Away to the right lies Thames Ditton, beloved of Theodore Hook and a certain "lazy minstrel," well known to fame in these days, Mr. Ashby Sterry. There also lived at Ditton, during the early part of this present century, that eminent lawyer, Sir Edward Sugden, afterwards Lord St. Leonards, and Lord Chancellor of England. His career was an example of the rise of worth, for he was the son of a hairdresser in Duke Street, Piccadilly, and won his way by the sole aid of his own bright intellect. But, on the other hand, he remains the most dreadful example of the man who draws his own will, and thus gives rise to wasteful litigation with his testamentary incoherencies. He was also the victim of a particularly odious witticism while living here. It shall be recounted, to the perpetual infamy and dishonour of the man who uttered it. Theodore Hook and Croker were on one occasion the guests of Sir Edward Sugden at Boyle Farm. They were admiring a very beautiful vase that stood in the hall, and Sir Edward told them it was a copy of the celebrated Warwick vase. "Yes," said Croker, "it is extremely handsome; but don't you think a facsimile of the Barberini vase would have been more appropriate to the place?" I do not remember to have heard if Sugden kicked his unmannerly guest: if he did _not_, I regret the omission. On the way to Esher, up the hillside, the coach passes the entrance-gates of Sandown Park, that most fashionable of race-courses, opened in 1870, and ever since then the "ladies' race-course" _par excellence_. Those ornamental iron gates that face the road have a history: they came from Baron Albert Grant's mansion, Kensington House, that stood where now Kensington Court faces the Gardens and the old Palace. [Illustration: THE "NEW TIMES" GUILDFORD COACH.] [Sidenote: _'ESHER'S STEEP'_] At Esher we make our second change, at that old-fashioned hostelry the "Bear," and are shown those religiously preserved boots worn by the post-boy who drove Philippe Egalité to Claremont in 1848, when escaping "the red fool-fury of the Seine," then at flood-tide. These are boots indeed, and more resemble the huge jack-boots in which Marlborough's soldiers won Ramilies and Malplaquet, than nineteenth-century foot-gear. The "Bear" is one of the finest of the old inns that ornament this old road, and its stables, large enough, as the proprietor says, to hold a hundred horses, are a sight to see.