active to try every remedy likely to relieve their sufferings, resorted to the place for some few years; and it was said, that the stone and gravel were mitigated by the use of these waters. But their reputation did not continue long enough to authorise us to infer, that it was built upon any fair claim to utility; they have been long disused, and the house is now a private residence. On the rapid western slope of this dale is also seen a mansion formerly called King James's Palace, dedicated, till within these. few years, to the purposes of public entertainment. It received its name, if we may believe. tradition, from having afforded a retreat for some months to James II. when his folly lost him the crown of Britain. Here, it is said, the monarch, in the silence of retirement, brooded over his ruined fortunes, and lamented the consequences of an improper attachment to high-flown notions of royal prerogative, to irrational bigotry, and inflexible severity; an awful lesson to kings of the danger of abusing the confidence of a generous people, and of the fatal extremities to which national indignation, if once excited, may be carried.

Quitting the Warminster road, we turn to the right about two miles from Bath, and drop

down a steep hill, on the southern declivity of which is situated the rural village of SouthStoke, commanding an extensive view of the adjoining county of Wilts. At a short distance from hence, in the bottom below, we meet with the canal, a recent undertaking, intended to convey the coals of the Timsbury, Paulton, Camerton, and Dunkerton pits to Bath. The course of this cut, which is not yet compleated, will embrace in its various windings, to its junction with the Radstock,cut, a distance of ten miles, and pass through a country as highly picturesque as any in the kingdom. General as these means of communication between distant parts are now become throughout England, it has often struck me, that a great part of the natural beauties of our country might be seen to advantage by pursuing their banks; as the canals must necessarily follow the involutions of the vallies, the traveller would of course be led through all their romantic scenery, and be gratified with pictures, which a bird's-eye view from a hill must rob of half their effect, and which a turnpike-road will seldom afford him.

The deviation of a few hundred yards from the road to Combhay, leads us to the hydrostatical lock, called the caisson, the bason of

which now alone remains. This plan for conveying boats from a higher to a lower level (a fall of about sixty feet) was the invention of Mr. Weldon, late of Leicestershire, who seems to have been unfortunate in the experiment, only, in not having workmen sufficiently ingenious to carry his new and incomparable ideas into execution. On a canal where a scarcity of water prevailed, the caisson, as constructed by Mr. W. bade fair to be a most useful and important machine, and of course greatly excited and interested the public attention; its success being assured by the favourable opinion of scientific men from different parts of the kingdom. The mechanical power was so contrived, as to descend and re-ascend in the medium of water which the cistern contained, by means of valves, that occasionally added, or discharged, a sufficient quantity of its internal water; by which all friction, common to other machines, was avoided. A direct communication with the canal, both above and below, was made by means of two doors, one at either end, each adapted exactly to a corresponding one in the canal above, and in the tunnel beneath; by the former of which the loaded barge was easily admitted into the

machine, and by the latter as readily delivered. There was scarcely any one who saw the plan, but approved of and admired it, not only as a principle perfectly new in the present system of hydrostatics, but as promising the most compleat success. Unfortunately, however, for the inventor, the subscribers to the canal, and the public in general, the cistern in which this surprising body was to move, (a machine upwards of seventy feet in length, and eight in height) was not rendered sufficiently tight to hold the water necessary for its operations, the masons being either too ignorant or too remiss in their part of the work; a defect which was not discovered till the season of remedy was past. In this dilemma, the only resource was to rebuild the cistern entirely, to which the canal proprietors would not consent, on account of the enormous expence attending it; the machine, therefore, was consigned to destruction, but not to oblivion, since it will ever remain a memorable proof of the superior me chanical abilities of its very ingenious inventor,

Combhay exhibits a good specimen of the many small villages in the neighbourhood of Bath, which, without any abuse of a term much used, but seldom well applied, may be truly

termed picturesque. It hides itself in a deep woody dale, at the root of some bold hills,

which kindly sink to form a spot for its retreat, and nearly encircle it; but in the part where the vale spreads into extent, a happy situation is chosen for the house of John Smith, esq. The architecture of this mansion, which is modern, and at once simple and elegant, ranks it with the best built houses in the neighbourhood of Bath. It is of free-stone, and presents three fronts, each of neat, but different design; one faces the east, and looks down a sweeping slope towards a winding sheet of artificial water, beyond which rises a wooded ascent terminating the prospect. The southern front is opposed by the side of a nearer verdant hill, sprinkled with trees. A more circumscribed view of the park offers itself on the west. The parish church, a neat modern Gothic structure, with an ancient tower, approaches the mansion on the north, and forms a pleasing ornament to the inclosed grounds. Much judgment is displayed in the adaptation of the modern part of the house to that portion of the older building, which was allowed to remain when the father of the present possessor made his addi