GUILDFORD.

Crossing over the Thames to the Surrey side, we proceed southward to that vast chalk-measure which, like a miniature mountain-wall, divides the watershed draining into that river from the Weald of Sussex and of Kent. This chalky hill is here and there breached by the valley of a stream, and through it the Wey and the Mole, to which we have heretofore referred, flow northward to join the current of the Thames. In the gap formed by each there is a town, Guildford standing alongside the Wey, and Dorking on the Mole. Both develop magnificent scenery on the flanks of the chalk-ranges that surround them; and we will now go about thirty miles south-west from London and visit Guildford, whose origin is involved in the mystery that surrounds the early history of so many English towns. It was a royal manor in the days of King Alfred, being granted to his nephew, and it was here a few years before the Norman Conquest that the aetheling AElfred was captured. Harold, the son of Canute, wished to destroy him to secure the succession to the throne. He forged a letter purporting to be from his mother, Queen Emma, inviting AElfred to come to England, and sent his minister Godwine forward, who met and swore allegiance to AElfred, lodging him at Guildford, and most of his comrades in separate houses there. In the night Harold’s emissaries suddenly appeared, slew his comrades, and carried AElfred off to Ely, where he was loaded with fetters, and, being tried by some sort of tribunal, was blinded and then put to death. The monks of Ely enshrined his body, and of course miracles were wrought by it. The castle was built on the Wey after the Norman Conquest, and Henry II. made it a park and royal residence, so that it was long called the King’s Manor. In Charles I.’s time it was granted to the Earl of Annandale. The situation of Guildford is picturesque; the chalk-range is narrowed to a line of steep, ridgy hills almost as straight as a wall and severed by the valley of the Wey. This pretty stream escapes from the Weald to the southward between the Hog’s Back on the west and Albury Down on the east, the valley narrowing so as to form a natural gateway just where the river emerges. A bridge was built here, and this determined the site of the town, which straggles up the Hog’s Back and the Down, and also spreads out in the broadening valley of the emerging river. High up in the hills that make the eastern slope of the valley is the old gray castle-keep, with an ancient church-tower lower down and a new church by the waterside. From the bridge runs straight up this hill the chief thoroughfare of the town, High Street. The shapeless ruins of the old castle, the keep alone being kept in good condition, are not far away from the upper part of this street, crowning an artificial mound encompassed by what once was a ditch, but now is chiefly a series of gardens. The ancient church-tower, part way down the hill, is dedicated to St. Mary, but has been shorn of its original proportions in order to widen a street. This was done, we are told, for the convenience of George IV., who used to pass in a coach along this street on his way from London to Brighton. The tower is low and unassuming, and is supposed to date from the time of King Stephen. The new church of St. Nicholas stands by the river, and Guildford also possesses another church built of brick. None of these churches have spires, and therefore some local wit has written,

“Poor Guildford, proud people; Three churches no steeple.”

The High Street climbs the hill past many quaint buildings, particularly the old town-hall, where the hill is somewhat less steep. Its upper stories project beyond the lower, being supported by carved beams, and the town-clock hangs over the street. Abbot’s Hospital, built by Guildford’s most noted townsman, George Abbot, Archbishop of Canterbury, is also in this street. He was born in a humble cottage, and the legend tells us that his mother, before the event, dreamed that if she could eat a pike she would have a son who would be a great man. She was unable to buy the fish anywhere, but, drawing a pailful of water from the river, to her surprise found a pike in it. When George was born the tale was told, and several distinguished people offered to become his sponsors. They gave him a good education, and he graduated at Balliol College, Oxford, and was made Dean of Westminster. He was one of the revisers of the Scriptures who prepared the revision in the seventeenth century, was made a bishop, and in 1611 Archbishop of Canterbury. His brother was Bishop of Salisbury, and another brother Lord Mayor of London. He was a great hunter, as were most ecclesiastics at that time, and in 1621, when shooting at a buck, his arrow accidentally pierced the arm of a gatekeeper, who soon bled to death. The archbishop was horror-stricken, settled an annuity upon the widow, and to the close of his life observed Tuesday, the day of the accident, as a weekly fast. This occurrence raised a hot dispute in the Church as to whether the archbishop, by having blood on his hands, had become incapable of discharging the duties of his sacred office. He retired to his hospital at Guildford while the inquiry was conducted, was ultimately exonerated, and in 1625 died. This hospital is built around a small quadrangle, and in its gateway-tower the unfortunate “King Monmouth” was lodged on his last journey from Sedgemoor to London. Abbot, according to the inscription on the walls, founded this charity for “a master, twelve brethren, and eight sisters” all to be unmarried and not less than sixty years of age, and chosen from Guildford, preference to be given to “such as have borne office or been good traders in the town, or such as have been soldiers sent, and who have ventured their lives or lost their blood for their prince and country.” The number of inmates is now increased, the endowment having accumulated. Guildford used to maintain the piety of its people by requiring that all should attend church and listen to a sermon, or else be fined a shilling. Over on the other side of the valley, on a grassy spur protruding from the Hog’s Back, are the ruins of St. Catharine’s Chapel, built in the fourteenth century. The local tradition tells that this and St. Martha’s Chapel, on an adjacent hill, were built by two sister-giantesses, who worked with a single hammer, which they flung from hill to hill to each other as required. St. Catharine’s Chapel long since fell in ruins, and not far away on the slope, St. Catharine’s Spring flows perennially. On Albury Down is a residence of the Duke of Northumberland, Albury Park, laid out in the seventeenth century by John Evelyn, famous for his devotion to rural beauties, and the residence during the present century of Henry Drummond, the banker, politician, and theologian, the most caustic critic of his time in Parliament, and the great promoter of the Church of the Second Advent.

