6 THE BATH ROAD 



Tlie rush of fashionables to take the waters, and 

 see and be seen, had obviously not then commenced, 

 since one crawling " flying machine " sufficed to 

 accommodate the traffic ; and it was not until thirty- 

 six years later that it did begin, when Queen Anne 

 (who, alas ! is dead) resorted to " the Bath " for the 

 benefit of the gout. What says Pope ? 



" Great Anna, whom Three Realms obey. 

 Does sometimes counsel take, and sometimes tay."' 



If she had taken tea more consistently and drank less 

 port, she would have been just as great and not so 

 gouty — and Bath would have remained in that semi- 

 obscurity in which it had long languished. Ko crowds 

 of fashionables, no truckling statesmen, no wits, 

 would have hastened down the road and peoj^led it 

 so brilliantly had not Anne's big toe twinged with 

 the torments of the damned ; and it seems likely 

 enough that this book would never have been written. 

 Under the circumstances, therefore, the most appro- 

 priate toast for the author and the Mayor and Cor- 

 poration of Bath to honour is that favourite old one, 

 " High Church, High Farming, and Old Port for 

 Ever," especially the last, " coupling with it," as they 

 used to say before the custom of giving toasts died 

 out, the honoured -memory of Queen Anne. 



Another three-days-a-week coach then began to ply 

 between London and Bath. In 1711 it had a rival, 

 and five years later saw the establishment of the first 

 daily coach from London. Thomas Baldwin, citizen 

 and cooper of London, saw money in the venture, 

 and, like the hero of one of Bret Harte's verses, who 



