from a cook's shop, shall dress at six the side box; one of those whose its are only known to their laundress tradesmen, and their fine clothes to 'the nobility; who spend more in ir hire than housekeeping, and prefer ow from a lord to a dinner from a moner.

this manner Nash spent some years it town, till at last, his genteel apance, his constant civility, and still e, his assiduity, gained him the acntance of several persons qualified to the fashion both by birth and fortune. gain the friendship of the young lity, little more is requisite than a submission and very fine clothes; ; has a mechanical influence upon the 1, and we naturally are awed into ect and esteem at the elegance of : whom even our reason would teach contemn. He seemed early sensible uman weakness in this respect; he ght a person genteelly dressed to 7 assembly: he always made one of who are called very good company, assurance gave him an air of elegance

case.

hen King William was upon the e, Mr. Nash was a member of the lle Temple. It had been long cusry for the Inns of Court to entertain nonarchs upon their accession to the n, or some such remarkable occasion, a revel and pageant. In the earlier ds of our history, poets were the actors of these entertainments: plays ⚫ exhibited, and complimentary verses - then written; but by degrees the ant alone was continued, Sir John is being the last poet that wrote upon such an occasion, in the reign umes I.

ais ceremony, which has been at th totally discontinued, was last exed in honour of King William, and Nash was chosen to conduct the le with proper decorum. He was but a very young man; but we see >w early an age he was thought proper aide the amusements of his country, be the Arbiter Elegantiarum of his ; we see how early he gave proofs of ¡spirit of regularity for which he after

wards became famous, and showed an attention to those little circumstances, of which, though the observance be trifling, the neglect has often interrupted men of the greatest abilities in the progress of their fortunes.

In conducting this entertainment, Nash had an opportunity 'of exhibiting all his abilities, and King William was so well satisfied with his performance, that he made him an offer of knighthood. This, however, he thought proper to refuse; which in a person of his disposition seems strange. "Please your Majesty," replied he, when the offer was made him, “if you intend to make me a knight, I wish it may be one of your Poor Knights of Windsor, and then I shall have a fortune at least able to support my title." Yet we do not find that the King took the hint of increasing his fortune; perhaps he could not; he had at that time numbers to oblige, and he never cared to give money without important services.

But though Nash acquired no riches by his late office, yet he gained many friends, or, what is more easily obtained, many acquaintances, who often answer the end as well. In the populous city where he resided, to be known was almost synonymous with being in the road to fortune. How many little things do we see, without merit or without friends, push themselves forward into public notice, and by self-advertising attract the attention of the day! The wise despise them, but the public are not all wise. Thus they succeed, rise upon the wing of folly or of fashion, and by their success give a new sanction to effrontery.

But besides his assurance, Mr. Nash had in reality some merit and some virtues. He was, if not a brilliant, at least an easy companion. He never forgot good manners, even in the highest warmth of familiarity, and, as I hinted before, never went in a dirty shirt to disgrace the table of his patron or his friend. These ¦ qualifications might make the furniture of his head; but for his heart, that seemed an assemblage of the virtues which display an honest, benevolent mind, with the vices which spring from too much goodnature. He had pity for every creature's

Probably upon this principle, and by the arrival of Queen Anne there, for her health, about the year 1703, the city of Bath became in some measure frequented by people of distinction. The company was numerous enough to form a countrydance upon the bowling-green: they were amused with a fiddle and hautboy, and diverted with the romantic walks round the city. They usually sauntered in fine weather in the grove, between two rows of sycamore-trees. Several learned physicians, Dr. Jorden and others, had even then praised the salubrity of the wells, and the amusements were put under the direc

tion of a master of the ceremonies.

Captain Webster was the predecessor of Mr. Nash. This I take to be the same gentleman whom Mr. Lucas describes in his history of the lives of the Gamesters, by which it appears that Bath, even before the arrival of Nash, was found a proper retreat for men of that profession. This gentleman, in the year 1704, carried the balls to the Town-hall, each man paying half-a-guinea each ball.

Still, however, the amusements of this place were neither elegant, nor conducted with delicacy. General society among people of rank or fortune was by no means established. The nobility still preserved a tincture of Gothic haughtiness, and refused to keep company with the gentry at any of the public entertainments of the place. Smoking in the rooms was permitted; gentlemen and ladies appeared in a disrespectful manner at public entertainments in aprons and boots. With an eagerness common to those whose pleasures come but seldom, they generally continued them too long; and thus they were rendered disgusting by too free an enjoyment. If the company liked each other, they danced till morning; if any person lost at cards, he insisted on continuing the game till luck should turn. The lodgings for visitants were paltry, though expensive; the dining-rooms and other chambers were floored with boards, coloured brown with soot and small-beer, to hide the dirt; the walls were covered with unpainted wain scot; the furniture corresponded with the meanness of the architecture; a few oak chairs, a small looking-glass, with a fender

and tongs, composed the magnificence these temporary habitations. The cit was in itself mean and contemptible; a elegant buildings, no open streets, uniform squares! The pump-house without any director; the chairmen mitted no gentlemen or ladies to wa home by night without insulting the and to add to all this, one of the gre physicians of his age conceived a des of ruining the city, by writing against efficacy of the waters. It was fa resentment of some affronts he had rac there, that he took this resolution; a accordingly published a pamphlet which he said, "he would cast a to the spring.'

