"The chairs are order'd, and the moment comes,
When all the world assemble at the rooms."

For the ball-room itself, it was the most splendid scene that the magic power of fancy could devise. The variety of characters, the elegance of the dresses, and the beauty of the graceful fair, joined to their playful wit and accomplished manners, produced a succession of delights which banished from the heart of man the recollection of his mortal ills, and gave him, for the passing time, a semblance of Elysian pleasures. The rooms are admirably calculated for this species of entertainment, and are, I believe, the largest in England; while the excellent regulations and arrangements adopted by the master of the ceremonies to prevent any of those unpleasant intrusions, too often admitted into mixed assemblies, deserved the highest commendation. It is from scenes of this description that the writer on men

and manners extracts his characters, and drawing aside from the mirth-inspiring group, contemplates the surrounding gaieties, noting down in his memory the pleasing varieties and amusing anecdotes he has there heard; pleasantries with which at some future time he may enliven the social circle of his friends, or by reviving in print, recal the brightest and the best recollections of those who have participated in their gay delights.

"In this distinguish'd circle you will find
Many degrees of man and woman kind."

And as I am here "life's painter, the very Spy o' the time," I shall endeavour to sketch a few of the leading Bath characters; most of the gay well-known being upon this occasion present, and many an eccentric star shining forth, whose light it would be difficult. to encounter in any other circle. The accompanying view of the rooms by Transit will convey a correct idea of the splendour of the entertainment, and the fascinating appearance of the assembled groups.

Ranged on the benches sit the lookers-on,
Who criticise their neighbours one by one;
Each thinks herself in word and deed so bless'd,
That she's a bright example for the rest.
Numerous tales and anecdotes they hatch,
And prophesy the dawn of many a match;
And many a matrimonial scheme declare,
Unknown to either of the happy pair;
Much delicate discussion they advance,
About the dress and gait of those who dance;
One stoops too much; and one is so upright,
He'll never see his partner all the night;
One is too lazy; and the next too rough;
This jumps too high, and that not high enough.
Thus each receives a pointed observation,

Not that it's scandal-merely conversation."

A three months' sojournment at Bath had afforded my friend Eglantine an excellent opportunity for esti

mating public character, a science in which he was
peculiarly well qualified to shine; since to much critical
acumen was joined a just power of discrimination, aided
by a generosity of feeling that was ever enlivened by
good-humoured sallies of playful satire. To Horace
Eglantine, I may apply the compliment which CLELAND
pays to POPE he was incapable of either saying or
writing a line on any man, which through guilt,
through shame, or through fear, through variety of
fortune, or change of interest, he would ever be un-
willing to own." It too often happens that the cynic
and the satirist are themselves more than tinged with
the foibles which they so severely censure in others.
"You shall have a specimen of this infirmity," said
Horace, "in the person of Peter Paul Pallet; a re-
verend gentleman whom you will observe yonder in the
dress of a Chinese mandarin. Some few years since this
pious personage
took upon
himself the task of lashing
the prevailing follies of society in a satire entitled Bath
Characters, and it must be admitted, the work proves
him to have been a fellow of no ordinary talent; but
an unfortunate amour with the wife of a reverend bro-
ther, which was soon after made public, added to certain
other peculiarities and eccentricities, have since marked
the satirist himself as one of the most prominent
objects for the just application of his own weapon."

Come hither, Paul Pallet, your portrait I'll paint:
You're a satirist, reverend sir, but no saint.

But as some of his characters are very amusing, and no doubt very correct portraits of the time, 1808, my readers shall have the advantage of them, that they may be the better able to contrast the past with the present, and form their own conclusions how far society has improved in morality by the increase of methodism, the influx of evangelical breathings, or the puritanical pretensions of bible societies. I shall pass by his description of the club; gaming ever was

and ever will be a leading fashionable vice, which only poverty and ruin can correct or cure. The clergy must, however, be greatly delighted at the following picture of the cloth, drawn by one of their holy brotherhood. "The Bath church," says the satirist, "is filled with croaking ravens, chattering jays, and devouring cormorants; black-headed

fanatics and white-headed 'dreamers of dreams;' the aqua-fortis of mob politics, and the mawkish slip-slop of modern divinity; rank cayenne pepper, and genuine powder of post!" Really a very flattering description of our clerical comforters, but one which, I lament to say, will answer quite as well for 1826, with, perhaps, a little less of enthusiasm in the composition, and some faint glimmerings of light opposed to the darkness of bigotry and the frauds of superstition. Methodism is said to be on the wanewe can hear no better proof that true religion and good sense are coming into fashion. The sketch of Mrs. VEHICLE, by the same hand, is said to have been a true copy of a well-known female gambler; it is like a portrait of Sir Joshua Reynolds, a picture worthy of preservation from its intrinsic merits, long after the original has ceased to exist: how readily might it be applied to half a score card-table devotees of the present day! "Observe that tun of beauty, Mrs. VEHICLE, who is sailing up the passage, supported like a nobleman's coat of arms by her amiable sisters, the virtuous widow on one side, and the angelic Miss SPEAKPLAIN on the other. By my soul! the same roses play upon her cheeks now that bloomed there winters ago, the natural tint of that identical patent rouge which she has enamelled her face with for these last twenty years; her gait and presence, too, are still the same- -Vera incessa patuit Dea; she yet boasts the enchanting waddle of a Dutch Venus, and the modest brow of a Tower-hill Diana. Ah, Jack, would you but take a few lessons from my old friend

at the science of shuffle and cut, you would not rise so frequently from the board of green cloth, as you now do, with pockets in which the devil might dance a saraband without injuring his shins against their contents. Why, man, she is a second BRESLAW with a pack; I have known her deal four honours, nine trumps to herself three times in the course of one rubber, and not cut a higher card to her adversary than a three during the whole evening. Sensible of her talents, and of the impropriety of hiding them in a napkin, she chose Bath, independence, and her own skill in preference to a country parsonage, conjugal control, and limited pin-money. Her caro sposo meanwhile retired to his living; and now blesses himself on his escape from false deals, odd tricks, and every honour but the true one." One more sketch, and I have done; but I cannot pass by the admirable portrait of a Bath canonical, "Jolly old Dr. Mixall, rosy as a ripe tomata, and round as his own right orthodox wig, 'With Atlantean shoulders, fit to bear

The weight of mightiest monarchies !'

Awful and huge, he treads the ground like one of Bruce's moving pillars of sand! What a dark and deep abyss he carries before him—the grave insatiate of turtle and turbot, red mullet and John Dories, haunches and pasties, claret, port, and home-brewed ale! But his good-humour alone would keep him at twenty stone were he to cease larding himself for a month to come; and when he falls, may the turf lie lightly on his stomach! Then shall he melt gently into rich manure;

'And fat be the gander that feeds on his grave.'

"But now for the moderns," said Horace; "for the enchanting fair,

'Whose snow-white bosoms fascinate the eye,
Swelling in all the pride of nudity;