When Horace Walpole, who loved not his father’s old enemy, Lord Bath, wrote on one occasion that “the grass grows just before my Lord Bath’s door, whom nobody will visit,” he indicated the large house still known as Bath House which occupies much of the western side of Bolton Street, and which was originally built by William Pulteney, Earl of Bath, on whom so many bitter epigrams were written, and whose parsimony was so notorious. As an example of the former, I may remind the reader of those lines “written on the Earl of Bath’s door in Piccadilly,” by Sir Charles Hanbury Williams, which run thus: “_Here dead to fame lives patriot Will, His grave a lordly seat, His title proves his epitaph, His robes his winding sheet._” As a proof of the latter, is extant the story that having visited Holkham, and forgetting to tip the servants, a pang of conscience spurred his lordship to send back a horseman six miles, _with half a crown_. An even better illustration of his ostentation and meanness combined is preserved by George Colman, who relates that when driving through the lodge gates of his country house, word would be given to halt; the outriders repeated the order, the coachman pulled up his four horses, and from the becoronetted carriage, William Pulteney, Earl of Bath, Viscount Pulteney, of Evington, Baron of Hedon, P.C., F.R.S., etc., etc., would stretch forth his arm and drop into the palm of the curtseying gatekeeper--_a halfpenny_! After Lord Bath’s death, his brother and inheritor of his vast fortune, occupied Bath House for three years, when he also departing to the land of shades (Charon got but small tips from these _Adelphi_ it may be presumed), the place was let to the Duke of Portland. In 1821, Alexander Baring bought it and rebuilt the mansion. He was created Lord Ashburton fourteen years later, and was the head of the great banking house, which the Duc de Richelieu once said was the sixth great power in Europe. Under the Ashburton _régime_, Carlyle, who was more friendly with Lady Ashburton than Mrs. Carlyle always approved of, was a frequent visitor here. In our days it has been the town house of the millionaire Baron Hirsch, and is now the residence of Sir Julius Wernher, so that it would appear to have always been associated with worldly riches and well-known names. [Sidenote: CLUBS OF PICCADILLY.]