various parts of the city, occupied by officers of the Corporation, physicians, lawyers, etc., who let out apartments which were replete with substantial comforts of the not least luxurious age in our city. Then the inns, though rough, were comfortable, and many of them large-The Bear, to wit; these were the resorts of the bucks who had more money than culture— who "deeply put the fashion on in the days when Nash was king. The class of men and women, to whom Wood refers, who occupied the mean and squalid lodgings at twelve shillings per week, were low, impudent Irishmen, with a large sprinkling of Welshmen, whose pursuits were of the earth earthy, and whose instinctive scent, in the happy hunting-ground, was keen when an heiress was to be caught, or a rich fool to be plundered in the hells considerately provided by the generous Mr. Nash and his confederates. This class of "men of the time" were not always well to the front, many of them having wardrobes which did not admit of a frequent change of linen, and were condemned to Tom Tiddler's ground until the laundress vouchsafed to wash and "get up" the only shirt they each respectively possessed. But Nil desperandum was their motto, and when fortune obstinately turned her back upon them, and the laundress failed them, they dispensed with the shirt, and some of them did not disdain to don a dickey.' When the jade Fortune was inexorably cruel, and despair took possession of them, they either returned again to "eat the leek" in Wales, to chewing "the food of bitter fancy" in Erin's Isle, whose shores they should never have deserted; or to seek that "poor-souled piece of heroism, selfslaughter."

The fact is indisputable that the state of society in Bath was rotten to the very core. There was not a vice which did not prevail. It varied in degree rather than in kind, according to the social status and position of the various sections into which society was divided. Every form of gambling was practised, until the Legislature, almost in vain, attempted to

cope with the evil. No sooner was it attacked in one form than, Protean-like, it assumed new forms and presented new attitudes. It was an evil age, of which Smollett has given us a striking picture :—

"About a dozen years ago, many decent families restricted to small fortunes, besides those that came hither on the score of health, were tempted to settle at Bath, where they could live comfortably, and even make a genteel appearance, at a small expense. But the madness of the times has made the place too hot for them, and they are now obliged to think of other migrations. Some have already fled to the mountains of Wales, and others have retired to Exeter. Thither, no doubt, they will be followed by the flood of luxury and extravagance, which will drive them from place to place to the very Land's End; and then, I suppose, they will be obliged to ship themselves to some other country. Bath is become a mere sink of profligacy and extortion. Every article of housekeeping is raised to an enormous price, a circumstance no longer to be wondered at, when we know that every petty retainer of fortune piques himself upon keeping a table, and thinks it is for the honour of his character to wink at the knavery of his servants, who are in a confederacy with the market-people, and of consequence pay whatever they demand. Here is now a mushroom of opulence who pays a cook seventy guineas a week for furnishing him with one meal a day. This portentous frenzy is becoming so contagious that the very rabble and refuse of mankind are infected. I have known a negro-driver from Jamaica pay over-night to the master of one of the rooms, sixty-five guineas for tea and coffee to the company, and leave Bath next morning in such obscurity that not one of his guests had the slightest idea of his person, or even made the slightest inquiry about his name. Incidents of this kind are frequent, and every day teems with fresh absurdities which are too gross to make a thinking man merry."

There is no doubt that "Humphrey Clinker "

may be

regarded as Smollett's autobiography, so far as it relates to Bath. Neither Sir Walter Scott nor Thackeray fully recognizes the fact, but the initials indicative of names and places leave no doubt on the subject to any one fairly familiar with the social condition of our city at that period. Sir Walter, referring to "Humphrey Clinker," says that he wrote and prepared it for the press in 1770, in a village situated on the side of a mountain overlooking the sea, near Leghorn, a romantic and salutary abode, and adds, "like music, 'sweetest in the close,' it is the most pleasing of his compositions," and was, he informs us, published in 1771. However just the criticism, the date is erroneous. The first volume of the first edition of 66 Humphrey Clinker" was published in 1761,' and there can be little doubt that Smollett's visit to Bath took place about 1754, and that he had carefully noted the various characters and circumstances he had met with during his visit, and worked them up into the amusing and realistic form in which they are so charmingly described in "Humphrey Clinker." Thackeray says :-" He did not invent much, as I fancy, but had the keenest perceptive faculty, and described what he saw with wonderful relish and delightful, broad humour," That peculiar faculty is more strikingly illustrated in "Humphrey Clinker," perhaps, than in any other of his works; or it will appear so to those who study the book in its relations to Bath. Thackeray's opinion of "Humphrey Clinker" is that it is "the most laughable story that has ever been written since the goodly art of novel-writing began.

