Tag Archives: Bath

Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, “Farewell to Bath”

LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU 

 “Farewell to Bath” 

 

To all you ladies now at Bath,
And eke, ye beaus, to you,
With aching heart, and watry eyes,
I bid my last adieu.

Farewell, ye nymphs, who waters sip                                5
Hot reeking from the pumps,
While music lends her friendly aid,
To cheer you from the dumps.

Farewell ye wits who prating stand,
And criticise the fair;                                                     10
Yourselves the joke of men of sense,
Who hate a coxcomb’s air.

Farewell to Deard’s, and all her toys,
Which glitter in her shop,
Deluding traps to girls and boys,                                         15
The warehouse of the fop.

Lindsay’s and Hayes’s both farewell,
Where in the spacious hall;
With bounding steps, and sprightly air,
I’ve led up many a ball.                                                  20

Where Somerville of courteous mien,
Was partner in the dance,
With swimming Haws, and Brownlow blithe,
And Britton pink of France.

Poor Nash, farewell! may fortune smile,                               25
Thy drooping soul revive,
My heart is full, I can no more—
John, bid the Coachman drive.

NOTES:

Author First attributed to Lady Mary Wortley Montagu in The Poetical Works of the Right Honourable Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, published in 1768.  It was subsequently included in a miscellany, Water Poetry:  A Collection of Verses Written at Several Public Places (London, 1771) also under Montagu’s name.  Recent scholarship has challenged this attribution.  See Robert Halsband and Isobel Grundy, eds., Lady Mary Wortley Montagu:  Essays and Poems and Simplicity, a Comedy (Oxford:  Clarendon Press, 1993), p. 173.

Title The poem first appeared in The Gentleman’s Magazine in July, 1731, as “Lady M. M—‘s Farewel [sic] to Bath.”  Halsband and Grundy note that “Lady Mary’s name was extremely unlikely to be formulated this way” and “the designation fits at least two other ladies” at that time (p. 173).

2 eke “Also, too, moreover” (OED); beaus Attendant or suitor of a lady (OED).

3 watry Archaic spelling of “watery.”

6 pumps Refers to the Pump Rooms that were built adjacent to the communal Roman Baths. They initially operated as changing areas for those going swimming; however, due to how dirty the bathing water became, drinking the water directly from the pumps became the preferred and more accessible way of taking the water. Thus, they became centers of social activity at Bath (“History: The Bath Assembly,” The Bath Magazine [August, 2021]).

9 prating “To talk or chatter; to speak foolishly, boastfully, or to great length, especially to little purpose” (OED).

12 coxcomb “A vain conceited, or pretentious man; a man of ostentatiously affected mannerisms or appearance” (OED).

13 Deard’s Mrs. Deard was an eminent toy shop owner in Bath (Trevor Fawcett, Eighteenth-Century Shops and the Luxury Trade, p. 67)

16 fop See “coxcomb” above.

17 Lindsey’s and Hayes’s Popular assembly rooms in Bath; Lindsey’s was built by John Wood the Elder in 1730 (“History: The Bath Assembly,” The Bath Magazine [August, 2021]).

21 Somerville Possibly a reference to William Somerville (1675-1742) British writer and, later in life, lawyer and country gentleman (Britannica); mien “Air, look, manner” (Johnson).

23 swimming “(Of dancing) to glide along with a smooth or dizzy motion (Johnson); Haws Probably Lady Frances Vane (née Hawes) (1715-1788), who was unmarried in 1731; Brownlow Possibly Eleanor Brownlow, later Viscountess Tyrconnel (1691-1730), who had been in Bath in the early months of 1730 recovering from an illness, but died later that year in September (see Stanley V. Makower, Richard Savage, A Mystery in Biogaphy, p. 193); blithe “Joyous, gladsome, cheerful” (OED).

24 Britton pink of France Unable to trace.

25 Nash Richard “Beau” Nash (1674-1762), “celebrated dandy and leader of fashion in eighteenth-century Britain” (National Portrait Gallery); largely credited for boosting the social and tourist landscape of Bath in the early 1700s (“History: The Bath Assembly,” The Bath Magazine [August, 2021]).

SOURCE: Letters of the Right Honourable L–y M–y W—–y M—–u, vol. II (London, 1784), pp. 268-269.  [Google Books]

Edited by Chloe Caneday

[Rev. Henry Harington the Younger], “The Hermite’s Addresse to Youth”

Leave a reply

[REV. HENRY HARINGTON THE YOUNGER]

 “The HERMITE’S ADDRESSE to YOUTH”

 

Say, gentle youth, that tread’st untouch’d with care,
Where nature hath so guerdon’d Bathe’s gay scene;
Fedde with the songe that daunceth in the aire;
Midst faireste wealth of Flora’s Magazine;
Hathe eye or eare yet founde thine steppes to blesse,                                              5
That gem of life, yclep’d True Happiness?

With beautie restes she not; – nor woos to lighte
Her hallow’d taper at proud honour’s flame;
Nor Circe’s cuppe doth crown; nor come in flighte
Upon th’ Icarian wing of bablinge fame;                                                                                10
Not shrine of golde dothe this fair sainte embower,
She glides from Heav’n, but not in Danae’s shower.

Go blossome, wanton in suche joyous aire,
But ah! – eft soone thy buxome blaste is o’er!
When the sleek pate shall grow far ‘bove its haire,                                                               15
And creeping age shall reape this piteous lore;
To broode o’re follie, and with me confesse,
“Earthe’s flattringe dainties prove but sweete distresse.”
THE OLDE HERMITE

NOTES:

 Author Rev. Henry Harington the Younger “This poem was popular enough to be twice reprinted in the Gentleman’s Magazine and elsewhere before appearing in the Monthly Magazine as late as 1822. It was reprinted in Pearch’s Supplement to Dodsley’s Collection (1770) with two poems from the Nugae Antiquae (1769) edited by…Henry Harington the Younger. They are all in the same stanza, and were likely composed by the young Harington, or by his father” (Radcliffe, English Poetry 1579-1830: Spenser and the Tradition).

2 guerdon’d “To reward, recompense” (OED); Bathe The resort city of Bath, famous for its natural beauty and social scene.

3 Fedde “Fed” (OED).

4 Flora’s Magazine A reference to the natural world. “Flora” was the Roman Goddess of flowers and spring, and “magazine” is “a place where goods are kept in store; a storehouse for goods or merchandise; a warehouse or depot” (OED).

6 yclep’d “Called” (OED).

9 Circe “In Greek legend, a sorceress, the daughter of Helios, the sun god, and of the ocean nymph Perse” (Encyclopaedia Britannica).

10 Icarian “Of, pertaining to, or characteristic of Icarus, fabled, in escaping from Crete, to have flown so high that the sun melted the wax with which his artificial wings were fastened on, so that he fell into the Aegean sea: hence, applied to ambitious or presumptuous acts which end in failure or ruin” (OED).

12 Danae’s shower “In Greek legend, the daughter of Acrisius, king of Argos. After an oracle warned her father that she would bear a son by whom he would be slain he confined Danae in a tower. Zeus visited her in the form of a shower of gold, and she gave birth to Perseus” (Britannica Concise Encyclopedia).

14 eft “A second time, again; back”(OED); Buxome “Blithe, gladsome, bright, lively” (OED).

Source: The Gentlemen’s Magazine (August, 1768) p. 392.

 Edited by Steve Weber