22 A FARMER'S YEAR 



other with Gardens, Fruits, shady Walks and all the Decorations 

 of a rural Innocence. 



'"The Building is designedly plain and neat, because the 

 least attempt of artful Magnificence would by alluring the Eyes of 

 Strangers, deprive them of those profuse Pleasures which Nature 

 has already provided. 



' " As to the Bathing there 'tis a Mixture of all that England, 

 Paris or Rome could ever boast of; no one's refused a kind 

 Reception, Honour and Generosity reign throughout the whole, 

 the Trophies of the Poor invite the Rich, and their more dazzling 

 Assemblies compel the Former." ' 



I make no apologies for transcribing ' the Former,' since it 

 deserves Preservation even in an age rich in Style. Did a young 

 man write it who sincerely desired that his adored should share 

 with him the pleasures of nature at Bungay, and at the same 

 time benefit her health in its peerless baths ? Or did the late 

 Mr. King, with the mundane view of advertising the said baths, 

 put these glowing words into the mouth of an imaginary swain 

 writing to a fancied mistress ? Alas ! now that Mr. King, baths, 

 lover and lady have alike vanished, and only the hillside and the 

 spring remain, the question never can be answered. 



But in this superb epistle a vineyard is mentioned; moreover the 

 kinds of grapes planted therein are specified. Was this vineyard, 

 furnished with the fruits of the 'East,' an effort of the imagination 

 suggested by the traditional name of the place (now oddly enough 

 superseded by a new name taken from the tradition of Mr. King's 

 bath), or did it, as the picture suggests, really exist in the 

 year 1738? Quien sabe? as they say in Mexico. There have, 

 in my time, been several old men in Ditchingham whose grand- 

 fathers may have been living in 1738, yet I never heard from them 

 any tale of a vineyard on the Bath Hills. But this proves nothing. 



Whether or not the vineyard was there, certainly the spring 

 was, whose healthful properties (according to Mr. King, who 

 gives his cases) wrought so many cures a hundred and seventy 

 years ago, for it still bubbles from the foot of the hillside. Even 



