56 COACHING DAYS AND COACHING WAYS 



wanted it, for it had the advertisement of all the nobility, 

 wealth, fashion of a century, that thronged, as all history 

 in those days thronged, to that centre of the vale- 

 tudinarian and the voluptuary, Bath. 



I should like to have the visitors' list of the Castle, 

 during the days of its prime. It would be a Homeric 

 catalogue of guests, compared with which the ship 

 business would be commonplace. Consider that every- 

 body of note in England for over a century entered 

 those doors, ate, drank, slept, gamed there, grumbled 

 over their bills, paid their reckoning, thronged to their 

 post-chaises or coaches, and posted off Bath-wards or to 

 London. Why, the mere writing of the names would 

 make a history, and a more suggestive one than many 

 chronicles of the kings. Chesterfield and Lady Mary 

 Wortley Montagu making for scandal and the waters ; 

 Walpole reclining in his chariot, meditating his ailments 

 and the ancient legend of Bath ; hypochondriasis and 

 antiquities usurping equal halves of that delicate, in- 

 dolent brain, his nostril, curled at the horsey atmosphere 

 of the old inn yard, his white hand raised in deprecating 

 horror at mine host proffering refreshment on a salver as 

 big as a coach-wheel ; Selwyn, most good-natured of 

 voluptuaries, who however liked to see a man hanged, 

 taking his ease before dinner in the inn's best room, 

 while his delightful chaplain, Dr. Warner, who had 

 Rabelais and Horace at his finger ends, is busy below 

 with the cellarman, assuring himself of the quality of 

 his patron's claret ; Sheridan running away with his 

 beautiful wife ; Garrick posting to Bath in search of 

 new talent and to depreciate Barry ; Byron (already 

 on his biscuit and soda-water regime) eyeing the bill 

 of fare misanthropically ; and Brummell incubating a 

 new cravat ; and Gentleman Jackson surrounded by his 

 backers on his way to a prize fight. But why proceed 

 with the list ? The names of the visitors at this cele- 

 brated inn are written in the letters and diaries of three 

 generations. 



