A CITY OF MEMORIES.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 10440, 20 April 1912, Page 4

A CITY OF MEMORIES.

("Sydney Morning Herald.") Miss Margaret Hodge writes from Bath:—"Miss Newcomb and I aro spending a fortnight at Bath for our Christmas holidays, and though this change of location lias brought with it a different kind of work from our ordinary routine I do not thins it will involve labour much less arduous. On our arrival we were immediately welcomed by the Suffrage Society, whioh claimed us to speak at a meeting this week, and we are ourselves so overwhelmed by tho associations, literary and historical, of this town, and its neighbourhood that wo shall not exhaust them even by jhe most strenuous eight-seeing during our whole visit. From Prince Bladud to Beau Nash, from Elizabeth Linloy to Charles JDickens, what phase of life, what period of history, has not been represented in this wonderful townP_ Wo brought mind 3 well stocked with tho choicest bits of Jane Austen, as far as she dealt with this then fashionable resort, and we cannot walk down Milsgm Street without fancying wo soo Isabella Thorpe and C'atherino Morland, or visit the Pump Room without recalling how anxiously that same Catherine looked for tho advent of Mr Tilney, or the Assembly Rooms without imagining wo see Anno and the Musgroves stop out of-tho pages of "Persuasion." We spent a flay over in Bristol, and ; in spite of terrible weather, as it rained in torrents the whole,time, we managed to see most of the points of interest. A visit to St Mary Rcdcliffo would alono have rewarded us for our journey. Outside tho church we saw in a conspicuous position a statue of Chatt-erton—•" the marvellous boy." The statue itself was exceedingly disappointing, and wanting in dignity, but the visit to the monument loon;, after a toil up the wellworn and (in Chatterton's time) unlightcd steps, brought before us with most wonderful vividness the extraordinary Biiggestiveness of the place, which served as a temptation to a readily

kindled and easily fired imagination. It is so entirely and consistently medieval that Chatterton may well have felt himself the very Monk Rowley, whoso writings he professed to have discovered in the huge—chests, now empty of contonts, but then filled with parchments, which surround the room. That the imaginative lad should be infected with the atmosphere of the old times is not wonderful, for it was with quite an effort that, even by the aid of electric light on tho staircase, and tho very twentieth century guide, wo ordinary mortals brought ourselves back '\d modern times.

Brisiijl Cathedral, too, is a very interesting building, unique in having a lady chapel on the north and east side. The northern lady chapel is the more mncient, and is, therefore, called the elder lady chapel. The Cathedral stands on College Green, and you can imagine with what interest we looked a<", this groat open space, the scene of so many exciting incidents in the Bristol riots of 1831, with all tho details of which wo wero familiar from the excellent descriptions in Stanley Weyman's " Chippinge." We seemed to sec tho banners waving aloft, with tho "Bill, and Nothing but the Bill," or " Down with tho Bishops," with which the advocates of the Great Reform Bill were armed. From the wonderful chanter-house of the Cathedral wo had a view of tho Bishop's Palace; which lias been left in the same condition as the rioters left- it in 1831—a charred ruin, for the Bishop lives two miles out out of the town now. Memories of Miss Burney's " Evelina" crowded upon us in every street, and we seeemea to see her driving in the chaise to her agitated interview with her father, or hearing the vulgar and inhuman plans for amusement by Lovel and Sir Clement Willoughby, or the other fashionablo folk oy whom she was surrounded.