 The hackneyed stories of his jokes relate chiefly to his three wives, whom he called "the world, the flesh, and the devil"; to one of them he explained the difference between exportation and transportation by saying, "If you were exported I should be transported".He preached on the last Sunday of his life, smoking his pipe in the vestry before sermon as usual, and died suddenly in his chair on 29 May 1768, aged 92, or, according to another account, 94 years.Earle's sermons included