THE WARMINSTER ROAD. 289 



old watering-place, you know; "a mort of merry-making" there 

 has been in it in days past, but now, though by no means a de- 

 cayed town, I believe its glory in this respect has departed. I 

 should judge it still to be a place of great wealth and elegance, 

 but less distinguished for gayety and folly than formerly. All I 

 can say of the inhabitants really, from personal observation, is, 

 that they "know enough to stay in when it rains," for I hardly 

 saw one in the streets, except the men who were waiting by the 

 little covered "chairs," such as Mrs. Skewton is represented by 

 Cruikshanks to be wheeled about in by her lanky page. I saw 

 hundreds of these, ranged in the streets as hackney-coaches are 

 in our towns, but no carriage of any kind, public or private ; per- 

 haps the Bath coachmen had again "met to a cold swarry." 



After a walk of two miles into the country, I found I had been 

 misdirected, and had a good deal of difficulty in finding the right 

 road. I once asked the way of two laborers, and their replies 

 were in such language, and they were so stupid, that I could not 

 get the least idea of what they meant. My guess was, that they 

 either could not understand what I wanted, or that they did not 

 know themselves whether or not it was the Warminster road that 

 they were at work upon. It was after four o'clock when I at 

 length got upon the straight road, with seventeen miles before me 

 a hilly road, with a thin, slimy chalk-mud under foot. I 

 stopped once again during another tremendous torrent, taking the 

 opportunity to bait at a neat little inn, and reached Warminster, 

 after a hard pull, at nine o'clock. The 'first building in the town, 

 as you come from Bath, is a fine old church, going round the 

 yard of which you enter abruptly upon a close-built street of old 

 thatched two-story houses. 



The postmaster had no letters for me, and seemed to be very 

 angry that I should have expected him to have. I looked from 

 one inn to another, not finding my friends, and finally, muddy, 

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