Part 14

"STOLEN Out of the Stable of ROBERT COLGATE, The 24th instant August, 1780

A black horse, rising five years old, thirteen Hands and a Half High, Star in his forehead, small Ears, Mane stands up rough, being lately rubbed off, long Tail, hangs his Tongue out often on the Road, good Carriage; also a good Saddle, marked Barnard, with Spring Stumps.

"Whoever gives Information, so that the Said Horse may be had again, shall receive TWO GUINEAS REWARD."

It would scarcely be possible to identify the stolen horse from the accompanying cut. He has no long tail, as described in the advertisement, and his tongue _doesn't_ hang out. Moreover, he is burdened with a quite imaginary thief, who has a property devil whipping him on. The "awful example" hanging from the gibbet appears to be made of bolsters, and to have had, not a drop too much, but scarcely enough.

The party with hands bigger than his head, who is here seen striking a dramatic attitude, is not a Howling Swell, although he wears his hair parted in the middle. Appearances here (as usually was the case in the old advertisements) are deceptive, and so far from being a Swell, Howling or otherwise, he is really a Heartless Villain, for he is one of two labourers who have--

"RUN AWAY.

And left their families chargeable to the Parish of CLAVERTON,

THOMAS GARNER, Labourer, about five feet seven or eight Inches high; wears his own Hair, of a light Brown Complexion; hath lately, or is now belonging to the Militia.

"And EDWARD BROWNING, Labourer, about five Feet four or five Inches high, wears his own Hair, of a dark complexion; was one of Lord North's Soldiers in the last War.

"Whoever will apprehend either, or both of them, and conduct them to the Parish Officers of Claverton aforesaid, shall receive HALF A GUINEA for each or either of them, and THREEPENCE per Mile for every Mile they shall travel with them."

History does not relate whether or no these gay deceivers were ever captured. If those who sought them relied upon the illustration, it would seem quite likely that they never were!

XLV

[Sidenote: _THE ABBEY_]

The Abbey is the very centre of Bath. Round it cluster the Municipal Offices, the Baths, and the Pump Room, and along the broad pavements invalids are drawn in Bath chairs--one of the five articles with which the name of the City is indissolubly linked. When Bath chairs, Bath chaps, Bath stone, and Bath buns are no longer so distinguished, then will come the final crash. One need not insist so greatly upon Bath Olivers, because they are not in every one's mouth, either literally or figuratively; although, to be sure, they are much more exclusively a local product than "Bath" buns; while "Bath" bricks are not made at Bath, but at Bridgewater.

The surroundings of Bath Abbey are strikingly Continental in appearance, for that great church stands in a flagged _place_, instead of being set in a green and shady close, as usually is the case in England. Its surroundings have always been thronged, from the time when the Flying Machines crawled, to when the last of the mail coaches drew up in front of the "White Lion," in the Market Place hard by, or at the "White Hart," which stood until 1866, where the "Grand Pump Room" Hotel now rises. The story of the Abbey is too long for these pages; but it is remarkable at once for being one of the very latest Gothic buildings in the country; for its possessing windows so large and so many that it has been called the "Lantern of England;" for its central tower, which is not square, being eleven feet narrower on its north and south sides than those to the east and west; and for the prodigious number of small marble and stone memorial tablets on its interior walls--tablets so many that they gave rise to the famous epigram by Quin:--

"These walls, so full of monument and bust, Shew how Bath waters serve to lay the dust."

Quite distinguished dust it is, too. Noblemen and dames of high degree; Admirals of the Blue, the White, the Red; legal, and military, and clerical dignitaries, and all manner of Civil servants, mostly of the mid-eighteenth century, and chiefly hailing from India and the Colonies, as described with much pomp and circumstance on their cenotaphs which so thickly cover the walls, and spoil the architectural effect. "The Bath," was the solace of their kind, returning from the Tropics with nutmeg livers, gout, and autocratic ways. At "the Bath" they resided on half-pay, drank the waters, supported the local doctors, quarrelled with their neighbours, and consistently damned all "new-fangled notions," until death laid them by the heels.

There must have been--if we are capable of believing their epitaphs--some paragons of all the virtues in those times, and Bath seems to have claimed them all. Here, for instance, is Alicia, Countess of Erroll, "in whom was combined every virtue that could adorn human nature." She died young; the world is too wicked for such.

