MARLBOROUGH.

Marlborough College is at the western end of this street, occupying the fine mansion built by Francis, Lord Seymour, in time to entertain Charles the Second, who with his Queen, his brother, and a crowded suite halted here on his way to the West, in one of his Royal progresses. It became the residence of that Earl of Hertford whose Countess had a gushing affection for those tame poets of the eighteenth century whose blank verse was so soothing to the senses and so absolutely restful to the mind—requiring little mental exercise to write, and none at all to read. My Lady held quite a poetic court, of which Pope, Dr. Watts, and Thomson were the shining lights, and squirted amiable piffle about Chloes and Strephons while her fine London guests strutted about the emerald lawns pretending to be Wiltshire peasantry; the ladies wielding shepherds’ crooks, and leading lambs made presentable with much expenditure of soap and water, in leashes of sky-blue silk; while the gallant gentlemen, more used, we may be sure, to dining and drinking, learned to play upon oaten reeds, and were quite idyllic and Arcadian. What an astounding time! and how disgusted these fine folks would have been, had they been forced to fare on the fat bacon and small beer of the real shepherds, instead of the kickshaws and the port which helped them to sustain their affectations! The spectacle of that vicious era, pretending to rural simplicity is, perhaps, the most notable example of vice paying homage to virtue that may be given. The folly of the age is almost inconceivable, but it is all preserved for us and duly certified in its literature and in the pictures of the school of Watteau; while this particular instance of it may be voluminously read of in the records of the time, or be conjured up by a sight of the winding walks and grottoes in the Castle gardens, where, perhaps, Dr. Watts may have seen the original busy bee that gave him the first notion of—

“How doth the little busy bee
Employ each shining hour,
By gath’ring honey all the day
From ev’ry opening flower.”

Meanwhile, Thomson was sipping nectar (which is Greek for brandy-punch) with my Lord Hertford, and babbling of other things than green fields. In fact, the literary Lady Hertford found the poet of the “Seasons” to be a drunkard, and he was not invited to any more of her parties.

The house passed at length to the Dukes of Northumberland, who neglected it, and at last leased it to a Mr. Cotterell, an innkeeper, who with prophetic vision saw custom coming down the road in an increasing tide. Appropriately known as the “Castle,” it remained an hotel until January 5, 1843, when its doors were finally closed, to be re-opened as the home of the newly established “Marlborough College.”

For nearly a century the “Castle” entertained the best society in the land. Forty-two coaches passed through the town every day when it was at the height of its prosperity, and a goodly proportion of their occupants stayed here. Take, in fact, the lists of distinguished arrivals at Bath during that time, and you have practically a visitors’ list of the “Castle.”

Marlborough College was established in this house of entertainment, and new buildings have been added from time to time; but the old “Castle Hotel” may yet be traced from its characteristic architecture. Amid its pleasant lawns and gardens rises that prehistoric hill on which Marlborough Castle was built. Indeed, here, in this “Castle Mound,” is the very fount and origin of the town, whose very name is supposed to derive from this earthwork, being the grave of the magician Merlin, who with his enchantments is said to lie here still, until Britain shall be in need of him again. “Merleberg,” or “Merlin’s town,” is said to have been Marlborough’s first name, and the crest over the town arms still represents the Mound, with a motto in Latin to “the bones of the wise Merlin.”[4]