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THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES GLIMPSES OF n WITH SKETCHES OF SUSSEX CHARACTERS, REMARKABLE INCIDENTS, &c. BT CHARLES FLEET, " " Author of Tales and Sketches? The City Merchant? ' ' I have some rights of memory in this County,' Whkh now to claim my vantage doth invite me." Shahpeare, BRIGHTON : W. J. SMITH, 41, 42, AND 43, NOBTH STREET. 1878. FLEET AND BISHOP, PRINTERS, "HERALD" OFFICE, BRIGHTON. Library DA TO THE READER. The contents of this Volume appeared in the columns of the BRIGHTON HERALD in the years 1875-6-7, under the title of " GLIMPSES OF OUR ANCESTORS," and the Author of them is induced to re-publish them in their present form by the frequent applications which have been made for the numbers of the Journal containing them. With the hope that they may help to fill up a gap or two in the history of Men and Manners in his native County, and with full acknowledgment of the large debt he owes, in respect to the matter of several Papers, to the contributors to the Collections of the Sussex Archaeological Society especially to his old and esteemed friends, the late Mark Antony Lower and William Durrant Cooper he commits his work fo the indulgent consideration of the Public. CONTENTS.- I I. THE SUSSEX DIARISTS . , 2. THE SUSSEX IRONMASTERS . .64. 3. THE SUSSEX SMUGGLERS . .73 4. THE SOUTH-DOWN SHEPHERD . .87 5. THE SUSSEX SHEEP-SHEARER . .98 6. SUSSEX CHARACTERS : THE SUSSEX COTTAGE-WIFE. .105 THE OLD SUSSEX RADICAL . .112 THE OLD SUSSEX TORY . .119 THE SUSSEX COUNTRY DOCTOR . .127 SELF-EDUCATED SUSSEX MEN . 135 THE LAST OF THE SUSSEX M.C.'s . .150 THE LAST OF HIS KIND . .156 7. THE SUSSEX REGICIDES . .164 8. -SUSSEX TRAGEDIES AND ROMANCES . 188 9. SUSSEX POETS . .224 lo.-SOCIAL CHANGES IN SUSSEX : SERVANTS AND THEIR WAGES . .271 SUSSEX ROADS . 287 Music IN SUSSEX . 293 of THE SUSSEX DIARISTS. ^REAT changes, material, political, social, are easily seen. They stand out on the surface. Every body can discern the difference between a a railway and highway ; between Fielding's Squire Western and the modern country gentleman. But there are other changes, scarcely less important, which are not so easily to be noted : for instance, between the men who carry on the general trade of country-places in the present day and those who carried it on, say 100 years ago. That such a class as this has participated in the changes which have been going on all over the country, who will deny r But who is to note the change ? Who " " to describe it ? Who to draw the portrait of the general trader at one end of the century and compare it with the lineal successor of the same individual at the other ? How rarely do we get a correct delineation of such classes as these, or, indeed, of any classes in country places. A Fielding will draw the Squire and Parson, the fast young man and poacher and barber of his day, and a Thackeray will do something in the same way in his; but they select different classes and points of view. The one takes the country the other, the town. We still miss the point of comparison. In fact, the country is passing more and more out of the range of vision of writers of fiction in describe what ; these writers live towns, and naturally they see most of: that is, town manners. So, perhaps, 100 years hence, our descendants will wonder what kind of creature was the agricultural labourer, or even the farmer, or small country tradesman of these days. And, unless any of this class happen 2 GLIMPSES OF OUR ANCESTORS. to have kept a Diary, and this Diary shall happen to have been preserved, the feeling of wonder will go unsatisfied ! " But sufficient for the day is the evil thereof." Let us make use of some of the material which other ages have provided for us 'and endeavour to present, as much as possible in their own language, some of the moral and social features and characteristics of our forefathers to their successors of the present day, beginning with The Sussex Diarists. The range of the Sussex Diaries is from 1655 to 1750, Previous to the earlier date, clerkly accomplishments were rare except in the higher spheres of life, and it is not in that sphere that Diaries are to be found. The Duchess of Newcastle (who lived in the of is an to the rule but reign the two Charles's) exception ; she was not a Sussex woman, nor were the Pastons (who kept Diaries during the Wars of the Roses) a Sussex family. Would that they had been ! Sussex had its men of letters in Andrew de " la Borde, the