Boz might
say. On his visit to Rochester, it does not appear that he went to see
his "picked-up" friend, Jingle, perform. The Bath Theatre is in the Saw
Close, next door to Beau Nash's picturesque old house. The old grey
front, with its blackened mouldings and sunk windows, is still there; but
a deep vestibule, or entrance, with offices has been built out in front,
which, as it were, thrusts the old wall back--an uncongenial mixture.
Within, the house has been reconstructed, as it is called, so that Mr.
Palmer or Dimond, or any of the old Bath lights, to say nothing of Mr.
and Mrs. Siddons, would not recognise it. Attending it one night, I
could not but recall the old Bath stories, when this modest little house
supplied the London houses regularly with the best talent, and "From the
Theatre Royal, Bath," was an inducement set forth on the bill.

III.--Boz and Bath

After his brilliant, genial view of the old watering-place, it is a
surprise to find Boz speaking of it with a certain acerbity and even
disgust. Over thirty years later, in 1869, he was there, and wrote to
Forster: "The place looks to me like a cemetery which the dead have
succeeded in rising and taking. Having built streets of their old
gravestones, they wander about scantly, trying to look alive--a dead
failure." And yet, what ghostly recollections must have come back on him
as he walked those streets, or as he passed by into Walcot, the Saracen's
Head, where he had put up in those old days, full of brightness, ardour,
and enthusiasm; but not yet the famous Boz! Bath folk set down this
jaundiced view of their town to a sort of pique at the comparative
failure of the Guild dramatic performance at the Old Assembly Rooms,
where, owing to the faulty arrangement of the stage, hardly a word could
be heard, to the dissatisfaction of the audience. The stage, it seems,
was put too far behind the proscenium, "owing to the headstrong
perversity of Dickens, who never forgave the Bath people." Charles
Knight, it was said, remonstrated, but in vain. Boz, however, was not a
man to indulge in such feelings. In "Bleak House" he calls it "dreary."

There had been, however, a previous visit to Bath, in company with
Maclise and Forster, to see Landor, who was then living at No. 35 St.
James's Square--a house become memorable because it was there that the
image of his "Little Nell" first suggested itself. The enthusiastic
Landor used, in his "tumultuous" f