel Pepys in his remarkably interesting diary, under date June 13, 1668, gives an account of his visit to the baths, and in his own quaint way tells the story as follows:—
Up at four o'clock, being by appointment called up to the Cross Bath, where we were carried one after another, myself and wife, and Betty Turner, Willett and W. Hewer, and by-and-by, though we designed to have done before company came, much company came; very fine ladies; and the manner pretty enough, only methinks it cannot be clean to go, so many bodies together in the same water. Good conversation among them that are acquainted here and stay together. Strange to see how hot the water is; and in some places, though this is the most temperate bath, the springs are so hot as the feet are not able to endure. But strange to see when women and men, here, that live all the seasons in these waters cannot but be parboiled, and look like the creatures of the bath! Carried away, wrapped in a sheet, and in a chair home; and there one after another thus carried, (I staying about two hours in the water) home to bed, sweating for an hour, and by-and-by comes music to play to me, extraordinary good as ever I heard in London almost, or anywhere.... Sunday, June 14: Up and walked up and down the town, and saw a pretty good market-place and many good streets, and fair storehouses, and so to the great church, and there saw Bishop Montague's tomb; and, when placed, did there see many brave people come, and among others, two men brought in, in litters, and set down in the chancel to hear; but I did not know one face. Here a good organ; but a vain pragmatical fellow preached a ridiculous, affected sermon, and made me angry, and some gentlemen that sat next me did sing well. 15th, Monday. Looked into the baths, and find the King and Queen's full of a mixed sort, of good and bad, and the Cross only almost for the gentry.
In 1768, Richard Brinsley Sheridan, the dramatist, removed here, where his father's family had previously settled. At the age of nineteen, in conjunction with his friend Hathead, he began his literary career. In 1772, at the age of twenty-one, he fell in love with Miss Linley, the popular singer of Bath. To save her from the persecutions of the libertine Matthews, he fled with her to France, and they were secretly married at Calais.
Delighted inexpressibly with this Queen City of the South of England, the antipodes of everything in the South of Ireland, we left it at 2.30 p. m. for
SALISBURY,
where, after a ride of four hours, we arrived at 6.30 p. m. We found this city possessing something of the look of old Chester, with narrow streets, projecting stories, queer oriel windows, and having 12,903 inhabitants. The clean streets are drained by small brooks running through them. The city was founded at Old Sarum, two miles north of its present location, and removed to this spot in 1217. It stands on a level and fertile plain, and is partially enclosed with the remains of the old walls. Little manufacturing is done, nor is trade followed to a great extent, the community being more inclined to agricultural pursuits.