tta Maria,
Queen of Charles I. staid here six weeks after the birth of the prince,
afterwards Charles II.; but, as no house was near, suitable for so great a
personage, she and her suite remained under tents pitched in the
neighbourhood. The Wells, hitherto called Frant, were changed to Queen's
Mary's Wells: both have given place to Tunbridge Wells; though the springs
rise in the parish of Speldhurst.

Waller, in his Lines to Saccharissa,[1] celebrates the Tunbridge Waters;
and Dr. Rowzee[2] wrote a treatise on their virtues. During the civil
wars, the Wells were neglected, but on the Restoration they became more
fashionable than ever.[3] Hence may be dated assembly rooms, coffee houses,
bowling greens, &c.; about which time, to suit the caprice of their owners,
many of the houses were wheeled upon sledges: a chapel[4] and a school
were likewise erected. The accommodations have been progressively
augmented; and the population has greatly increased. The trade of the
place consists chiefly in the manufacture of the articles known as
Tunbridge-ware. The Wells have always been patronized by the royal family;
and are still visited by some of their branches.

Our Engraving represents the Upper, or principal walk, where are one of
the assembly rooms, the post-office, Tunbridge-ware, milliners, and other
shops, with a row of spreading elms on the opposite side. It is not
uninteresting to notice the humble style of the shops, and the wooden
portico and tiled roofs, in the Engraving, and to contrast them with the
ornamental shop-architecture of our days: yet our forefathers, good old
souls, thought such accommodations worthy of their patronage, and there
was then as much gaiety at Tunbridge Wells as at Brighton in its best days.

[1] Saccharissa, or the Lady Dorothy Sydney, resided at Penshurst, near
Tunbridge.

[2] He prescribed eighteen pints of the water for a morning's dose.

[3] Grammont, in his fascinating "Memoirs," thus describes the Wells at
his period, 1664, when Catherine, Queen of Charles II. was here for
two months, with all the beauties of the court:

"Tunbridge is the same distance from London that Fontainebleau is from
Paris, and is, at the season, the general rendezvous of all the gay
and handsome of both sexes. The company, though always numerous, is
always select; since those who repair thither for diversion, even
exceed the number of those who go thither for health. Every