Imagini ale paginilor
PDF
ePub

with hanging woods. Prior-Park, and its embellishments, form a pleasing scene for the rambling eye, while you are walking over the parades, or passing along Great Pulteney-street.

There are very few walks of consequence in the vicinity of Bath, nor are there any rides but Landsdowne, and then you have to surmount a summit along the common road of nearly two miles high. The Downs, being very bleak and cold in the winter from their eminent situation, and hot in the summer from the chalky soil and want of shade, render them no very desirable retreat for relaxation or exercise at any season of the year. The only walk is that newly made, continuing from the lower end of

Great

Great Pulteney-street, which adds greatly to its effect; but, being one straight line, upon an ascent, brings to mind the saying of

"The King of France, and twenty thousand men, "Went up a hill, and then came down again."

This is no reproach on the spirit oľ taste of the people, who have made Bath one of the most splendid cities for its size in Europe, but from its situation, not having sufficient level meadow-land to admit of an opportunity of displaying their taste, by embellishing their city with every ornament, in respect to sight and accommodations, to the gratification of their visitors. However, they have taken care, when we speak of it as a winter-residence, to make it a most enviable retreat.

The

The city of Bath is in Somersetshire, one hundred and eight miles from London; the market or post towns through which you pass are Brentford, Colnbrook, Maidenhead, Reading, Newbury, Hungerford, Marlborough, Devizes, Melksham, and so on to Bath.

The inns which lie between London and Bath, in point of grandeur or elegance, surpass every thing of the kind, perhaps, in the known world. The Castle-Inn at Marlborough, and its appurtenances, comprise a palace fit to accommodate the first monarch in Europe, and was once the seat of an English Duke.

THE BRISTOL HOT WELLS

Are two miles from the city of Bristol, and fourteen from Bath.

They

They are in a vale, through which the Avon continues its course, and forms a conjunction with the Severn, which divides the English and the Welch coasts, and makes its way into the Bristol Channel.

In getting to this place from Bath, you are under the necessity of running through a kind of gauntlet, by going from one end to the other of one of the largest, noisiest, and most bustling cities, except London, in England. But, when you arrive at the Wells, the scene becomes calm, and not unpleasant; there are two sets of Assembly-rooms, which are made use of alternately. Lodgings are remarkably dear, and so are all kind of provisions, the more to be wondered at, when we consider it is near so capital a city

a city as Bristol, which lies in a very plentiful country, and the markets supplied abundantly with all the comforts of the earth.

The waters are rather warm, and have a soft milky taste, said to be of great effect in respect to disordered stomachs and consumptive habits ; many a melancholy object of the last description are too frequently seen here, buoyed up with the hopes of relief, but display evident symptoms to the pitying beholder, that they are sent there to take their last sublunary lounge.

The Bristol rocks commence from the Wells, and are arranged on each side for nearly two miles down the river, which runs between them

in

« ÎnapoiContinuă »