coming to ask you if you had seen our Pompey" up came a third, while they were talking, to inquire for her Toby,— and there was no roast meat in Bath that day.

It is told of these dogs in this city, that one Sunday, when they had as usual followed their mistresses to church, the lesson for the day happened to be that chapter in Ezekiel, wherein the self-moving chariots are described. When first the word wheel was pronounced, all the curs pricked up their ears in alarm; at the second wheel they set up a doleful howl; and when the dreaded word was uttered a third time, every one of them scampered out of church as fast as he could, with his tail between his legs.

LETTER LXXV.

Road from Bath to Bristol.-Cornu Am

monis.

Bristol.- Exchange.-Market.-Cathedral.-The Brazen Eagle. -Clifton.- Bristol-Wells.-Anecdote of Kosciusko.

FROM Bath to Bristol is three leagues; the road crosses the river Avon by an old bridge, and continues for some way along its banks, or at little distance from them. Half a league from Bath is the house wherein Fielding is said to have written Tom Jones; it stands by the way side, in a village called Twyverton, and I did not look at it without respect. We had a fine view of the river winding under a hill which is covered with old trees, and has a mansion

side the water, was the largest and finest meadow I have seen in England, in which an immense herd was feeding, as in a savannah. A little dirty town, called Keynsham, stands about half way. I noticed the Cornu-Ammonis built up in the walls of many of the houses, or, if it happened to be a fine specimen, placed over the door-way, as an ornament. This, I find, has given rise to a fabulous legend, which says that St. Keyna, from whom the place takes its name, resided here in a solitary wood full of venomous serpents, and her prayers converted them into these stones, which still retain their shape. Beyond this there is a fantastic building, more like a castle than any thing else: I could neither guess for what it was intended, nor of what it was built. It proved to be the stables belonging to a great house on the opposite side of the road, from which there is a subterranean passage, and the materials were the scoria from some neighbouring iron-works, with which I soon.

ROAD FROM BATH TO BRISTOL. 333

perceived that the walls by the road side were capt: for this it is excellently adapted, as nothing will vegetate upon it, and it is undecomposable by the weather. Here we once more approached the river, which, was now a dirty stream, flowing through wide banks of mud. Bristol was presently in sight, a huge city in the bottom, and extending up all the adjoining hills, with many steeples, one of which inclines so much from the perpendicular, that I should be sorry to live within reach of its fall,and the black towers of many glass-houses rolling up black smoke. We entered through a gate of modern and mean architecture into a street which displayed as much filth, and as much poverty, as I have seen in any English town. Here, for the first time, I saw something like a public fountain, with a painted statue of Neptune above it, which is as little creditable to the decency of the magistrates as to the state of arts in the city. The entrance into Bristol is, however, the worst part of it."

We crossed the bridge, where there is a fine opening, and full in view a modern church and spire, so beautifully proportioned, and therefore so fine, that you do not at first perceive that the whole building is perfectly plain and unornamented.

D. was awaiting my arrival. He had se cured our places for Exeter in to-morrow's coach, and I lost no time in seeing what he, as being acquainted with the place, thought most worthy to be seen. The exchange, a fine edifice, about half a century old, was opposite to the inn door at which the stage had stopped: its inclosed square is exceedingly beautiful, more so than any thing of the kind which I have seen elsewhere :-yet, it seems, the citizens choose to assemble in the street, in front, where some friend to the city, in old times, erected four brazen tables, on which his town's-folk might count out their money in their public dealings. On one of these a man was selling newspapers, on another a cage of goldfinches was exposed to sale.