Such a circumstance as this would probably not have occurred had the liberal rule in force in several old grammar-schools prevailed at Mayfield, that the boys should have an hour from three o'clock till four for their drinkings.
"26th.- I was called into the little chamber over the clubroom, and there I found Mr. Baker, Mr. Dowgate, old Sawyer, and old Kent, who said that 'I spent my time in reading printed papers to the neglect of the children ; he said that I was covetous, and undertook to do other persons' business to the neglect and detriment of the school ; that the children did not improve, and that he would get an old woman for 2d. a week that would teach them better.' I answered that 'many of them were extremely dull, and that I would defie any person that should undertake it to teach them better.' He then said 'that I got money so fast that I was above my business, and it made me saucy, and that I had been always discharged from every place where I had any employment, unless it was from old Mary Weston's, and he did not know whether I had been sent from there or no.' I answered that 'he was again mistaken, that I was not above my business, but carefully discharged it; nor could I be called saucy for defending the truth, and that he was grievously out in affirming that I had been discharged from the places I had served, for contrariwise, I met with advancement on leaving- every one of them.'"
Those who have had experience in the teaching the youths of Sussex, will probably agree with Mr. Gale in his estimate of their natural intelligence, in which they certainly are inferior to the children of the north of England. Henry Bexwyx, and Johanne his widow, who founded a school at Manchester in 1524, give as their reason for so doing that "the children of the county of Lancaster have pregnant wits, but that they have for the most part been brought up rudely and idly, and not in virtue, cunning, erudition, literature, or good manners."
The remainder of Master Gale's diary is lost. It was probably very voluminous, for he held his place till 1771, long after his great adversary, old Kent, was laid in his grave. Whether he fell in consequence of pressure from without, such as, in 1631, was brought to bear upon the mayor and aldermen of Chester, who were called upon "to appoint a new
