In the afternoon I set out with Mrs Virgoe on one of her brother’s horses to Mr John Burgess’s at Brook House in Rotherfield in order to ask his advice in regard to selling and letting her house at Lewes… We arrived about 12:25; we dined there on a: piece of pork and white cabbage, 2 stinking plaice boiled, and a cold lamb pie. (My family at home dined on a sheep’s lights boiled and minced, the head, tongue, brains and French beans).
We stayed and drank tea at Mr Burgess’s and, came home about 7 o’clock. Mr Burgess has a sister to keep his house, whose name is Jael, and I think the greatest oddity I ever saw. It’s her misfortune to be deformed by nature; i.e., squint-eyed, a great stammering in her speech, and very much on one side. But yet her greatest misfortune is that of her unhappy temper, for she even appears to be so miserable that we may justly say she is poor in the abundance of riches. In the evening read one of Tillotson’s sermons. In the morning Dr Snelling and his father called on me, but did not stay. I paid Dr Snelling 18d on account for my brother Moses.