On the cover of The Diary of Thomas Turner (1754-1765),
edited by Florence Maris Turner (Mrs. Charles Lamb), the publishers; Messrs. John Lane, announce that it is " one of the . most amusing and revelatory decuments of. the kind since
Pepys.", The claim is large, but, strangely enough, not • unjustified. - Turner was no one in particular ; a grocer of a Sussex village : he did nothing in particular save quarrel with his wife and make it up again, get drunk with the village parson and repent of his folly, read-sermons and meditations, and resolve to improve himself. But he was a sound and shrewd man, and we have a treasure in him for the social
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• • history of the eighteenth century. For all his contentions with his . wife, he was decorously broken-hearted when she died ; and . for all his broken heart, he married again. There was little enough romance in the second marriage, however, as we may ,judge from the following entry :—
"March 28.—In the afternoon rode over to Chiddingly, to pay my charmer, or intended 'wife, or sweetheart., or whatever other name may be more proper, a visit at her father's . . . It being an exces- . sively wet aiid widdrniglie I had 'the opportunity, stire I should say the pleasure; perhaps some might say the unspeakablia happiness, to sit up with Molly Hicks, or my charmer, all night. I came home at forty minutes past five in the morning—I must not say fatigued, no, no, that could not be ; We-Mild-be only a little sleepy for want of rest. Well, to be sure, she is a most clever girl ; but, however, to be 'serious in the affair, I certainly esteem the girl, and 'think sho appears worthy of my esteem.'
A week later he is complaining, "This courting does not well agree with my constitution."
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