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have certainly invited the whole corporation of Bath with their 
wives and children, the place won’t contain them; it’s quite a 
mob. 
Again Anstey in the “New Bath Guide” tells that lord 
Ragamuffen,— 
To day with extreme complaisance and respect ask’d 
All the people of Bath to a general breakfast. 
Then further we are told,— 
He carried us all to a place cross the river, 
And vow’d that the Rooms were too hot for his liver, 
He said it would greatly our pleasure promote, 
If we all to Spring Gardens set out in a boat. 
In Spring Gardens there might have been grottos or retreats 
suitable enough but the place would be entirely unsuited for a 
stolen interview, would hardly be chosen for a secret meeting, as 
besides being such a very public resort, to reach it the river must 
be crossed in a not invisible boat or by a public ferry. The little 
inexact pamphlet already noticed, printed in 1878 but care- 
lessly undated, entitled—‘‘ Memorable Houses in Bath,” by 
Citizen—tells that this Ode is said (is said) to have been written ina 
grotto in the adjacent Spring Gardens. He is writing of the 
Terrace Walk, so it is difficult to see what was adjacent. In time 
Spring Gardens disappeared, the name got lost, the place hardly 
identified, and consequently writers have gone wrong over this 
grotto story. Thus one says the youag couple met—in the 
Walks or in Sidney Gardens. This mention of the Walks may 
be remembered as it may seem that in the mind of the writer 
the Grotto and the Walks were somehow associated. Another 
writing much later,* copying somewhat, says it was in a grotto in 
Sidney Gardens where he wrote &c; and anothert copying 
again but using a y for the i in Sidney for a difference, says— 
a grotto in Sydney Gardens is reported (“reported”) to have 
been the place of meeting. Sydney Gardens has alcoves and 
* Octogenarian. + Oliphant. 
