Part 13 (2/2)

As the citizens refused to purchase it from the Commissioners of Henry VIII., the walls were left roofless till Dr. James Montague, Bishop of the Diocese, with the aid of the local n.o.bility and gentry, procured the necessary funds, and finished it in 1606.

On the west front is sculptured the founder's dream of angels ascending and descending on Jacob's ladder. The church is crowned with a quadrangular tower of 162 feet in height from the point of intersection.

Though the medicinal properties of the springs of Bath attracted from the earliest times the continuous attention of invalids, it was only under the guidance of Beau Nash, the gamester, and the enterprise of John Wood, the architect, that it reached to the highest pinnacle of fame as a place of fas.h.i.+onable resort in the eighteenth century. The works of Fielding, Smollett, Jane Austen, d.i.c.kens, Thackeray, and others, give us a clear insight into the meteor-like prosperity of the city, for, after the death of Nash, it gradually relapsed to its normal state, and, in fact, according to statistics, the number of inhabitants has decreased even within the last few years.

A brief sketch of Beau Nash and the means adopted will account in some measure for the marvellous change in Bath in the eighteenth century.

Nash was educated at Carmarthen Grammar School, and Jesus College, Oxford. He then obtained a commission in the army. This he soon threw up to become a law-student at the Middle Temple. Whilst there he gained much attention by his wit and sociability. These qualities induced his fellow-students to elect him as the president of a pageant that they prepared for William III. The king was so pleased with Nash that, it is said, he offered him a knighthood. This Nash refused unless accompanied by a pension, which was not granted.

He was much addicted to gambling, which, in addition to a restless spirit and an empty purse, led him in 1704 to try his luck at Bath, a place which then offered opportunities to a gamester. There he soon became master of the ceremonies, in succession to Captain Webster. Under his authority reforms were introduced which speedily accorded to Bath a leading position as a fas.h.i.+onable watering-place. He formed a strict code of rules for the regulation of b.a.l.l.s and a.s.semblies; allowed no swords to be worn in places of public amus.e.m.e.nt; persuaded gentlemen to discard boots for shoes and stockings when in a.s.semblies and parades, and introduced a tariff for lodgings.

As insignia of his office he wore an immense white hat, and a richly embroidered dress. He drove about in a chariot with six greys, and laced lackeys blew French horns. When Parliament abolished gambling it caused a serious check to the visits of fas.h.i.+onable people to the city.

However, the Corporation, in recognition of his valuable services, granted Nash a pension of 120 guineas a year, and at his death in 1761 he was buried with splendour at the expense of the town. A year after his demise his biography was anonymously published in London by Oliver Goldsmith.

John Wood, the architect, though hardly as well known to posterity as Nash, must not be overlooked. Till he appeared in Bath in 1728, the city had been confined strictly within the Roman limits. The suburbs consisted merely of a few scattered houses. Wood improved and enlarged the city by his architectural efforts, which led to the quarrying of freestone found existing in the neighbourhood. His successors carried on his enterprise.

The grand Pump-room, erected in 1797, with a portico of Corinthian columns; the King's Bath, with a Doric colonnade; the Queen's Bath; the Cross Bath, so called from a cross erected in the centre of it; the Hot Bath, on account of its superior degree of heat, were once thronged by fas.h.i.+onable gatherings in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

The architecture in the eighteenth century at Bath was an adaptation of the Doric and Ionic orders. Nearly all the princ.i.p.al buildings were constructed after these cla.s.sic principles. St. Michael's Church belongs to the Doric, with a handsome dome, and was erected in 1744. Even the Greek influence is the prevailing feature of Pulteney Bridge.

In conclusion, amongst eminent men of Bath may be mentioned: John Hales, Greek Professor at Oxford in 1612; and Sir Thomas Bodley, founder of the Bodleian Library at Oxford, was a native of, and received his early education in the Grammar School of this city. Benjamin Robins was born here in 1707; he was a celebrated mathematician, and wrote the account of the voyage of Commodore Anson round the world.

