to erect out of the profits derived from his improvements in conveyance of the Cross-road mails, John Palmer, M.P. for Bath, originated the mail coach system in 1784, in which year the first mail coach from Bath to London started from the "Three Tuns." Dr. Johnson thought the most pleasing thing in existence was to travel, accompanied by a pretty woman, in a mail coach; but though

we may

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"Miss, the cantering team, the winding way,

The roadside halt, the post horn's well known air,

The inns, the gaping towns, and all the landscape fair,"

the majority, in these degenerate days, though they may not have shared Dickens's unpleasant experience of "having been upset in almost every description of vehicle known in this country," yet prefer the smoothness of the broad gauge, and the speed of the Flying Dutchman." Palmer ultimately received from Government the sum of £50,000, as a remuneration for his services, and to him Bath is indebted for having (1768) obtained a patent for the theatre, which thus became the first Theatre Royal out of the metropolis, and gave to the world of actors and actresses Edwin, King, Henderson, Abingdon (the first Lady Teazle), and the immortal Sarah Siddons herself. But space warns us that it is time to bring to a close these sketches of bye-gone days, and to cease discoursing of the Bath which knew Nelson and Clive and Sidney Smith, and whose pump-room and parades furnished to the quiet but observant eye of Jane Austen the harvest of character which so charmingly flits before us in the pages of "Northanger Abbey;" the Bath where was the erewhile happy home to which were borne, to the bitter grief of loving sisters, the sad tidings of the fate of the brilliant and fearless André ; where Gainsborough painted Foote, "who had everybody's face but his own,” and Sterne, and Burke, who quitted Bath but to be nearer, as he said, to the city, whose habitations are more permanent, and the lovely Miss Linley, whom Sheridan married, and a host of other witty and brilliant ones. Endless as are the associations and pictures of last century life, surrounded and framed by the scenery of Bath, the city rejoices not only in the romance of the past, but likewise, in some measure, of the patronage accorded to the pleasure resorts of the day. Nor to its more modern denizens can any field of inquiry lie more invitingly open than to search amid the haunts of to-day for vestiges of another, and perhaps more brilliant era.

Merstham Steeple.

Ir was the height of summer. The Queen and the Prince were to arrive at the castle that afternoon. All the countryside was on tiptoe with excitement, and the preparations for the progress were in all men's mouths. Some were eager to tell of the triumphal arches which were to greet Her Majesty at every few miles of her long drive. Some were full of the great banquet and ball that were making ready at the Castle. Some were agog with the names and dignities of the Duke's guests, and some with the periods and panegyric of the vicar's address of welcome. To me all this was interesting enough, but I was too inconsiderable to play any part in the pageant, and too old to find any lasting entertainment in the bare repetition and foretaste of the wonders to come. "Let those rehearse," said I, "that are to recite, and gossip that have breath to spare. I can see the cavalcade from the Steeple, while it is still in the next parish, and follow it for miles across the plain, while these yokels are waiting at the crossroads. I will betake me to the tower and enjoy the spectacle in quiet."

Merstham Steeple is one of the features of our side of the county. The great old tower stands with its foot well planted on the edge of the moor, and gazes proud and vigilant over many miles of plain, and moss, and woodland. Who built it is not known, but he must have been of a daring and munificent strain ; for the tower was built without any nave or chancel, and equipped with rich carving and a noble peal of bells. To finish the work was not within his compass, but there stands his stately fragment admonishing a more niggard posterity to a like generosity with the founder. Posterity has basely betrayed his hopes. No church rose to match the splendid tower; and still it stands, lonely and undaunted, a mere chamber for bells, and a school of change-ringers of much fame. Artists and antiquarians visit it and command from it a sweep of most excellent landscape, but few from our village ever go that way except when the ringers go up to ring a peal.

So I climbed the weary stairs and took up my station on the platform of the bells. The belfry is the floor of the tower level with the ground, and is roofed over at ten feet height; and from

that belfry ceiling to the tower roof there is no break or barrier, except where, about midway, great beams span the abyss and carry the bells. The peal is large, in number ten, and because the louvres are but small, the bells are crowded together level with the orifices, so that the sound of them all may have the same ample exit. I stood on the narrow window-ledge from which I expected to see the royal procession, and peered through the openings. The sun was blazing down in full power, spreading over the plain a thin and quivering haze, through which shone the moss with a princely glow of purple, and the silver band of the river wound and wandered at the foot of the great hanger. Under the hill the village nestled sleepy and belated. The tiled roofs in the sunlight scorched the eye that looked upon them. I could see the banner on the castle tower cling in sullen folds round its flagstaff ready for hoisting, and a twinkle on the road by Burwood, told me where our gallant troop of yeomanry was drawn up with gleaming swords and pawing chargers, waiting to lay their service at the feet of their sovereign. A faint and indolent lowing now and again floated up from the meadows, and an idle dog of the keeper's bayed with fitful energy. The air was thick and faint with the richness of the bean flowers, and a slight hum rose up to me from the myriads of bees busy in the beans far below. A stray red admiral was coquetting and pluming on one of the louvres, opening and closing his glorious wings, and from the ivy on the wall a faint occasional cheep, a harsher croak, or the rustle of the leaves, told of the swifts and daws who lurked and enjoyed their siesta in the inviolable shelter of the creepers. The whole scene was one of unmatched beauty, English in every line, breathing happiness, contentment, and repose. strained my eyes gazing into the distance, but still the road by which the Queen was to come remained white and untenanted, dusty and torrid as Sahara, and very fatiguing to the mind's eye as well as to the body's. Poised upon my narrow window-sill, I found my position very cramped, and grew weary of hanging on to the louvre with one hand while I shielded my eyes with the other. If I was to remain ensconced here, and in this pose, I was like to be fairly spent before the procession came ever in sight. The hour, the scene, and the hush, alike hinted and designed repose. "I had better have stayed on the bench outside the Cord and Cowl," said I, "than have toiled up these weary steps to hang on here for an hour. Am I a fly that I should stick upon a pane, or take a walk upside down to beguile the time? I had better sit down somewhere. There is nothing to be seen out of window except the miller's bull trying to get into the vicar's