ALDERSHOT CAMP.

A few miles to the westward, near Farnborough, over the border in Hampshire, is Aldershot Camp, permanently established there in 1854. The Basingstoke Canal flows through a plateau elevated about three hundred and twenty feet above the sea, and divides the location into a north and south camp, the latter occupying much the larger surface and containing most of the public buildings. On a central hillock covered by clumps of fir trees are the headquarters of the general in command when the troops are being exercised and going through their manoeuvres. The Long Valley stretches to the westward, terminating in a steep hill rising six hundred feet, from which the best view of the military movements is had on a field-day. The two camps cover about seven square miles, and they commonly contain about twelve thousand troops during the season for the manoeuvres. There are long rows of wooden huts for the soldiers, and there are also barracks, hospitals, and other necessary buildings, the cost of the establishment of this military depot having exceeded $7,000,000 already. The annual reviews take place from June to September, the regiments of volunteers being detailed in turn to co-operate with the regular troops, so as to gain a practical knowledge of military duties.

DORKING.

Proceeding eastward along the chalk-hills for about twelve miles, we come to the breach made in them by the valley of the Mole for the passage of that strange little river. Here, however, appears a second and parallel range of hills, distant about four miles, the long and generally flat-topped ridge culminating in the commanding summit of Leith Hill. This is the highest ground in this part of England, rising nearly one thousand feet, a broad summit sloping gradually down towards the north, but presenting to the south a steep and, in places, a precipitous ascent. At its foot is the residence known as Leith Hill Place, where Mr. Hull lived in the last century, and built the tower for an outlook that crowns its summit, leaving orders in his will that he should be buried there. The tower was partially burned in 1877, but has been restored. The view from the top of Leith Hill is grand, although it takes some exertion to get there, and it discloses a panorama of typical English scenery over the white chalk-downs, dappled with green and the darker woodland, with the Thames lowlands far away to the north, while to the southward the land falls abruptly to the great valley of the Weald, a plain of rich red earth, with woods and grainfields and hedgerows stretching away to the dim line of the South Downs at the horizon. Pleasant little villas and old-time comfortable farm-houses are dotted all about with their dovecotes and outbuildings. To the eastward is the Redlands Wood, crowned by a tall silver fir, and just beyond is Holmwood Common, whereon donkeys graze and flocks of geese patiently await the September plucking. Here, at Holmwood Park, is one of those ancient yet still populous dovecotes that contribute so much to enhance the beauties of English rural scenery.

Dorking lies in the valley of the Mole, just south of the high chalk-ranges, at the foot of wooded hills, and with its bordering meadows stretching out to the river-bank. It is an ancient town, appearing in the Domesday Book under the name of Dorchinges, and standing on the route which Julius Cæsar took through these hills on his invasion of Britain. After the Norman Conquest the manor became the property of Earl Warrenne, and as a favorite halting-place on the road between London and the south coast in the Middle Ages it throve greatly and was noted for the number of its inns. Its chief street High Street runs parallel with the chalk-hills, and presents a picturesque variety of old-time houses, though none are of great pretensions. Among them is the long, low structure, with a quaint entrance-gate in the middle, suggestive of the days before railroads, and known as the “White Horse Inn.” The ancient “Cardinal’s Cap” has been transformed into the “Red Lion Inn,” and the “Old King’s Head,” the most famous of these hostelries, has been removed to make room for the post-office. This latter inn was the original of “The Marquis of Granby, Dorking,” where that substantial person, Mr. Weller, Senior, lived, and under the sway of Mrs. Weller the veteran coachman smoked his pipe and practised patience, while the “shepherd” imbibed hot pineapple rum and water and dispensed spiritual consolation to the flock. An old stage-coachman who lived years ago at Dorking is said to have been Dickens’s original for this celebrated character, and the townsfolk still talk of the venerable horse-trough that stood in front of the inn wherein the bereaved landlord immersed Mr. Stiggins’s head after kicking him out of the bar.

