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NEWHAVEN 253 |
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India in her power and the control of the oceans in her hand, commended itself so little to the good people of East Hoathly.
Few village traders of to-day are so well read in good literature as was Thomas Turner, among many other works which he appreciated were Shakespeare's Plays, Pope's Homer, Gray's Poems, Thomson's Seasons, Young's Night Thoughts, Milton's Paradise Lost, and Smollett's Peregrine Pickle, nor are his notes on what he read by any means unintelligent or superficial. His political sympathies in domestic affairs now and then find utterance, and of the articles in the North Briton that landed John Wilkes who wrote them in the Tower, he says: "I really think they breath forth such a spirit of liberty that it is an extreme good paper." Against what seemed likely to interfere with his own trade he expresses the warmest indignation. There came round one day a hawker, " which must undoubtedly be some hurt to trade, for the novelty of the thing (and novelty is surely the predominant passion of the English nation and of Sussex in particular) * will catch the ignorant multitude and perhaps not them only but the people of sense, who are not judges of goods and trade, as indeed very few are; but, however, as it is it must pass."
None of us are without our faults, and Mr. Turner was not very singular among the Englishmen of his day in being a little too fond of "the best old stingo," though it must be added that the clergy whose ministrations he frequently attended and for whose office he professes the deepest respect did not set him a particularly good example. For instance it once happened
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