And as to the tale
of King Arthur's Round Table, which they pretend was kept here for him
and his two dozen of knights (which table hangs up still, as a piece of
antiquity to the tune of twelve hundred years, and has, as they pretend,
the names of the said knights in Saxon characters, and yet such as no man
can read), all this story I see so little ground to give the least credit
to that I look upon it, and it shall please you, to be no better than a
fib.

Where this castle stood, or whatever else it was (for some say there was
no castle there), the late King Charles II. marked out a very noble
design, which, had he lived, would certainly have made that part of the
country the Newmarket of the ages to come; for the country hereabout far
excels that of Newmarket Heath for all kinds of sport and diversion fit
for a prince, nobody can dispute. And as the design included a noble
palace (sufficient, like Windsor, for a summer residence of the whole
court), it would certainly have diverted the king from his cursory
journeys to Newmarket.

The plan of this house has received several alterations, and as it is
never like to be finished, it is scarce worth recording the variety. The
building is begun, and the front next the city carried up to the roof and
covered, but the remainder is not begun. There was a street of houses
designed from the gate of the palace down to the town, but it was never
begun to be built; the park marked out was exceeding large, near ten
miles in circumference, and ended west upon the open Downs, in view of
the town of Stockbridge.

This house was afterwards settled, with a royal revenue also, as an
appanage (established by Parliament) upon Prince George of Denmark for
his life, in case he had out-lived the queen; but his Royal Highness
dying before her Majesty, all hope of seeing this design perfected, or
the house finished, is now vanished.

I cannot omit that there are several public edifices in this city and in
the neighbourhood, as the hospitals and the building adjoining near the
east gate; and towards the north a piece of an old monastery
undemolished, and which is still preserved to the religion, being the
residence of some private Roman Catholic gentlemen, where they have an
oratory, and, as they say, live still according to the rules of St.
Benedict. This building is called Hide House; and as they live very
usefully, and to the highest degree obliging among their neighbours, they
meet