138 HISTORY OF HARTING. 



accompanied them after their honeymoon to Lady 

 Holt.* In his letter of congratulation to the Squire 

 Pope says " To conclude as no happiness comes 

 without alloy : so it seems that the young gentleman 

 must carry me down with his fair lady " : and he tells 

 Gay (13 Nov., 1712) that "he had passed 2 months 

 in Sussex." Lady Mary at once charmed Pope, as 

 she witched all the world. To the proud father he 

 writes : " If you could get every man as good a wife 

 as you did for your son .... the very satirists and 

 wits would be the first to apply to you, and even I, 

 myself, should entreat you to seek out some shep- 

 herdess about the hills of Lady Holt for the felicity 

 of your humble serv 1 -" The Squire doated upon his 

 daughter-in-law. Every year he seems to have made 

 her some present on his son's wedding day. In 1713 

 the token was a repeater watch of sixty guineas (a third 

 of the present value),' and in 1714 a silver teakettle of 

 forty guineas. These were bought at a shop in town 

 interesting to Harting people at the time, for it was 

 kept by one Hatton, who had married from Lady 

 Holt Park, Pope is here our chronicler: "I am lately 

 fallen acquainted with Mr. Hatton, watchmaker, whose 

 clocks speak, strike is too boisterous a word : 



' From hour to hour melodiously they chime, 

 With silver sounds, and sweetly tune out time.' 



He is likewise curious in microscopes He 



married the daughter of Peter My or Mee (for his- 

 torians spell it variously), keeper of the beautiful park 

 of Lady Holt, and flourished in the beginning of the 

 1 8th century in Duke Str., near Lincoln's Inn Fields." 

 We have already heard of Peter Mee as holding West 

 Harting Pond under the Squire, valued by the inqui- 

 sition for the outlawry at 10 per annum. Peter Mee 



* A shady lane, now a coppice, leading to the Downs near 

 Foxcombe, in the direction of Lady Holt, is called to this day 

 " Lovers' Lane." 



