“The manner is, as the company returns, to stop at the Spring Gardens so called, in order to the Park as our Thuilleries is to the Course; the inclosure not disagreeable for the solemnness of the groves, the warbling of the birds, and as it opens into the spacious walks of St. James.  But the company walk in it at such a rate as you would think all the ladies were so many Atalantas contending with their wooers, and, my Lord, there was no appearance that I should prove the Hippomenes, who could with very much ado keep pace with them.  But, as fast as they run, they stay there so long, as if they wanted not to finish the race, for it is usual here to find some of the young company till midnight, and the thickets of the garden seem to be contrived to all the advantages of gallantry after they have refreshed with the collation, which is here seldom omitted, at a certain cabaret in the middle of this paradise, where the forbidden fruits are certain trifling tarts, neats’ tongues, salacious meats, and bad Rhenish, for which the gallants pay sauce, as indeed they do at all such houses throughout England; for they think it a piece of frugality beneath them to bargain or account for what they eat in any place, however unreasonably imposed upon.”

Dorothy is quite right in her correction concerning Will Spencer.  He was the first Earl of Sunderland, and married Elizabeth, daughter of Lord Gerard.

June the 6th, 1654.

I see you know how to punish me.  In earnest, I was so frightened with your short letter as you cannot imagine, and as much troubled at the cause on’t.  What is it your father ails, and how long has he been ill?  If my prayers are heard, he will not be so long.  Why do you say I failed you?  Indeed, I did not.  Jane is my witness.  She carried my letter to the White Hart, by St. James’s, and ’twas a very long one too.  I carried one thither since, myself, and the woman of the house was so very angry, because I desired her to have a care on’t, that I made the coachman drive away with all possible speed, lest she should have beaten me.  To say truth, I pressed her too much, considering how little the letter deserved it.  ’Twas writ in such disorder, the company prating about me, and some of them so bent on doing me little mischiefs, that I know not what I did, and believe it was the most senseless, disjointed thing that ever was read.

I remember now that I writ Robin Spencer instead of Will.  ’Tis he that has married Mrs. Gerherd, and I admire their courage.  She will have eight hundred pounds a year, ’tis true, after her mother’s death; but how they will live till then I cannot imagine.  I shall be even with you for your short letter.  I’ll swear they will not allow me time for anything, and to show how absolutely I am governed I need but tell you that I am every night in the Park and at New Spring Gardens, where, though I come with a mask, I cannot escape being known, nor my conversion being admired.  Are you not in some fear what will become on me?  These are dangerous courses.  I do not find, though, that they have altered me yet.  I am much the same person at heart I was in being