What a delightful picture one gets of it all, of the sedate, pleasure-loving old town with its abbey-bells ringing out a welcome to each fashionable arrival, with Beau Nash hurrying down the cobbled streets, his famous white beaver hat on his head, to pay his compliments to each newcomer. And what a gay figure he himself must have cut in those resplendent days; indeed, we learn from Lord Chesterfield that his attire was on one occasion so gorgeous “that as he stood by chance in the midst of the dancers he was taken by many to be a gilt garland.” Though Beau Nash was fond of declaring that “Wit, flattery, and fine clothes were enough to debauch a nunnery,” there is little evidence that he himself ever indulged in intrigues with his fair visitors who every morning like so many lovely nymphs stepped into the elegant health-giving waters and received from the hands of their attendants “little floating dishes into which to lay their handkerchiefs, little nosegays, and sweetmeats.” Judging by the standards of the eighteenth century, it would seem that his personal life defied criticism, for in an age “when a fellow of high humour would drink no wine but what was strained through his mistress’s smock,” he can scarcely be condemned for accepting the blandishments bestowed upon him by his three successive adorers, Lady Betty Besom, Hannah Lightfoot, and Juliana Popjoy. An issue of the _Gentleman’s Magazine_ at the end of the eighteenth century throws a remarkable light upon the latter years of the last of these women. “Juliana Popjoy,” it says, “died last week. For thirty or forty years she has lived in a hollow tree. She had been mistress to the famous Beau Nash of Bath.” In Wesley’s journal we find a curious description of a meeting that took place between that honest rantipole evangelist and Beau Nash. Wesley had come to hold a conventicle at Bath, which was, of course, the very stronghold of frivolity. Before his service opened Nash appeared and did not hesitate to protest that his preaching “frightened the people out of their wits.” “Sir, did you ever hear me preach?” inquired the Puritan of the Dandy. “No,” came the answer, “but I judge by common report.” “Common report, Sir, is not enough. Give me leave, Sir, to ask is not your name Nash?” “My name is Nash.” “Sir, I dare not judge of you by common report.” And with that, so the story runs, the man of fashion uttered not a word more, but walked silently away. Are we to suppose that, as sometimes happens to simple souls, Beau Nash experienced at that moment a new and strange misgiving as to the import of the superficial existence which surrounded him and which in part he himself had been responsible for calling into existence? And is there perhaps some connection between his religious susceptibilities on that occasion and the extraordinary conduct of his lady in taking up her residence where patches and cosmetics were replaced by owls’ pellets and bats’ droppings?