only almost for the gentry. So home and did the like with my wife, and
did pay my guides, two women, 5s.; one man, 2s. 6d.; poor, 6d.; woman to
lay my foot-cloth, 1s. So to our inne, and there eat and paid reckoning,
L1 8s. 6d.; servants, 3s.; poor, 1s.; lent the coach man, 10s. Before I
took coach, I went to make a boy dive in the King's bath, 1s. I paid also
for my coach and a horse to Bristol, L1 1s. 6d. Took coach, and away,
without any of the company of the other stage-coaches, that go out of this
town to-day; and rode all day with some trouble, for fear of being out of
our way, over the Downes, where the life of the shepherds is, in fair
weather only, pretty. In the afternoon come to Abebury, where, seeing
great stones like those of Stonage standing up, I stopped, and took a
countryman of that town, and he carried me and shewed me a place trenched
in, like Old Sarum almost, with great stones pitched in it, some bigger
than those at Stonage in figure, to my great admiration: and he told me
that most people of learning, coming by, do come and view them, and that
the King did so: and that the Mount cast hard by is called Selbury, from
one King Seall buried there, as tradition says. I did give this man 1s.
So took coach again, seeing one place with great high stones pitched
round, which, I believe, was once some particular building, in some
measure like that of Stonage. But, about a mile off, it was prodigious to
see how full the Downes are of great stones; and all along the vallies,
stones of considerable bigness, most of them growing certainly out of the
ground so thick as to cover the ground, which makes me think the less of
the wonder of Stonage, for hence they might undoubtedly supply themselves
with stones, as well as those at Abebury. In my way did give to the poor
and menders of the highway 3s. Before night, come to Marlborough, and
lay at the Hart; a good house, and a pretty fair town for a street or two;
and what is most singular is, their houses on one side having their
pent-houses supported with pillars, which makes it a good walk. My wife
pleased with all, this evening reading of "Mustapha" to me till supper,