[Sidenote: _"JACOB'S LADDER"_]

Bath Abbey is remarkable in one respect far above all the minsters and cathedrals of England. As you stand facing the great West Front, which looks so grim and grey upon the stony courtyard that stretches before it, you see, flanking the immense west window, two heavy piers, terminating in turrets. On these piers are carved the singular representations of "Jacob's Ladder" that have given the Abbey a fame even beyond the merit of its architecture. From near the ground-level, almost to the turrets, this curious carving stretches, battered long years ago by the fury of an age which prided itself on its enmity to "superstitious images," and reduced by the further neglect of more than two hundred years to an almost shapeless mass. The origin of this curious decoration is found in the vision of Bishop Oliver King, who restored the then ruined Abbey in 1499. In this vision, by which he was induced to undertake the great work, he saw angels ascending and descending a ladder, and heard a voice say, "Let an Olive establish a Crown, and let a King restore the Church." He interpreted this as a Divine injunction to himself to repair the Abbey, and accordingly commenced the work; dying, however, before it was completed. The "ladders" have sculptured angels on them, while on the wall above the arch of the great window is represented a great concourse of adoring angels, with a figure of God in glory in their midst. Many of the figures have their heads knocked off; but the whole of this sculpture is shortly to be restored.

XLVI

Bath entered upon a dead period about 1820. For a long while the newer and more easily reached glories of Brighton had taken the mere fashionables away, and even the waters were less favoured. Continental wars had ceased, and unpatriotic Britons flocked to foreign spas instead; Bath looking idly on and letting its customers go.

It was some ten years later that Dickens visited Bath. From what he saw there he drew his portraits of place and persons in the "Pickwick Papers;" and the impression after reading them is undoubtedly one of faded gentility.

So it remained until after the visit of the British Association in 1864, when the advice of the scientific men to the Corporation--to bring back business by providing more up-to-date accommodation--was laid to heart, and improvements begun. Since then the City has steadily climbed back again to the favour of invalids and the medical profession, and new Baths and all manner of modern appliances, a new railway station, and an air of an enlightened modernity, bid fair to keep Bath successful against all foreign competition for a long time to come.

[Sidenote: _MODERN BATH_]

Since this Renaissance of thirty-five years ago was begun, many things have happened at Bath. Roman remains, more extensive than ever the bygone generations suspected, have been discovered, and excavations have lain bare baths long covered up by shabby and altogether undistinguished buildings. Judicious restoration has preserved the great Roman Bath, long a scene of wreck and shattered stones, and has brought it into use again. This restored Bath affords perhaps the most picturesque view in the City, for from its margin one may gaze upwards and see to great advantage the beautiful tower of the Abbey soaring aloft; its late Gothic architecture contrasting piquantly with the classic elegance of that restored bathing-place, while the reflections of the columns deep down in the quiet pool give a singularly complete sense of restfulness.

All this modern prosperity is, no doubt, very gratifying, but prosperity means much building, and Bath has now its suburbs; uncharted stretches of new villas, isolated, or in streets, that climb the hillsides of Combe Down, Beechen Cliff, and Lansdowne, and help to destroy Macaulay's well-known, if something too overdrawn, architectural picture of Bath, as "that beautiful City which charms even eyes familiar with the masterpieces of Bramante and Palladio, and which" (horrible literary solecism!) "the genius of Anstey and of Smollett, of Frances Burney and of Jane Austen, has made classic ground."

Bath, indeed, was a jewel set in midst of her picturesque amphitheatre of rocky and wooded hills; but now that those hills and those woods are being covered with houses whose architecture is less calculated to "charm the eyes familiar with the masterpieces of Bramante and Palladio" than were the buildings of a century and a half ago, the setting of the jewel is by way of becoming tarnished. Now, also, it has been reserved to these times of cheap railway carriage of goods for brick houses to be seen at Bath; the one place in the world where brick never had an opportunity until these latter days of the "combine" of the allied "Bath Stone Firms," which has raised the price of Bath stone, so that in certain cases it has been found cheaper to bring bricks from the Midlands to build houses in Bath than to use the stone quarried on the spot. So, in the wilderness of new suburbs, the traveller who is whisked away by rail to Bristol may see, to his astonishment, amid the stone houses, rows of the most undeniable red-brick villas. And thus has come the spirit of what the late Professor Freeman was pleased to call "modernity" over Bath, once the peculiar preserve of stone and Classicism.

