252 THE BATH ROAD 



counsellors, and clergy. These delicate creatures 

 from Bedfordbury, Butcher-row, Crutched -friars, and 

 Botolph-lane, cannot breathe in the gross air of the 

 lower town, or conform to the vulgar rules of a 

 common lodging-house ; the husband, therefore, must 

 provide an entire house or elegant apartments in the 

 new buildings. Such is the composition of what is 

 called fashionable company at Bath." 



XLIII 



What, liowever, of the literary celebrities, visitors or 

 residents, or of the statesmen, the naval and military 

 commanders, who were frequenting Bath at the time 

 when that jaundiced criticism was penned. Dr. John- 

 son was then taking the waters, which are said l^y a 

 later authority to taste of "warm smoothin -irons ; " 

 Gainsborough alternately painted and bathed ; while 

 the Earl of Chatham and his still greater son ; Nelson, 

 Wolfe, Sheridan, and Goldsmith, Words worth, Southey, 

 Jane Austin, and Laudor, helped to sustain the repute 

 of this, which Landor called the next most beautiful 

 place in the world to Florence, well on into the next 

 century. 



A diarist of over a century ago tells us how he 

 went to Bath, and what he saw and did there. This 

 was the Reverend Thomas Campbell, a lively Irishman 

 (notwithstanding his Scottish name), who journeyed to 

 England in 1775, and visited Johnson and other 

 literary bigwigs in London, coming to Bath on April 

 28, to take the waters. The coach set out from the 