'It is probable, or we may say certain, that before the publication of the later editions Smollett had paid a second visit to Bath. In the first edition, in referring to the Circus, he says, erroneously, "the same artist who planned the Circus has likewise projected a Crescent." Now, in the later editions he refers to Derrick, the M. C., who did not accede to that office until after the Crescent was built. The Circus was designed by the elder Wood, but the work was executed by the younger, by whom the Crescent was designed and built.

Winifred Jenkins and Tabitha Bramble must keep Englishmen on the grin for ages yet to come; and in their letters and the story of their lives there is a perpetual fount of sparkling laughter, as inexhaustible as Bladud's Well."

Every reader knows that Humphrey Clinker himself never appears in the story until after Matthew Bramble and his party leave Bath; and indeed throughout the story he is not the foremost, although intended as a typical, character, and turns out to be the illegitimate son of the squire, Matthew Bramble. Smollett, it must be admitted, on the whole, did not admire the city. He had known it thirty years before, during his youth, and he dislikes the change. He, in a certain sense, took things as he found them. It does not appear that he knew anything, or perhaps he did not seek to know anything, of that other phase of social life which existed altogether apart from the scenes of folly, extravagance, and recklessness which he depicts with such matchless felicity. His judgment on the new city and its architecture is most unfavourable, but to some extent that may be accounted for by the incomplete state in which he saw it; at any rate, that judgment has been reversed by the consensus of opinion during the century which has elapsed since Smollett's time. Moreover, it must be observed that the work of development was still progressing, many of the finest portions of the city not having been began.

"I was impatient to see the boasted improvements in architecture for which the upper parts of the town have been so much celebrated, and t'other day I made a circuit of all the new buildings. The Square, though irregular, is on the whole pretty well laid out, spacious, open, and airy; and, in my opinion, by far the most wholesome and agreeable situation in Bath, especially the upper side of it; but the avenues to it are mean, dirty, dangerous, and indirect. Its communication with the Baths is through the yard of an inn (The Bear), where the poor trembling valetudinarian is carried in a chair, betwixt the heels of a double row of horses, wincing under the

currycombs of grooms and postillions, over and above the hazard of being obstructed or overturned by the carriages which are continually making their exit or their entrance. I suppose after some chairmen have been maimed, and a few lives lost by these accidents, the Corporation will think in earnest about providing a more safe and commodious passage. The Circus is a pretty bauble, contrived for show, and looks like Vespasian's amphitheatre outside in."

Few will admit the justice of this unfavourable criticism, and it is only fair to Smollett to say that the works he refers to were unfinished, and, to use a common phrase, the new city was not "rounded off." It may also be stated that the 66 avenues" have been all removed or entirely changed.

It is, moreover, to be remarked that Smollett never, directly or indirectly, makes allusion to Prior Park. He must have seen it, because at that period it was in the zenith of its beauty and perfection. It was the centre of attraction to the eminent visitors to Bath, and was always crowded by distinguished friends of the genial and beloved host. Can it be that Smollett, who was the most formidable literary champion of the Tory party, was neglected by Allen, or that he declined to hold any intercourse with the man who was the Squire Allworthy of his Whig rival's (Fielding) novel of "Tom Jones"? Smollett was, at times, savage and bitter to an unwarrantable degree in his political contests, but he was forgiving and magnanimous when the battle ceased. Allen, besides being tolerant and just, was eminently polite and free from party bitterness. What was it, then, that kept these two eminent men apart?

It is easy to generalize about the personal virtues of a man, and the part he has or may have taken in the promotion of the local interests of a town in which he has lived, and to which he owed his worldly prosperity. The "Man of Ross," in the estimation of all Ross people, is the best of all departed philanthropists, and no one can think the worse of the Rossians