The End

INDEX

Ailesbury, Marquis of, 183-185

Allen, Ralph, 242-250

"Allen's stall," 34-38

Anne, Queen, 6, 237, 238

Apsley House, 34-38

Arlington, Earl of, 90

Avebury, 198-203

Banks, Sir Joseph, 93

Bath, 2-15, 228-270

Batheaston, 227, 242

---- Vase, 241

Bathford, 227

Bathampton, 228

Bath stone, 223-227, 268

Bathwick, 246

Beckhampton, 203-205

Berkeley, Earls of, 82-84, 87, 89

"Berkshire Lady," the, 141-145, 158

Bladud, Prince, 231, 243

Box, 203, 223-227

---- Hill, 224, 227

---- Tunnel, 223

Brentford, 70

Calcot, 141-145

Calne, 203, 206, 209

Cherhill, 205-207

Chippenham, 17, 203, 210-215, 253

Chiswick High Road, 58, 65

Church Speen, 153, 165, 166

Coaches:-- "Beaufort Hunt," 26, 204 "Flying Machines," 5, 69, 260 "Light Post" coach, 30 Mail coaches, 10, 11, 17-19, 27 "Regulator," 16 "York House," 26

Coaching era, 4-33, 204

---- fares, 5, 28

---- miseries, 9, 15-19

Coaching notabilities:-- Chaplin, Edward, 21, 90 ---- and Horne, 90 Cooper, Thomas, 21 Everett, Jack, 204

Colnbrook, 97-103

Colne, River, 96-98, 103

Corsham Regis, 218, 221-223, 224

Cranford, 82, 85, 86-89

---- Bridge, 29, 84, 97

Cross Keys, 218

Cycling records, 215-218

Darell, William, 173-182

Froxfield, 182

Fyfield, 192

Great Western Railway, 27, 74, 108-110, 124, 134, 149, 221, 227

Gunnersbury, 63, 68

Hammersmith, 58, 63

Hare Hatch, 134

Harlington, 89-91

---- Corner, 89

Harmondsworth, 94-96

Henry VIII., 13-138

Highwaymen, 40-45, 56, 67-69, 71, 74-84, 87, 91-94, 111-116, 118, 129

Hock-tide, 167-173

Hounslow, 19, 71-74, 92

---- Heath, 69, 71, 74-84, 86, 92, 111

Hungerford, 146, 166-173

Hyde Park Corner, 33-40, 74, 94, 166

Inns (mentioned at length):-- "Bear," Maidenhead, 25, 129 "Bell and Bottle," Knowl Hill, 133 "Black Bull," Holborn, 31 "Castle," Marlborough, 17, 21, 187, 192 ----, Salt Hill, 92, 107 "Greyhound," Maidenhead, 127 "Halfway House," Kensington, 40, 43, 45 "Hercules' Pillars," Hyde Park Corner, 34 "King's Head," Longford, 97 "Magpies," 90 "Old Bell," Holborn, 31-33 "Old Magpies," 91 "Old Pack Horse," Turnham Green, 66-68 "Old Windmill," Turnham Green, 65 "Ostrich," Colnbrook, 99-103 "Pack Horse and Talbot," Turnham Green, 59, 66 "Peggy Bedford," Longford, 97 "Pelican," Speenhamland, 15, 150, 253 "Red Cow," Brook Green, 56-58 "Robin Hood," Turnham Green, 63-65 "Waggon and Horses," Beckhampton, 203-205 "White Bear," Piccadilly, 26 "White Bear," Fickles Hole, 26 "White Hart," Bath, 260 "White Horse," Fetter Lane, 16, 30 "White Lion," Bath, 22, 26, 260 "York House," Bath, 26

