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after rain dampness enough to satisfy any inquisitive traveller, 
but the place was not opened until 1795. In one more, the most 
recent issue, the writer tells us plainly as if he had seen it all, that 
“the grotto in some well kept gardens was reached by well 
“kept footpaths. The old grotto—(nothing has been said of 
“fa new one)—had the shade of a willow tree and those who 
“like to go down the opening from the centre of Pulteney 
“St leading to the Recreation Ground of to-day will find the 
“spot where once stood the grotto at the extremity of the garden 
“of No 65 Pulteney, St. Here is to be found the old weather 
“beaten willow possibly the tree that Sheridan sung of. Close to 
“the roots of the old willow are fragments which might have been 
“portions of the original uncouth grotto of stones.”"* Examining 
this extraordinary story, if ‘the old willow” is only “possibly” 
the right one, and the “fragments” only “might have been,” 
the most determined imagination will hardly find the “spot” 
where “stood the grotto.” Sometimes Mrs. Sheridan visited her 
relations at Bath. On one of those occasions Sheridan in a 
poetical letter alludes to the evidently to them well remembered 
grotto episode. He wrote,— 
. To Laura. 
Near Avon’s ridgy bank there grows 
A willow of no vulgar size 
That tree first heard poor Sylvio’s woes 
And heard how bright were Laura’s eyes. 
To this she responded,— 
To SYLVvIOo. 
S Soft flowed the lay by Avon’s sedgy side 
cr While o’er its stream the drooping willow hung 
Beneath whose shadow Sylvio fondly tried 
To check the opening roses as they sprung. 
The poor willow then at 65 Pulteney St must have drooped 
adly two hundred and fifty yards or more from the damp and 
* «Famous Houses,” Meehan. 
