e; not tearing aside
the hallowed veil of private life, but seizing as of public right on
public character, and with a playful vein of satire proving that we are
of the poet's school;

'Form'd to delight at once and lash the age.'

At this season of the year fashion cries out of
Town; so, pack up, Master Robert, and
Let us to Chelt's retiring banks,
Where beaux and beauties throng,
To drink at Spas and play rum pranks,
That here will live in song.

What Cheltenham was, is no business of ours; what it is, as regards
its buildings, salubrious air, and saline springs, its walks, views,
libraries, theatre, and varieties, my friend Williams, whose shop at the
corner of the assembly rooms is the grand lounge of the literati, will
put the visitor into possession of for the very moderate sum of five
shillings. But, reader, if you would search deeper into society,
and know something of the whim and character of the frequenters and
residents of this fashionable place of public resort, you must consult
the English Spy, and trace in his pages and the accompanying plates of
his friend Bob Transit the faithful likenesses of the scenes and persons
who figure in the maze of fashion, ~225~~or attract attention by the
notoriety of their amours, the eccentricity of their manners, or the
publicity of their attachments to the ball or the billiard-room, the
card or the hazard-table, the turf or the chase; for in all of these
does Cheltenham abound. From the _cercle de la basse to the cercle de
la haute_, from the nadir to the zenith, 'I know ye, and have at ye
all'--ye busy, buzzing, merry, amorous groups of laughter-loving,
ogling, ambling, gambling Cheltenham folk.

'A chiel's among ye taking notes,
And faith, he'll print them.'

To spy out your characteristic follies, ye sons and daughters of
pleasure, have we, Bernard Blackmantle and Robert Transit, esquires,
travelled down to Cheltenham to collect materials for an odd chapter
of a very odd book, but one which has already established its fame by
continued success, and, as I hope owes much of its increasing prosperity
to its characteristic good-humour; so, without more preface, imagine a
little dapper-looking fellow of about five feet something in altitude,
attended by a tall sharp-visaged gentleman in very spruce costume,
parading up and down the High-street, Cheltenham--lounging for a few
m