Jack of Newbury, 150-154, 157-161

Kennet, River, 146, 152, 166, 186, 193

Kensington, 34, 40, 44, 46-55

Kew Bridge, 68

Kiln Green, 133

Knightsbridge, 34, 40, 44

Knowl Hill, 133

Langley Broom, 104

---- Marish, 104

Littlecote, 173-182

Longford, 94, 96

Maidenhead, 33, 122, 124-130

---- Thicket, 111, 129-133

Mail coaches established, 10

Manton, 194

Marlborough, 22, 26, 182, 186-193, 204

---- College, 188, 192

---- Downs, 17, 197-201, 205, 253

Maud Heath's Causeway, 213-215

Nash, Beau, 238-240, 243, 250

Newbury, 18, 138, 146, 150-166, 253

----, battles of, 161-165

Old-time travellers:-- Campbell, Rev. Thomas, 252-255 Moritz, Pastor, 116-123

Palmer, George, 135

----, John, 10, 242, 243

Pickwick, 218-221

Postage of letters, 10-15, 167

Prior Park, 243, 246

Quemerford, 206

Reading, 18, 29, 130, 134-138

Salt Hill, 92, 106-111, 122

Savernake Forest, 182-185, 194

Sham Castle, 249

Silbury Hill, 198-203

Sipson Green, 91

Speen, 153, 165, 166

Speenhamland, 150, 253

Stackhouse, Rev. Thomas, 153

Taplow, 108, 124

Tetsworth water, 105

Thatcham, 21, 146, 149, 153

Theale, 145, 162

Turnham Green, 58-68

Turnpike gates, 11, 34, 45, 73, 166

Twyford, 130, 134

Wainewright, Thomas Griffiths, 59

Walcot, 228

West Kennet, 197

---- Overton, 197

"Wild Darell," 173-182

Woolhampton, 146-149

Wyatt's Rebellion, 38

"Young's Corner," 58

PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED, LONDON AND BECCLES.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Stranger still, the chief informer was named Porter.

[2] Tawell had poisoned his sweetheart, who, before dying, had time to denounce him to her friends. They pursued him to the station, but when they arrived there the train had gone. The telegram sent was in these words:--

"A murder has just been committed at Salt Hill, and the suspected murderer was seen to take a first-class ticket for London by the train which left Slough at 7.42 p.m. He is in the garb of a Quaker, with a brown great-coat on, which reaches nearly to his feet. He is in the last compartment of the second-class carriage."

At Paddington he took a City omnibus, but the conductor was a policeman in disguise, and dogged his footsteps from one coffee-house to another, which he is supposed to have entered for the purpose of setting up an _alibi_. At length, as he was stepping into a lodging-house in the City, the police tapped him on the shoulder, with the question, "Haven't you just come from Slough?" Tawell confusedly denied the fact, but he was arrested, with the result already recounted.

[3] Lord Iveagh's name is Guinness. Unfortunately for the thoroughness of the jest, there are but thirteen chapters in the Epistle to the Hebrews.

[4] It was about 1630 that the town of Marlborough obtained a new grant of arms in place of its old shield of a "Castle _argent_, on a field _sable_." The new shield, still in use, is heraldically described as--"Per Saltire, gules and azure. In chief, a Bull passant, argent, armed or. In fess, two Capons, argent. In base, three greyhounds courant in pale, argent. On a chief, or, a pale charged with a Tower triple-towered, or, between two Roses, gules. Crest--On a wreath, a Mount, vert, culminated by a Tower triple-towered, argent. Supporters: two Greyhounds, argent." These arms are intended to perpetuate the memory of the ancient custom in Marlborough of the aldermen and burgesses presenting the mayor for the time being with a leash of white greyhounds, a white bull, and two white capons.

[5] "There are many pleasanter places, even in this dreary world, than Marlborough Downs when it blows hard; and if you throw in beside a gloomy winter's evening, a miry and sloppy road, and a pelting fall of heavy rain, and try the effect, by way of experiment, in your own proper person, you will experience the full force of this observation."

The traveller's horse stopped before "a road-side inn on the right-hand side of the way, about half a quarter of a mile from the end of the Downs.... It was a strange old place, built of a kind of shingle, inlaid, as it were, with cross-beams, with gabled-topped windows projecting completely over the pathway, and a low door with a dark porch and a couple of steep steps leading down into the house, instead of the modern fashion of half a dozen shallow ones leading up to it."

[6] That the Romans knew the city we call Bath as _Aquæ Solis_--the "Waters of the Sun"--we learn from the ancient history of Britain. A highly interesting light upon this is furnished by the sculptured stone discovered some years since, and now in the local museum, which shows a decorative representation of the head of the Sun God from whose face radiate sun-rays, alternately with serpents.

[7] Once the recognized pronunciation of the word. The great Duke of Wellington was probably the last who spoke it thus.

[8] He meant Chippenham.