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 woman's company, discourse, and taking her by the hand,
she being a pretty woman. So I led him to Ashted Church (by the place
where Peter, my cozen's man, went blindfold and found a certain place
we chose for him upon a wager), where we had a dull Doctor, one Downe,
worse than I think even parson King was, of whom we made so much scorn,
and after sermon home, and staid while our dinner, a couple of large
chickens, were dressed, and a good mess of cream, which anon we had with
good content, and after dinner (we taking no notice of other lodgers in
the house, though there was one that I knew, and knew and spoke to
me, one Mr. Rider, a merchant), he and I to walk, and I led him to the
pretty little wood behind my cozens house, into which we got at last by
clambering, and our little dog with us, but when we were among the hazel
trees and bushes, Lord! what a course did we run for an hour together,
losing ourselves, and indeed I despaired I should ever come to any path,
but still from thicket to thicket, a thing I could hardly have believed
a man could have been lost so long in so small a room. At last I found
out a delicate walk in the middle that goes quite through the wood, and
then went out of the wood, and holloed Mr. Creed, and made him hunt me
from place to place