weakness, of wisdom and folly, of virtues and faults; I am not sure, eminently human as these worthies shine forth in their writings, that those who never lived except in the writings of other people-the heroes and heroines of Miss Austen, for exampleare not the more real of the two. Her exquisite story of "Persuasion" absolutely haunted me. Whenever it rained (and it did rain every day that I staid at Bath, except one), I thought of Anne Elliot meeting Captain Wentworth, when driven by a shower to take refuge in a shoe-shop. Whenever I got out of breath in climbing up-hill (which, considering that one dear friend lived in Lansdown Crescent, and another on Beechen Cliff, happened also pretty often), I thought of that same charming Anne Elliot, and of that ascent from the lower town to the upper, during which all her tribulations ceased. And when at last, by dint of trotting up one street and down another, I incurred the unromantic calamity of a blister on the heel, even that grievance became classical by the recollection of the similar catastrophe, which, in consequence of her peregrinations with the Admiral, had befallen dear Mrs. Croft. I doubt if any one, even Scott himself, have left such perfect impressions of character and place as Jane Austen.

Besides those pleasures of memory, Bath, eight years ago, was not wanting in living illustrations. Poor Miss Pickering, so fertile as a novelist, so excellent as a woman; my friend. Miss Waddington, an elegant authoress, who charmed the languors of illness by the creations of fancy; Mr. Reade, also my friend, whose poem of "Italy" is so full of classical grace; Mr. Beckford, original in every act

and word, whose "Vathek" was as strange a work as his Tower on Lansdown, and whose fine place at Fonthill should never have been built, or never have been destroyed; last and best, Mr. Landor, of whom with his vivacity, his vigour, and fertility of thought, it was difficult to believe that his first work was published in the last century, and who had gathered together, in a narrow room, specimens of art— "little bits," as he called them, which might put to shame far larger collections. It was impossible not to admire; but it was dangerous to praise in that room; for the proprietor had a trick of bestowing, which caught one so unawares, that one could hardly express the gratitude for the surprise: it was felt though, however ill-spoken. He gave me a small picture, by Wright, of Derby-a night view of Vesuvius, in which the two lights, the moon and the volcano, are shining down upon the sea, as brightly and as distinctly as they could have done in his own verse. These were the literary names of Bath; and there was a living artist too-Mr. Barker—an interesting old man, who had, with an artist's improvidence, devoted years of labour to a fine, but immovable fresco-the taking of a Greek island by the Turks-painted on the walls of his own house. The talent has proved hereditary. I saw there a sketch by his son, of the death of the Duke of Orleans; a mere sketch, but one in which the homeliness and evident truth of the accessories added much to the pathos of the scene. I do not remember in art a more touching rendering of family grief; it struck the heart like a cry.

The neighbourhood of Bath is still more beau

VOL. II.

E

tiful than the city. Even the suburbs, where tree and garden, hill and valley, railway and river, mingle so picturesquely with the rich tint of the stone of which the houses are built, and the striking architectural forms; and where pretty old churches and churchyards, rich in yew and lime, seem to unite town and country. Of the surrounding villages, Batheaston was memorable for the blue-stocking vagaries of a certain Lady Miller, a Somersetshire Clemence Isaure, who some seventy years ago offered prizes for the best verses thrown into an antique vase; the prize consisting, not of a golden violet, but of a wreath of laurel; and the whole affair producing, as was to be expected, a great deal more ridicule than poetry. Claverton, another pretty village, was celebrated for a travestie of a different order the curious book called "The Spiritual Quixote," written by Mr. Graves; and Weston, prettiest of all, is the delight and resort of poets, if not their residence.

But by far the most interesting spot in the neighbourhood of Bath is Prior Park, built by Allen the bookseller, the friend of Pope and the original of Fielding's Allworthy, afterwards the property and residence of Warburton, and now the site of a Roman Catholic college.

I shall never forget my first visit to this most beautiful place, on a sunny, dewy day, between May and April, the first of one month or the last of the other, the very fairest moment of the year, all nature smiling around me, and every pleasure enhanced by the delightful manners of Dr. Baines, the then principal of the establishment.

The house is an elegant and stately erection, separated by long corridors from two wings almost equal to itself in size and extent. The portico is of the noblest architecture, and double flights of steps, flight after flight, exquisite in design and proportion, stretch down from the magnificent colonnade to the sloping lawn. Standing under the lofty pillars, leaning over the marble balustrade, with a splendid peacock close beside me expanding his gorgeous plumage to the sun, I thought I had never beheld a scene that formed so perfect a picture to the eye and to the mind.

In the foreground the turfy lawn, dotted here and there with graceful shrubs, descended to a sweep of calm, bright waters as clear as crystal, giving back the fleecy clouds and the deep-blue sky, and fringed in on either side by down-dropping elms, columnar poplars, and majestic cedars. Across the lake the city presented itself in its most picturesque point of view: the old buttressed abbey, church towers and spires, streets, squares, and crescents, rising each over each, mixed with park and gardens, and crowned by the high bills of Lansdown and Mr. Beckford's tower. All was gay and glittering in the tender verdure of spring, leaves just bursting, or just burst, a sweet balminess in the air, and the odour of woods and flowers floating around us, with the song of birds and the thousand sounds of new-born insects. It was an hour never to be forgotten!

He whose intellect and kindliness lent attraction even to that loveliest scenery died soon after. The charm of Dr. Baines conversation is difficult to describe. He was the son of a Yorkshire farmer, and

had risen to the rank of Vicar Apostolic, titular Bishop of some Eastern see, and to the highest influence among his English co-religionists by the united power of talent and of character. The little tinct of simplicity which he retained from his rustic origin went well with his courtly bearing. That small touch of provincial naïveté gave to his high-bred polish the finishing grace of truth. It was charming to see him surrounded by the boys of one wing, Howards, Talbots, Fitzgeralds, O'Connells-for O'Connell was then a name to conjure withal"and the elder students of the other building, young men in college cap and gown. It was a double establishment, one a school for the purpose of secular education, the other a seminary for the priesthood; but all the inhabitants, elder or younger, without any distinction, seemed to claim Dr. Baines as the general father. He reigned in the hearts of all.

Full of taste and information, he avoided everything that approached to controversy, and addressed himself to the topics most likely to interest his hearers, as if they had been precisely those most interesting to himself. He showed me Miss Agnew's outline engravings, speaking of her "Geraldine " (then recently published) with high but discriminating praise, and regretting her retirement to a convent, a thing he rarely saw cause to recommend. He showed me a little volume of Latin hymns, the hymns Sir Walter Scott liked so well, and told me that Mr Moore, on his last visit to Prior Park, had at his request taken away a copy. "I hope," said he, "that that great artist in words may give us an English version of some of the few poems, professedly