vague one, as it might equally apply to the India-rubber men, who perform in our quiet streets, or to the Lord Chancellor, or Chief Justice of the kingdom. It must be, moreover, a difficult task for the Master of the Ceremonies, with all his fine eye for a gentleman, to distinguish the difference between a Piccadilly retailer and a Leadenhall Street merchant, disguised as they both might be in the well-built clothes of a Stultz or a Buckmaster; and we have no doubt that, with all the care taken to let none but aristocratic particles escape through the official sieve,

"Even here, amid the crowds you view, "Tis sometimes difficult to tell WHO'S WHO."

This class feeling was carried at one time even into the theatre, where no trader was allowed to sit in the dress circle!

The Circus, to which Bennet Street forms an avenge, as its name denotes, is a circular pile of buildings, covering a large space of ground, and erected in the Roman style of architecture; the principal stories being divided by Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian pillars. There is something, we confess, gloomy in the effect of this mass of buildings; indeed, we must plead guilty to a certain feeling of oppression whilst traversing the more architectural portions of Bath: whether it is from the colour of the stone, darkened by age, and the uniformity of tone and style that prevails, we know not, but all the buildings have a haughty exclusive look, and appear to hold themselves aloof from the spectators; they seem, in fact, as exclusive as their possessors, and amid all their grandeur we wish for a sight of the pleasant jumble of Park Lane, where the houses are like faces-no two alike. Leaving the Circus by way of Brook Street, we come at once upon the really magnificent Royal Crescent, also built by Wood the younger. This is infinitely the most magnificent pile of buildings in Bath; indeed we know of nothing finer

in England; and its first appearance gives the reader that sensation that a fine work of Art or Nature always effects. Viewing it as we do from Brock Street, its grandly sweeping curve impresses itself once and for ever upon the mind. Few buildings have the advantage of such a site as the Crescent, situated as it is upon a gentle slope, and the ground in front quite open for a considerable distance; the Royal Avenue to the Victoria Park, in fact, forming its very picturesque foreground.

Turn we now into the Royal Avenue-no formal

row of trees, or broad gravel walk, as its name seems to imply, but a winding drive through plantations and shrubberies, in the centre of which another obelisk has been erected, called the Victoria Column. (Cut, p.343.) This drive, of more than half a mile in extent, opens into the Victoria Park, lately formed out of the Town Common. The plantations have not yet grown up, consequently it has a cold naked appearance, which time alone can remedy. The scenery around the Park, however, makes up for the rawness incident to all newly laid-out grounds: few public promenades can command so fine a prospect, and fewer still such an architectural effect as the Royal Crescent. A colossal head of Jupiter, from the chisel of a self-taught sculptor of Bath, ornaments one portion of the Park. It is upwards of seven feet in height, and is esteemed by the citizens as a great work of art. It has certainly merit, but we fear the fact of its author being a "self-taught native artist exaggerates its merits in the eyes of Bathonians works of art must be judged purely on their own merits. We cannot leave the Park without noticing the two sphinxes over the gateway, the donors of which having had the very questionable taste to make the fact known to the world in Egyptian letters as large as a sign-board. There is a Botanical and Horticultural Garden in the Park, in which the floral exhibitions of the city are held.

Returning again to the Abbey Church, and proceeding along High Street, instead of turning off, as we have done, into the more aristocratic portions of the town, we come to the seat of civic dignity, the Guildhall, an exceedingly fine Roman building, in the centre of trading Bath: an architectural screen on either hand forms portions of the market, by which we suppose the builder meant to imply that the corporation takes especially under its wings the good things of this life. Bath has, from a very early period, possessed certain municipal privileges; but its government by a mayor and corporation dates from the time of Elizabeth, when, by Royal Charter, Bath was declared a city in itself. The Corporation, before the passing of the Reform Bill, had the privilege of returning to Parliament the two members for the city: the inhabitants at large having no voice at all in the matter. This extraordinary state of things was one of those cases, like that of Old Sarum, which tended as much as anything to pass this important measure. The fact of twenty-six persons thus monopolising the rights of the citizens of such an important place as Bath, can scarcely be believed by the rising generation; but give a body of men a privilege, and, however unjust it might be, they soon come to confound it with a right, and are astonished at those it oppresses attempting to destroy it.

In the days before the Municipal Reform Act fell like a blight upon the close corporations of the kingdom, the civic authorities, like their Bristol brethren, were famous for taking care of the "body corporate" in more ways than one, as the length of their kitchenrange, and the size and magnificence of their banqueting-rooms, can now testify to. In consequence of the

exclusion of the citizens from the Assembly-room, they are in the habit of holding their balls in these fine apartments, which certainly rivals the others in magnificence, if the company be not altogether so select. Turning off on the right hand, down Bridge Street, we cross the Avon by means of the Pulteney Bridge, which carries on its strong arches a line of houses on either side of the roadway, the river being thus entirely hidden from view. The prospect, as we proceed up Great Pulteney Street, is one of the sights of Bath. It resembles Portland Place, London, in width and architectural effect; but it is a full third longer than that street, and it is terminated by the very handsome Sidney Hotel, which, besides serving its ordinary purposes, forms a noble entrance to the Sidney Gardens, -a place of great resort to the citizens of Bath and Bristol: it was, indeed, for a long time the Vauxhall of the two cities, pyrotechnic exhibitions taking place here nearly every week. Having been planted above half a century, the trees have grown up to a stately altitude, and assume all the wild luxuriance of a forest. A thousand beautiful effects meet the eye at every turn, and one cannot help contrasting the charming effect of these gardens with the trim, cold, bare appearance of the Victoria Park. For some time past, however, it has been a melancholy solitude: no gay lamps now hang between the trees:

"Glitt'ring like fire-flies tangled in a silver braid."

