Monday, January 24 1757

About 10:30 we set out from Hartfield. In our road home I called at Mr Courthope’s at Uckfield to get a summons of him for Thomas Lewer and Elizabeth Day (who have intruded themselves into our parish) to bring them before him, or some other justice, to be examined and properly removed to their respective parishes. We came home about 3:45… Paid for the summons on the parish account 0.1.0. Gave my father Slater’s maid and boy 6d each — 0.1.0.

The reflection on this journey are no ways disagreeable to me, having been no ways the least concerned in liquor. In the evening in reading the Lewes Journal I found the following remarkable character, which I admire not for the diction, but for the justness of it and for imitation: “On Sunday the 9th Jan: died Suddenly, the Rev. Mr. Lyddell, Rector of Ardingly, Sussex, aged 59; a Gentleman, who for his extensive Knowledge, unlimited Charity, genteel behaviour, and other amiable Qualities, was an ornament to his profession; and yet so little Publickly taken notice of, that he never enjoyed any Church Preferment, except a small Family living of one Hundred Pounds a Year. He was possess’d of a good paternal estate, above one Thousand Pounds a Year; and tho’ he lived in the most retired, Private manner, the Yearly income of it was disposed of, in assisting his friends in distress, and in Charity to the Poor. He dy’d a Batchelor. The name is extinct. His estate devolves to Richard Clarke Esq. of Blake Hall in Essex”…

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