CHAPTER VI ABOUT BATH AND WELLS T is a great change to jump from being entertained by some of the leading professors of Oxford, where there is a great feast of reason and flow of soul, to a country party, a few days later, where the talk was all of horse-racing and betting, and where the spirits of the guests rose as those in the bottles diminished, and the squires had to be lured into the drawing room to smoke after dinner, to prevent their partaking too freely of port! At Bath one should emphatically live in the past. The modern city is largely without allure. Going about among the Roman remains and the well-preserved ancient baths, one might easily fancy one's self in Italy. As long as one is studying these relics one does well. Among the fragments are numerous bits of stone roofs, in just the same shapes as those now in use in the Cotswolds thin oblong slabs, with a round. hole at one end, for purposes of applying. Thus it is seen that even in Roman times stone roofs must have been in vogue in this part of England. We struck Bath during a carnival, and the first evening was passed amid music and fireworks large "set pieces" intended to be portraits of royalty, although the burst of glory which was supposed to represent Queen Mary might with equal justice have been labelled Lydia E. Pinkham! The origin of Bath as a city of healing waters is said to have been on this wise. The eighth king of the Britons, Hudibras, had an only son, Bladud. This prince had the misfortune to contract leprosy. The stern parent instantly ordered him into exile. The boy retired, as a swineherd, far from the haunts of men. His mother, however, being of a sanguine temperament, gave him a ring which he was to send back to her in the event of his ever being cured of the disease. Bladud kept his pigs quietly for some time, and then found to his dismay that they had caught his disease. In order to retain his position he concealed this fact from the owner of the herd, driving the swine to the other side of the Avon. The spot over which they crossed the river is still known as Swineford. (Swinford.) One day his pigs ran away. He chased them, and found them wallowing in a swamp full of hot springs. After having extricated them with difficulty from their uncomfortable situation, he was disheartened to find that they all went back the next day, appearing to derive some pleasure from the warm mud. After a short time he noticed that they began to recover from their leprosy. Amazed and interested, Bladud decided to experiment with the hot swamp himself. This he did, and became cured as well. He flew to his father's court, sent up the ring to his mother, and was received with joy. When he became king in his turn, he built magnificent temples of health all about this magic mud bath, and the place, under the name of Caer Badon, became the royal residence. A modern versifier has treated the legend in a light vein : "Vexed at the brutes' alone possessing The hogs, thus banished by the Prince, In 1138 Bath waters again came into favour for leprosy, and a small leper hospital was built in the town by a bishop. In 1450 Bath had evidently begun to take on some of its subsequent gay aspect, for Bishop Beckington threatened excommunication to any persons who should go into the baths without clothes on. This looks as if such a proclamation had been rendered necessary by the fact of this misdemeanour having been practised! In 1574 Queen Elizabeth visited Bath. The city was turned upside down to do her honour, but, among the elaborate preparations of the city fathers, they had overlooked the fact that the drain ran through the middle of the city. The royal nose being sensitive, it seems that all the glory and display of the pageant was lost upon the queen, who did nothing but complain in a truly gracious way of the "stink." fancy the effect of her dissatisfaction threw a cloud over the festivities. I When one goes now to the Pump Room in Bath, a good deal of mental reconstruction is necessary to resurrect Beau Nash and his circle. I advise a strenuous and immediate course of reading of all the novels which deal with the historic Bath of the eighteenth century. "Beau Nash" by Harrison Ainsworth, Nest of Linnets " by Frankfort Moore, "The Bath Comedy" by Agnes and Egerton Castle, "A and many more pertinent books on the same order. It is an interesting subject and has been so widely exploited in fiction that it is quite possible to set up an "atmosphere" in which to study the city. In the Pump Room there are several Roman Remains arranged in cases. One piece is especially remarkable. It is a little black tablet about four inches square, on which, to the untrained eye, there appears to be a few random scratches. Pause: these marks constitute an inscription of great antiquity, and have been three times translated by savants with three separate results. As Sayce translates it, it shows a record of a lady having been cured by Bath waters, and is signed by three witnesses. Zangermeister has discovered on it a curse pronounced upon some one for stealing a tablecloth. Another authority finds in it a curse for stealing a Roman slave. In either case, the balance of evidence is in favour of the curse rather than the blessing. Strange that the centuries should thus obscure the message! There is also a curious little Celtic cross of lead, with the inscription, "To Christ do I, though stained with sin, suppliantly pray miserere mei," and on the reverse, "He who by virtue of the cross broke the power of hell, and |