The pathways are deserted, the flower-beds neglected, and the arbours rotting; and the whole domain looks forgotten and abandoned, with the exception of two lines of life which traverse it in the shape of the Kennet and Avon Canal, and the Great Western Railway. Handsome terraces skirt and overhang the iron-way, and ornamental bridges span it, whilst the Canal forms quite a piece of ornamental water to the Gardens, adorned as its margin is with weeping-willows. Standing between these two great arteries of the west, the Past and the Present seem pictured to us at a view. Along the Canal comes a barge, "The Sylph of 70 tons"-for it is a curious fact that the heavier the tonnage and appearance of these vessels, the lighter and more aërial is the name given to them—a string of horses, or perhaps men, towing it slowly along. It moves so gently that the ripples scarce curve from its bows; the helmsman moves the helm sleepily with his jutting hip, the blue smoke from the little cabin creeps upwards in an almost perpendicular thread, and the whole seems a type of the easy-going world that is departing. Then on a sudden a rumble is heard in the distance, where the traffic-brightened rails, like lines of light, vanish in a point; a speck of black is seen it grows up to us in a moment, rushes past, and we stand gazing at a long thread of white cloud, painted distinctly against the green background of trees; and ere it has broken up and drifted into fantastic fragments, the train, with its long freight of thousands, is lost in the mist of the distance:

"Men, my brothers, men, the workers, ever reaping some

thing new;

That which they have done but earnest of the things that they shall do.

Not in vain the distance beacons: forward, forward, let us range,

Let the great world spin for ever down the ringing groves of change."

However much the material aspect of the world might alter, the emotions of the heart never do; and we read with as much delight the love-tales of times long past as those of our own immediate day. Along these garden-walks, Sheridan once rambled with his beloved, and the grotto is pointed out in which they used to sit. The lover has himself left a rather maudlin poem, addressed to the spot, which commences in the following very limp and dishevelled manner :

"Uncouth is this moss-cover'd grotto of stone,

And damp is the shade of this dew-dropping tree;
Yet I this rude grotto with rapture will own ;
And willow, thy damps are refreshing to me.
In this is the grotto where Delia reclined,

As late I in secret her confidence sought;
And this is the tree kept her safe from the wind,
As blushing she heard the grave lesson I taught,"

The lady of his love was the beautiful Miss Linley, of Bath. She was of a musical family, and was herself so accomplished a public singer, that she was called "the syren and angel of the Bath concerts." From the description left of the tender sweetness of her face, we cannot help thinking of that exquisite head, so full of sentiment and beauty, by Sir Thomas Lawrence, at Dulwich Gallery, known as "A Portrait of a Gentleman." The original was a Linley, a young musician, and doubtless of the same family as the lady Sheridan wooed in these Gardens, and afterwards married.

Returning along Great Pulteney Street, we cannot help noticing that it stands, as it were, still in the country. At every opening, on either side, we see meadows and pleasure-grounds, and the public walk to Henrietta Street is quite park-like in appearance. This fine street was constructed at the latter end of the last century, and was intended as the main thoroughfare of an entirely new neighbourhood on the east side of the river; but the plan was never carried out, and the "New Town," as it is called, consists of the trunk of Great Pulteney Street, and a few streets leading out of it, or lying like great blocks in its immediate vicinity. It remains for some future speculator to fill up the vast original sketch, and to render the New Town the most splendid portion of the city.

If we return to High Street, and proceed on through Northgate Street, we have a full view of St. Michael's Church, which is by far the best of the modern ecclesiastical structures of the city. It is built in the fork, between Broad Street and Walcot Street: an excellent position, as far as effect goes. The style is that prevalent in Salisbury Cathedral. The most beautiful portion of the building is the pierced spire, which rises

ST. STEPHEN'S CHURCH.

to a considerable height, and forms one of the most interesting features of the city, when viewed from the railway. This spire is wrought in the most elaborate manner, and only requires time to soften its present sharpness to make it perfect. (Cut, p. 327.) The new tower of St. James's Church, built in the Italian style, and surmounted with an elegant lantern, is another very prominent object, as you enter Stall Street; indeed, it forms many graceful combinations from different points of view.

The most ambitious-looking of all the modern ecclesiastical erections in Bath is St. Stephen's Church, situated upon the top of Lansdowne Hill. It has been built within the last few years, but its architect does not seem to have felt the influence of that revival of the pure Gothic which has lately taken place. (Engraving.)