Dorothy mentions, among other things, that she has been “drinking the waters,” though she does not say at what place.  It would be either at Barnet, Epsom, or Tunbridge, all of which places are mentioned by contemporary letter-writers as health resorts.  At Barnet there was a calcareous spring with a small portion of sea salt in it, which, as we may gather from a later letter, had been but recently discovered.  This spring was afterwards, in the year 1677, endowed by one John Owen, who left the sum of L1 to keep the well in repair “as long as it should be of service to the parish.”  Towards the end of last century, Lyson mentions that the well was in decay and little used.  One wonders what has become of John Owen’s legacy.  The Epsom spring had been discovered earlier in the century.  It was the first of its kind found in England.  The town was already a place of fashionable resort on account of its mineral waters; they are mentioned as of European celebrity; and as early as 1609 a ball-room was erected, avenues were planted, and neither Bath nor Tunbridge could rival Epsom in the splendour of their appointments.  Towards the beginning of the last century, however, the waters gradually lost their reputation.  Tunbridge Wells, the last of the three watering-places that Dorothy may have visited, is still flourishing and fashionable.  Its springs are said to have been discovered by Lord North in 1606; and the fortunes of the place were firmly established by a visit paid to the springs by Queen Henrietta Maria, acting under medical advice, in 1630, shortly after the birth of Prince Charles.  At this date there was no adequate accommodation for the royal party, and Her Majesty had to live in tents on the banks of the spring.  An interesting account of the early legends and gradual growth of Tunbridge Wells is to be found in a guide-book of 1768, edited by one Mr. J. Sprange.

The elderly man who proposed to Dorothy was Sir Justinian Isham, Bart., of Lamport in Northamptonshire.  He himself was about forty-two years of age at this time, and had lost his first wife (by whom he had four daughters) in 1638.  The Rev. W. Betham, with that optimism which is characteristic of compilers of peerages, thinks “that he was esteemed one of the most accomplished persons of the time, being a gentleman, not only of fine learning, but famed for his piety and exemplary life.”  Dorothy thinks otherwise, and writes of him as “the vainest, impertinent, self-conceited, learned coxcomb that ever yet I saw.”  Peerages in Dorothy’s style would perhaps be unprofitable writing.  The “Emperor,” as Dorothy calls him in writing to Temple, may feel thankful that his epitaph was in others hands than hers.  He appears to have proposed to her more than once, and evidently had her brother’s good offices, which I fear were not much in his favour with Dorothy.  He ultimately married the daughter of Thomas Lord Leigh of Stoneleigh, some time in the following year.