THE BATH ROAD 



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to them ; would have looked back at him, admired him, 

 wondered who he was. 



But let us get back to our horses and coachmen ; for 

 the history of the Bath Road is not all a literary 

 history, though, of all the great roads of England, I 

 have found it the most literary road. At one end of it 

 must be remembered was Bath, and to "The Bath" — 

 as it was till quite lately called — jaded authors and other 





A IV inter Day's ADinsement. 



literary wild fowl rushed to rouse sedentary livers. The 

 Bath Road, as I say, however, has its coachmen as well 

 as its poets, and they must be chronicled in their courses. 

 Down this part of the road, then, where we are resting, 

 the following great men, who are now, let us hope, 

 driving in august procession by the Styx, exercised 

 their superlative craft — Isaac Walton — not he of fishing 

 fame, but the Maecenas of whips, the Braham of the 



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