August 21, 1888.--From Devizes the traveller naturally turns toward Bath, which is only a few miles distant. A beautiful city, marred somewhat by the feverish, disturbing spirit of the present day, this old place [so old that in it the Saxon King Edgar was crowned, A.D. 973] nevertheless retains many interesting characteristics of its former glory. More than a century has passed since the wigged, powdered, and jewelled days of Beau Nash. The Avon,--for there is another Avon here, distinct from that of Warwickshire and also from that of Yorkshire,--is spanned by bridges that Smollett never dreamt of and Sheridan never saw. The town has crept upward, along both the valley slopes, nearer and nearer to the hill-tops that used to look down upon it. Along the margins of the river many gray, stone structures are mouldering in neglect and decay; but a tramcar rattles through the principal street; the boot-black and the newsvender are active and vociferous; the causeways are crowded with a bustling throng, and carts and carriages dash and scramble over the pavement, while, where of old the horn used to sound a gay flourish and the coach to come spinning in from London, now is heard the shriek and clangour of the steam-engine dashing down the vale, with morning papers and with passengers, three hours from the town. This, indeed, is not "the season" and of late it has rained with zealous persistence, so that Bath is not in her splendour. Much however can be seen, and the essential fact that she is no longer the Gainsborough belle that she used to be is distinctly evident. You must yield your mind to fancy if you would conjure up, while walking in these modern streets, the gay and quaint things described in _Humphrey Clinker_ or indicated in _The Rivals_. The Bath chairs, sometimes pulled by donkeys, and sometimes trundled by men, are among the most representative relics now to be seen. Next to the theatre [where it was my privilege to enjoy and admire Mr. John L. Toole's quaint and richly humorous performance of _The Don_], stands a building, at the foot of Gascoigne place, before which the traveller pauses with interest, because upon its front he may read the legend, neatly engraved on a white marble slab, that "In this house lived the celebrated Beau Nash, and here he died, February 1761." It is an odd structure, consisting of two stories and an attic, the front being of the monotonous stucco that came in with the Regent. Earlier no doubt the building was timbered. There are eleven windows in the front, four of them being painted on the wall. The house is used now by an auctioneer. In the historic Pump Room, dating back to 1797, raised aloft in an alcove at the east end, still stands the effigy of the Beau, even as it stood in the days when he set the fashions, regulated the customs, and gave the laws, and was the King of Bath; but the busts of Newton and Pope that formerly stood on either side of this