t this latter
conglomeration--the shape of the ground, the knowledge that the
marvellous Roman baths are below, and even the older portion of the
municipal buildings whose elegant decorations, sculptured garlands, &c.,
bespeak the influence of the graceful Adam, whose pupil or imitator Mr.
Baldwin may have been.

Boz's description of the tarnished Pump-room answers to what is seen now,
save as to the tone of the decorations. I say "Boz's," for Pickwick, it
should be recollected, was not actually acknowledged by the author, under
his proper name. It was thought that the well-known and popular "Boz" of
the "Sketches" would attract far more than the obscure C. Dickens. Now
Boz and the Sketches have receded and are little thought of. Boz and
Pickwick go far better together than do Pickwick and Dickens. There is
an old-fashioned solemnity over this Pump-room which speaks of the old
classical taste over a hundred years ago. How quaint and suitable the
inscription, "[Greek text]," in faded gilt characters. Within it is one
stately chamber, not altered a bit since the day, sixty-three years ago,
that Boz strolled in and wrote this inscription: As I sat with a friend
beside me in the newly finished concert-room, which is in _happy_
keeping, I called up the old genial Pickwick promenading about under the
direction of Bantam, M.C., and the genial tone of the old gaiety and good
spirits.

The "Tompion Clock," which is carefully noted by Boz, seems to have been
always regarded as a sort of monument. It is like an overgrown eight-day
clock, without any adornment and plain to a degree--no doubt relying upon
its Tompion works. It is in exactly the same place as it was over sixty
years ago, and goes with the old regularity. Nay, for that matter, it
stands where it did a hundred years ago--in the old recess by Nash's
statue and inscription, and was no doubt ordered at the opening of the
rooms. In an old account of Bath, at the opening of the century,
attention is called to the Tompion clock with a sort of pride. The steep
and shadowy Gay Street, which leads up to the inviting Crescent and the
more sombre Queen's Square, affects one curiously. Then we come to the
old Assembly Rooms close by the Circus, between Alfred Street and Bennell
Street--a stately, dignified pile--in the good old classical style of
Bath. One looks on it with a mysterious reverence: it seems charged with
all sorts of memories of old, bygone state. For