THE BATH ROAD 17 



cunning coachmen ; but the memories which haunt it 

 about Cohibrook no less belong, it seems to me, to its 

 history ; memories of great names famous in art, fashion, 

 poetry, scandal, politics, which have posted down it, 

 coached down it, sauntered by its side, lived within 

 touch almost of its ceaseless, hurried pulse. 



For on the right of Colnbrook is Ritchings — where 

 Lord Bathurst, the pleasant, kindly Maecenas of the last 

 century, loved to entertain the literary celebrities of his 

 time. Round his table Addison, Steele, Pope, Prior, and 

 Swift constantly gathered. An old bench in the grounds 

 used to be covered with the autographs of these im- 

 mortals — post-prandial mementoes of a pleasant jaunt 

 from town. Here the great Congreve, fresh from some 

 recent stage triumph, wrote his great name in juxta- 

 position, of course, to the equally great name of some 

 fine lady. It is pleasant to think of these symposiums 

 of wit, poetry, and politics ; of the wine taken on the 

 site of the chapel to St. Lawrence, the tutelary saint of 

 Windsor forest ; of the drive back to London in the cool 

 of the evening ; of the laughter which echoed to some 

 forgotten good thing, which made the sixteen miles 

 back to London seem six, and this part of this Bath 

 Road classic. 



My Lord Bathurst, after having enjoyed the society 

 of Addison, Steele, Swift, Pope, and Prior, came at the 

 end of his long and cultured life to know Sterne, and in 

 doing so touched hands with the wits of two generations. 

 The most original of English authors, however, and the 

 most misunderstood did not grace Ritchings with his 

 quaint presence, at least not as Lord Bathurst's guest, 

 the place having passed from his lordship's hands in 1739 

 into those of the Earl of Hertford. This nobleman's 

 wife continued the literary traditions of the place. She 

 was the Eusebia of Dr. Watts and the Cleora of Mrs. 

 Rowe. Minor poets piped about her feet and listened, 

 with the enthusiasm which authors in company of their 

 kind can feign so well, to her poems. For Eusebia not 