Amongst the tombs in the Abbey are those to the memory of Quin, Nash, Broome, Malthus, and Melmothe.

The hot springs of Bath still continue to alleviate the aches and pains of invalid visitors. The interesting history, the curious mingling of Roman and Later English architecture with the revival of the Ionic and Doric orders in the eighteenth-century buildings, can never fail to be of interest alike to the student and the casual visitor in Bath.

Salisbury

Salisberie.

(”Doomsday Book.”)

Salisbury affords a remarkable instance of the complete transference of the cathedral followed by the ultimate desertion of the city in the change from old Sarum, the original site, to New Sarum, another within a short distance--one might almost say within a stone's throw. In the old days of prosperity Old Sarum, now simply a conical ma.s.s of ruins, was peopled with the Belgae, who came from Gaul and ousted the original inhabitants. How this site ever came to be chosen as a desirable place of settlement seems to be rather a mystery, for even in those early days constant difficulties arose with regard to the insufficiency of water.

They aptly called it ”the dry city,” which is supposed to be the meaning of the old name Searobyrig, which later underwent a further contraction--Scarborough. This arid spot, however, received the attention of the Romans, who possibly were attracted by the natural advantages of defence offered by the conical mound rising abruptly, as it does, from the valley. They carried on the old name and Latinised it, as they invariably seemed to have done, or rather made a compromise between the native and their own formation, and arrived at Sorbiordunum.

The scarcity of water seems not to have deterred them in any way, as witness the many evidences of their fossae, extensive ramparts, and fortress--signs which indicate that in their hands Old Sarum was held to be of considerable importance. Roman roads branched out of it, no doubt pointing to the four cardinal points, in accordance with regular custom, though their whereabouts may be difficult to define, seeing that several centuries have pa.s.sed since the desertion of Old Sarum.

With their pa.s.sing away the Roman conquerors have left behind them many relics, possibly in their day considered worthless, but the unearthing of which has caused, for many a year, unalloyed joy and given a priceless treasure to the unwearied antiquaries. Another great source of speculation to the archaeologists has been the temple of the Druids erected some time at Stonehenge. It lies beyond the city on the great Salisbury plain. This primitive form of architecture takes us back to many years before Christ, when the early Britons wore no clothes, save the skins of animals they slew in the chase, and when they could neither read, write, weave, nor do anything which would be considered nowadays as civilising. They were to all intents and purposes mere savages, kept in control by their priests and lawgivers, the Druids, whom they held in the greatest respect. The Britons, we are told, had the additional discomfort of dwelling in holes burrowed in the ground, or in miserably constructed huts. In view of this poor state of domestic architecture, how they ever managed to erect roofless temples, as at Stonehenge and at the island of Anglesea, and to overcome, what must have been to them a very great engineering feat, the setting up of the heavy blocks of stone _in situ_, seems marvellous and not easy of explanation.

[Ill.u.s.tration: SALISBURY

HIGH STREET GATEWAY INTO THE CLOSE]

The great veneration in which the Britons held these temples of the Druids is much accentuated by an incident during the second occupation of Britain by the Romans. Suetonius Paulinus, one of their greatest generals, thought that by destroying the temple at the island of Anglesea he would shake the faith of the Britons in their priests, and gain thereby a speedier conquest, much in the same way as when Clive in India knocked down Dupleix's column to undermine the French influence over the natives. In the latter case history has a.s.sured us of the ultimate fulfilment of hopes, and it was the same with Paulinus in 61, only on his return to the mainland he all but suffered a reverse from an unexpected rising of Britons under Boadicea. Nevertheless, the power of the Druids was irretrievably broken by the slaughter of their order and the felling of the groves at Anglesea, as Paulinus had foreseen. What the object and origin of these remains at Stonehenge were, still serve as an interesting matter for controversy. Competent authorities, like Geoffrey of Monmouth, Polydore Vergil, and in the eighteenth century Dr.

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