| Share page |
|
Royal Tunbridge Wells
regret the absence of those things which propriety endears, as one's house, gardens, &c.; otherwise I think Tunbridge life far from disagreeable. The reserve and gravity of our nation is less prevailing there than in any place where people are fixed in a domestic establishment, and have a little society of their own towards which they have so strict a fidelity as scarce to bestow a look or smile on a stranger; but in a place of this kind people easily enter into an acquaintance which they can drop at the end of the season, if it does not answer their expectations. You will see beautiful and romantic views; and the place which is now the resort of fine, gay, and polite people, seems designed rather for the retirement of savages, or sages petrified to savageness."
In the year before Mrs. Montagu so heartily recommended Tunbridge Wells, a sketch of the Pantiles was made by Logan. Logan was a celebrated character at "The Wells." It is said that at one time he had been dwarf at the court of the Prince and Princess of Wales, but in the middle of the eighteenth century he had settled at the watering-place, where he kept a shop at the far end of the Pantiles. He sold fans upon which he painted portraits, and these 100 |
||