small village, where, for want of room, we
breakfasted in the porch, upon tea, brown-
bread, and white bread, new milk, fresh whey,
and curds, a most sweet, innocent, and quite
rural, and agreeable refreshment." We think
we can see the whole party sitting à la
Watteau, beneath the flowery porch, and enjoying,
with London zest—new milk and fresh curds
and whey—those seldom attainable dainties.
But even shepherds and shepherdesses
could not always linger in Arcadia; so the
flowery porch was quitted, and by noon
the partv had reached Bristol; where, from
the windows of their inn, they looked out
on a narrow street and dirty causeway in
the process of being cleansed by the pouring
rain.

The weather during their three days'
sojourn was most unfavourable. However,
they visited all the notabilities of Bristol and
Clifton hot-wells, and then set out for Bath.

How different was the Bath of seventeen
hundred and forty-eight, to Bath in
the present day, let our last century
literature attest. The city was then in
the height of its splendour, the queen of the
fashionable world, giving laws to milliners,
and mantua-makers, periwig-makers, and
tailors; presiding over the ball-room, and the
card-table, and passing sentence, as the
high court of. fashion, on all matters of
etiquette, through her prime minister, Beau
Nash, without appeal. Beau Nash was
a Brummel, but with more brains, and who,
more fortunately than he, found a fitting
sphere. An Oxford student, an adventurer
in the army, a pert Templar—profligate,
and extravagant—  through all these phases,
in seventeen hundred and ten he went
to Bath, became assistant to Captain
Webster, the then Master of the
Ceremonies, and henceforth continued its
presiding genius. Great energy characterised his
rule of fifty years. He superintended all the
improvements of the city, built the Assembly-
rooms, arranged every public amusement,
ruled dukes and duchesses with an iron rod,
and compelled even the polished Chesterfield
to bend to his sway. It is whimsically
suggestive to read of the honour done to his
obsequies. Charity children singing hymns,
the band performing solemn music, six aldermen
holding the pall, and all the clergy
of the city in duteous attendance. Seldom
truly have the benefactors of their race
received the honours that were so lavishly
paid to " Folly at full length."

This is a digression indulged in while our
friends are taking their tea, and doubtless
enjoying the hot-rolls, soaked in butter,
which were just then coming into vogue—
those hot-rolls which some twenty or thirty
years ago were the boast of our suburban
tea-gardens. Now they have set forth to
the pump-room; not—having the dread of
Beau Nash before their eyes—  in soiled travelling
attire; but the ladies in silk inautuas,
fans, and fly caps, and the gentlemen in their
best suits and wigs, with their cocked hats, not
on their heads—(who wear hats at Bath save
the chairmen?)—but daintily dangling
between the finger and thumb. They pace along
two and two in solemn procession, the ladies
with their two attendant gentlemen, and the
two younger gentlemen following; while cousin
Sam, quite dégagé, bustles hither and thither,
bowing to the ladies, offering a pinch of snuff
to the gentlemen, like a brisk young bachelor,
as lie boasts himself. They find their promenade
vastly pleasant, to use the newest
coined phrase which Bath has put into
circulation; the Assembly Rooms, with the ladies
at loo and quadrille, and the parade, "where
two ladies of quality engaged our attention
by their uncommon dress, enormous size of
their hoops, and a motion in their walk
savouring of levity at least: they excited the
most ardent admiration." Doubtless these
were two ladies fresh from Versailles,
who had imported the Pompadour walk,
together with that respectable lady's fashion
in dress.

Well pleased they proceeded the following
day to Devizes, where they slept; having in
contemplation a journey on Salisbury Plain,
which is represented as a barren desolate
place for twenty miles. Happily they
traversed this formidable district without danger;
but O lovers of hoar antiquity, members of
Archæological Institutes, how shall we confess
to you that their object was simply to enjoy a
picnic at Stonehenge! Yes, and here are the
details. "At last we came to that noted place
called Stonehenge, where we alighted, and
took out our provisions. Our table was one
of the great stones, and such seats as we
could get, our food two cold roasted chickens,
two tongues, a loaf, and three rolls, and our
drink some wine and beer. Our knives
were cousin Sam's hanger (for a carving-knife
we suppose), and one or two pocket ones, with
which having cut up our chickens, and
sliced the tongues, we eat, with a peculiar
relish, and so, after this unusual but sweet
repast, we proceeded to Salisbury." After
such a profanation of wild and mysterious
Stonehenge, we feel it would have been
but just, had the landau been upset, and the
picnic party, without injury to their bones,
had been treated to a fright and a roll
in the dirt. But looking back at such an
instance of want of poetic feeling, can we
wonder these relics of the past are so few? Is
it not a marvel rather that Stonehenge itself
had not been broken up long ago for
milestones, and road mending, than that it still
stands?

"Salisbury, so celebrated for its spires and
windows," was duly lionised, and then the
party went to Wilton, where they seem to
been almost bewildered with the fine
paintings and other curiosities. A severe
jolting on their return, so took away the
appetite of the sight-seers, and rendered one