At first I walked along a very pleasant footway by the side of the Thames, where close to my right lay the king’s garden.  On the opposite bank of the Thames was Isleworth, a spot that seemed to be distinguished by some elegant gentlemen’s country-seats and gardens.  Here I was obliged to ferry the river in order to get into the Oxford Road, which also leads to Windsor.

When I was on the other side of the water, I came to a house and asked a man who was standing at the door if I was on the right road to Oxford.  “Yes,” said he, “but you want a carriage to carry you thither.”  When I answered him that I intended walking it, he looked at me significantly, shook his head, and went into the house again.

I was now on the road to Oxford.  It is a charming fine broad road, and I met on it carriages without number, which, however, on account of the heat, occasioned a dust that was extremely troublesome and disagreeable.  The fine green hedges, which border the roads in England, contribute greatly to render them pleasant.  This was the case in the road I now travelled, for when I was tired I sat down in the shade under one of these hedges and read Milton.  But this relief was soon rendered disagreeable to me, for those who rode or drove past me, stared at me with astonishment, and made many significant gestures as if they thought my head deranged; so singular must it needs have appeared to them to see a man sitting along the side of a public road and reading.  I therefore found myself obliged, when I wished to rest myself and read, to look out for a retired spot in some by-lane or crossroad.

When I again walked, many of the coachmen who drove by called out to me, ever and anon, and asked if I would not ride on the outside; and when, every now and then, a farmer on horseback met me, he said, and seemingly with an air of pity for me, “’Tis warm walking, sir;” and when I passed through a village, every old woman testified her pity by an exclamation of—­“Good God!”

As far as Hounslow the way was very pleasant; afterwards I thought it not quite so good.  It lay across a common, which was of a considerable extent, and bare and naked, excepting that here and there I saw sheep feeding.

I now began to be very tired, when, to my astonishment, I saw a tree in the middle of the common that stood quite solitary, and spread a shade like an arbour round it.  At the bottom, round the trunk, a bench was placed, on which one may sit down.  Beneath the shade of this tree I reposed myself a little, read some of Milton, and made a note in my memorandum-book that I would remember this tree, which had so charitably and hospitably received under its shade a weary traveller.  This, you see, I have now done.