d to me, a
sober understanding man, and did give me a good account of the antiquity
of this town and Wells; and of two Heads, on two pillars, in Wells
church. But he a Catholick. So he gone, I to bed.

15th (Monday). Up, and with Mr. Butts to look into the baths, and find
the King and Queen's full of a mixed sort, of good and bad, and the
Cross 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
eve