opportunity to renew my old walks. It seems there is one Mr. Rouse, they
call him the Queen's Tailor, that lives there now. So to our lodging to
supper, and among other meats had a brave dish of cream, the best I ever
eat in my life, and with which we pleased ourselves much, and by and by to
bed, where, with much ado yet good sport, we made shift to lie, but with
little ease, and a little spaniel by us, which has followed us all the
way, a pretty dogg, and we believe that follows my horse, and do belong to
Mrs. Gauden, which we, therefore, are very careful of.

26th (Lord's-day). Up and to the Wells,

[Epsom medicinal wells were discovered about 1618, but they did not
become fashionable until the Restoration. John Toland, in his
"Description of Epsom," says that he often counted seventy coaches in
the Ring (the present racecourse on the Downs) on a Sunday evening;
but by the end of the eighteenth century Epsom had entirely lost its
vogue.]

where great store of citizens, which was the greatest part of the company,
though there were some others of better quality. I met many that I knew,
and we drank each of us two pots and so walked away, it being very
pleasant to see how everybody turns up his tail, here one and there
another, in a bush, and the women in their quarters the like. Thence I
walked with Creed to Mr. Minnes's house, which has now a very good way
made to it, and thence to Durdans and walked round it and within the Court
Yard and to the Bowling-green, where I have seen so much mirth in my time;
but now no family in it (my Lord Barkeley, whose it is, being with his
family at London), and so up and down by Minnes's wood, with great
pleasure viewing my old walks, and where Mrs. Hely and I did use to walk
and talk, with whom I had the first sentiments of love and pleasure in