whose modesty alone prevents me from changing the title of
fellow-servant to that of fellow-editor.

CHAPTER II

EARLY LETTERS. WINTER AND SPRING 1652-53

This first chapter begins with a long letter, dated from Chicksands some
time in the autumn of 1652, when Temple has returned to England after a
long absence. It takes us up to March 1653, about the end of which time
Dorothy went to London and met Temple again. The engagement she mentions
must have been one that her parents were forcing upon her, and it was
not until the London visit, I fancy, that her friendship progressed
beyond its original limits; but in this matter the reader of Dorothy's
letters will be as well able to judge as myself.

_Letter I._--Goring House, where Dorothy and Temple had last parted, was
in 1646 appointed by the House of Commons for the reception of the
French Ambassador. In 1665 it was the town house of Mr. Secretary
Bennet, afterwards Lord Arlington. Its grounds stood much in the
position of the present Arlington Street, and Evelyn speaks of it as an
ill-built house, but capable of being made a pretty villa.

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