''JACOBS LADDER'' 263 



" These walls, so full of monument and bust, 

 Shew how Bath waters serve to lay the dust." 



Quite distinguished dust it is, too. Noblemen and 

 dames of high degree ; Admirals of the Blue, the 

 White, the Red ; legal, and military, and clerical 

 dignitaries, and all manner of Civil servants, mostly 

 of the mid-eighteenth century, and chiefly hailing 

 from India and the Colonies, as described with much 

 pomp and circumstance on their cenotaphs which so 

 thickly cover the walls, and spoil the architectural 

 effect. "The Bath," was the solace of their kind, 

 returning from the Tropics with nutmeg livers, gout, 

 and autocratic ways. At " the Bath " they resided 

 on half-pay, drank the waters, supported the local 

 doctors, quarrelled with their neighbours, and con- 

 sistently damned all " new-fangled notions," until 

 death laid them by the heels. 



There must have been — if we are capable of 

 believing their epitaphs — some paragons of all the 

 virtues in those times, and Bath seems to have claimed 

 them all. Here, for instance, is Alicia, Countess of 

 Erroll, " in whom was combined every virtue that 

 could adorn human nature." She died young ; the 

 world is too wicked for such. 



Bath Abbey is remarkable in one respect far above 

 all the minsters and cathedrals of England. As you 

 stand facing the great West Front, which looks so 

 grim and grey upon the stony courtyard that stretches 

 before it, you see, flanking the immense west window, 

 two heavy piers, terminating in turrets. On these 

 piers are carved the singular representations of 

 " Jacob's Ladder " that have given the Abbey a fame 