original Merry Andrew," and the author of that " " merry conceit," the Wise Men of Gotham," as also in Nicholas Culpepper, the author of the Herbal. But neither of these men was a Diarist. They were, perhaps, too occupied with other, and, as they thought, higher matters. Men who keep Diaries would " seem, according to our Sussex experience, to be home-staying " youths men with a certain amount of leisure, and whose minds active their bodies not in are more than ; engaged great affairs, for these engross the mind and lead it from smaller details, such as make up Diaries, to the contemplation of greater results, but men in the middle ranks of life, to whom ordinary passing events, such as occur in all civilized communities, possess an interest, and are not as yet so insignificant as to be utterly unworthy to be re- corded. We are afraid that such is the case now ; that Diarists are an extinct class. They have been superseded by the news- paper. Of what use, it may now be asked, for individuals to chronicle events which it is the business of the journalist to send forth to the world with all the authority of official and verbatim reports ? The notes of a Pepys or an Evelyn would now only be partial and incorrect copies of the Times or the Telegraph. No ; THE SUSSEX DIARISTS. 3 the of the Diarists are golden days English gone ; they extend from the period of the Reformation, when the middle ranks began to read and write, up to the introduction of the newspaper. All our Sussex diaries fall within that period, and they fill up a most important gap in social history. We are afraid the news- paper itself will not supply to coming ages that insight into domestic life and manners that peep at personal peculiarities at the little failings and the foibles of men their peccadilloes and prejudices which we get in the diaries of the Rev. Giles Moore, Rector of Kforstead Keynes ; Thomas Turner, general shopkeeper, of East of Hothly ; Anthony Stapley, Squire Hickstead Place ; Walter Gale, schoolmaster, of Mayfield ; Leonard Gale, iron- " master, of Worth ; Thomas Marchant, yeoman, of Little Park," of Hurst ; Counsellor Timothy Burrell, Cuckfield; and Dr. Burton, of Oxford. The names and avocations of the above list of Sussex Diarists bear out our statement that it is the middle classes that have been the largest contributors to this species of literature, and not so much the noble or rich or learned, who might be supposed to have most leisure for such occupation, not so much these as the ordinarily educated and intelligent man, interested in his own and his neighbours' affairs, and with business habits to which the keeping of a daily record might be a help as well as a diversion. It is to be regretted that no female diary has been discovered, or published, in Sussex, which might give us a glimpse of th ladies' side of the question ! In a description of the hall or re- fectory of an old English mansion it is said that an aperture was left in the "bower" of the lady in the upper story, through which she could hear the wise, and, doubtless, sometimes the foolish things said by her lord when he was feasting with his friends below. Now, a diary is just such a peephole as this, through which the actions of the one generation are revealed to another ; and, to be complete, lady should tell her story as well as the lord. But, unfortunately, no lady thought of doing this in Sussex at least, if kept, her record has not been found, and so we must be content to take the 4 GLIMPSES OF OUR ANCESTORS. evidence from 'the only party who puts in an appearance, and that is the male. The first witness whom we will call into Court is the Rev. Giles Moore, Rector of Horstead Keynes, whose diary extends from 1655 to 1679. He is methodical, frank, concise, and good- in has most of the of a tempered ; fact, good qualities good diarist, and though we could have wished he had told us a little about things more interesting than the price he paid for his extinguishers, his bellows, his grate, the shoeing of his horses, &c., &c., yet, as it was in order to chronicle these items that he kept as the Diary, we must take the boon he gives it, and get as much instruction and information out of it as we can. The Rev. Giles Moore was, we are afraid, open to the charge of "time-serving." He was one of those gentry called, in the " " and it was his Commonwealth times, Compounders ; with own conscience as well as with the Protector, Oliver Cromwell, that he compounded.

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