HISTORY OF HARTING. l6l 



the simple folk of Harting, few of whom could have 

 been living to remember how the old man of seventy 

 had once brought his bride to Lady Holt in the 

 year of the Great Fire. He had built and fortified 

 with every rustic improvement the mansion of which 

 he had laid the first stone ; and now his life's work 

 was done. The date of the Squire's death is 1736, 

 and he was buried in the Mortuary chapel at Harting, 

 by Parson Newlin, on Ap. i/th. Mr. Carruther justly 

 characterizes him as " liberal, tolerant and accom- 

 plished :" we may add that his life was unblemished 

 in a corrupt age, and that his worth is remembered 

 to the present time in that unwritten but most faithful 

 history, the tradition of some five generations of 

 village folk. To this day the Harting peasant re- 

 members that the Caryll was good, and therefore 

 " we always looked," he says, " that he would come 

 back again." This is the village hind's version of 

 the celebrated couplet : 



" A wit's a feather, and a chief's a rod : 

 An honest man's the noblest work of God." 



Had Pope been asked when he wrote those words 

 to point out an honest man in the flesh, he would 

 have sent his inquirers to Lady Holt, to make the 

 acquaintance of John Caryll, fifty years Squire of 

 West Harting. 



M 