In this situation of things it was Nash first came into that city, and be the threat of this physician, he hum assured the people, that if they wor him leave, he would charm away t son of the doctor's toad, as they charmed the venom of the tarant music. He therefore was imme empowered to set up the force of: of music, against the poison of the reptile. The company very sers creased; Nash triumphed, and th reignty of the city was decreed to [11 every rank of people.

We are now to behold this ge as arrived at a new dignity, for nature seemed to have formed are to see him directing pleasures none had better learned to share; over rebellious and refractory that were to be ruled only by the ford address, and governing such as h long accustomed to govern others see a kingdom beginning with h sending off Tunbridge as one of itsco

But to talk more simply, when at best of trifles. None could poss ceive a person more fit to fill "this e ment than Nash. He had some i have said once or twice before; was of that sort which is rather than permanent. Once a week he say a good thing: this the little one him took care to divulge; or if they pened to forget the joke, he usually re bered to repeat it himself. In a intercourse with the world he had acqu

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simpenetrable assurance; and the freedom th which he was received by the great, mished him with vivacity which could commanded at any time, and which me mistook for wit. His former intererse among people of fashion in town d let him into most of the characters of nobility; and he was acquainted with my of their private intrigues. He underod rank and precedence with the utmost actness; was fond of show and finery nself, and generally set a pattern of it others. These were his favourite talents, d he was the favourite of such as had other.

But to balance these which some may asider as foibles, he was charitable himf, and generally shamed his betters into similitude of sentiment, if they were t naturally so before. He was fond of vising those young men who, by youth d too much money, are taught to look on extravagance as a virtue. He was enemy to rudeness in others, though in e latter part of his life he did not much em to encourage a dislike of it by his n example. None talked with more manity of the foibles of others, when sent, than he, nor kept those secrets ith which he was entrusted more inviobly. But above all (if moralists will low it among the number of his virtues), ough he gamed high, he always played ry fairly. These were his qualifications. ome of the nobility regarded him as an offensive, useful companion, the size of hose understanding was, in general, level ith their own; but their little imitators imired him as a person of fine sense, and reat good breeding. Thus people became nd of ranking him in the number of their cquaintance, told over his jests, and Beau Wash at length became the fashionable ompanion.

His first care when made Master of the Ceremonies, or King of Bath, as it is alled, was to promote a music subscripion of one guinea each, for a band, which was to consist of six performers, who vere to receive a guinea a week each for heir trouble. He allowed also two ruineas a week for lighting and sweeping The rooms; for which he accounted to the subscribers by receipt.

The pump-house was immediately put under the care of an officer, by the name of the pumper; for which he paid the corporation an annual rent. A row of new houses was begun on the south side of the gravel-walks, before which a handsome pavement was then made for the company to walk on. Not less than seventeen or eighteen hundred pounds were raised this year and in the beginning of 1706 by subscription, and laid out in repairing the roads near the city. The streets began to be better paved, cleaned, and lighted; the licences of the chairmen were repressed, and by an Act of Parlia ment procured on this occasion, the invalids, who came to drink or bathe, were exempted from all manner of toll, as often as they should go out of the city for recreation.

The houses and streets now began to improve, and ornaments were lavished upon them even to profusion. But in the midst of this splendour, the company still were obliged to assemble in a booth to drink tea and chocolate, or to game. Mr. Nash undertook to remedy this inconve nience, and by his direction, one Thomas Harrison erected a handsome assembly. house for these purposes. A better band of music was also procured, and the former subscription of one guinea was raised to two. Harrison had three guineas a week for the room and candles, and the music two guineas a man. The money Mr. Nash received and accounted for with the utmost exactness and punctuality. To this house were also added gardens for people of rank and fashion to walk in; and the beauty of the suburbs continued to increase, notwithstanding the opposi tion that was made by the corporation; who at that time looked upon every useful improvement, particularly without the walls, as dangerous to the inhabitants within.

His dominion was now extensive and secure, and he determined to support it with the strictest attention. But in order to proceed in everything like a King, he was resolved to give his subjects a law, and the following Rules were accordingly put up in the pump-room :