I

flower-garden, and I shall have plenty of warning, for by the time the party comes in sight, they will be ringing Thoresby bells." So I looked round to find a seat.

This was a more difficult matter. I might descend to the belfry, but as I looked at the forty feet of steep ladders below me, I scouted the very thought. To perch on the ladder at any of its narrow rungs was insecure, and distressing to the hams, and, as for my window-sill, nothing but cobbler's wax or crucifixion would have given me any fixity of tenure. So I edged out on to a great beam, which crossed from wall to wall just under the bells to stay up the tower against their swing and jar, and as I am not over fond of dangling my legs and kicking my heels over forty feet of dark and gloomy space, and the baulk was of a commodious and roomy dimension, I lay down on my back and listened for Thoresby peal.

The posture was convenient for thought, and I mused for some time of various high matters. The tyrant sun spied me out upon my beam, and beat fiercely in upon me, till I thought in that abundant glow that I should become quite crisp and inflammable. I closed my eyes and shut him out; but presently a new disquiet began to plague me, for a most impertinent and intrusive knot in the timber bored into my shoulder-blade, and wrung me with anguish. Still keeping my eyes closed against the sunlight, I edged gingerly along upon my back until I found an easier spot, and there I settled myself. I debated for a while upon the virtues of our young Queen and the conduct of Sir Robert, weighed the Vicar's last sermon on the inhabitants of the ark and their types, reprobated the scoffs which Welt the Chartist cobbler aimed at it; wondered why the taxes were so high, and wished the Ministry at perdition, and so arrived at a very composed and benignant frame of mind. But I thought they were very long in ringing the bells at Thoresby.

Whish! whish! whish! clang! clang!! clang!!! clang!!!! clang!!!!! I thought it was the Day of Judgment or the day after, opened my heavy eyes and was starting up when I sank back and stiffened out like a corpse. There I saw in the gloom, a great cavern of darkness widen and swoop down over me, and Great Bartlemy, our tenor bell, brushed over my prostrate body, his great clapper swinging like the tongue between Behemoth's jaws, and as he reached the end of his swing he clanged out a dizzy and appalling boom at my very ears. A plague on my carelessness! Our bells are so hung that when not in use, they are locked slightly atilt, and do not depend to the lowest point of their sweep. The stay on which I was resting they

clear by but a few inches, and I, my eyes closed against the sun, had edged further and further out, not observing their position, till I lay just where the course of the tenor crossed the beam. There, lulled by the heat and the hum, I had fallen asleep, and while I lay supine, the day had waned, and Thoresby bells had rung, and the Queen had come and gone, and the ringers had left the procession for the belfry, unhitched the bells, and begun their peal.

It was the first swish of the bells sweeping through the air that woke me, their first raucous clang that completed my awakening; and now there I lay, a prisoner, not daring to stir an inch, timing my breath to the beat of the bells lest a fuller inflation of my chest as Bartlemy passed over me should bring me in contact with his lip and I be brushed from my beam like a fly. Peter and Paul, the next two bells, hung on Bartlemy's either hand and shaved my stay even more closely. My retreat was cut off; advance was impossible; between them and the timber there was clearly no room for passage. Just where I lay the swinging bell cleared me, and there till the ringing was over and the bells once more hitched up askew and wide of the beam, I must needs remain. By now the sun was off the tower, and through the louvres I could see in glimpses between the swaying bells the glow of the evening sky. Upon the olive green a wreath of golden vapour hung light and feathery; the evening star gleamed jewel-like upon the forehead of the coming night. The swift, hardy and fearless of the uproar, hawked the flies up and down, cutting sharp arcs across the windows, and here and there the devious wayward flight of a bat, blackened the sky. I think there was a night breeze blowing sharply off the moor, for the wind, churned by the bells, dragged into fitful eddies in the damp tower chamber as the sun-heated walls cooled irregularly, blew wet upon me in gusts a perfect gale. Over my head Bartlemy's huge mouth was perpetually opening and shutting, and he swept aside only to disclose a vista of neighbour giants cutting inexorable curves to right and left, barring all escape and gathering momentum with the minutes, till the tower swayed bodily to right and left with every peal, and my timber beam thrilled, and quivered, and buckled up and down like an unruly race-horse. The tearing turbulent wind snatched me on either side tumultuously, and the jarring and upheaved dance of stone and timber in the fabric threatened each instant to hurl me like a pebble from a sling into the gloomy abyss below. To preserve myself from this my most instant jeopardy, and to escape the sick giddiness of terror which the unchanging menace of the swinging bells drove deep into my