The parish church is the only public building of any pretension in Dorking, and it is quite new, replacing another structure whose registers go back to the sixteenth century, containing, among other curious entries, the christening in 1562 of a child whose fate is recorded in these words: “Who, scoffing at thunder, standing under a beech, was stroke to death, his clothes stinking with a sulphurous stench, being about the age of twenty years or thereabouts, at Mereden House.” The Dorking fowls all have the peculiarity of an extra claw on each foot, being white and speckled, and a Roman origin being claimed for the breed, which is most delicate in flavor and commands a high price. On the southern outskirts of the town is Deepdene, a mansion surrounded by magnificent trees and standing on the slope of a hill. It was the home of the Hopes, its late owner, H. T. Hope, having been the author of the novel Anastasius. He was a zealous patron of art, and first brought Thorwaldsen into public notice by commissioning him to execute his “Jason” in marble. The house contains many rare gems of sculpture, including Canova’s “Venus Rising from the Bath,” with paintings by Raphael, Paul Veronese, and others. It was here that Disraeli wrote the greater part of Coningsby. A dene or glade opening near the house gives the place its name, the grounds being extensive and displaying gardens and fine woods. The scenery of this glade is beautiful, while from the terrace at the summit of the hill, where there is a Doric temple, a magnificent view can be had far away over the lowlands. Deepdene is attractive both within and without, for its grand collection of art-treasures vies with Nature in affording delight to the visitor. The ruins of Betchworth Castle, built four hundred years ago, are alongside the Mole. “The soft windings of the silent Mole” around Betchworth furnished a theme for Thomson, while Milton calls it “the sullen Mole that runneth underneath,” and Pope, “the sullen Mole that hides his diving flood.” Spenser has something to say of the

“ Mole, that like a nousling mole doth make His way still underground till Thames he overtake.”

This peculiarity comes from the river hiding itself under Box Hill, where, after disappearing for about two miles, it comes bubbling up out of the ground again. This disappearance of streams in hilly regions is not unusual. Box Hill, beneath whose slopes the Mole passes, is part of the great chalk-range rising steeply on the eastern side of the gap where the river-valley breaks through. Its summit is elevated four hundred feet, the hill being densely wooded and containing large plantations of box, whence its name. One of these box-groves covers two hundred and thirty acres. On the brow of Box Hill, Major Labilliere, a singular character, was buried in 1800. He lived in Dorking, and, becoming convinced that the world had been turned topsy-turvy, selected his grave, and gave instructions that he should be buried head downward, so that at the final setting right of mundane affairs he would rise correctly. In the Mole Valley, at the base of Box Hill, at a pretty little house called the “Fox and Hounds,” Keats finished his poem of Endymion, and here Lord Nelson spent his last days in England before leaving on the expedition that closed with his greatest victory and death at Trafalgar.

Upon the hill on the western side of the gap is the Denbies, from which there is a view all the way to London. At the back of this high hill is Ranmore Common. The Denbies are the scene of the “Battle of Dorking,” having been held by the English defensive army in that imaginary and disastrous conflict wherein German invaders land upon the southern coasts, destroy the British fleets by torpedoes, triumphantly march to the base of the chalk-ranges, fight a terrific battle, force their way through the gaps in the hills, capture London, and dethrone England from her high place among the great powers of Europe. This was a summer-time magazine article, written to call English attention to the necessity of looking after the national defences; and it had a powerful effect. Westward of Dorking there is fine scenery, amid which is the little house known as the “Rookery,” where Malthus the political economist was born in 1766. Wotton Church stands alongside the road near by, almost hid by aged trees a building of various dates, with a porch and stunted tower. Here John Evelyn was taught when a child, and the graves of his family are in a chapel opening from the north aisle. Wotton House, where Evelyn lived, is in the adjacent valley and at the foot of the famous Leith Hill. His favorite pastime was climbing up the hill to see over the dozen counties the view discloses, with the sea far away to the southward on the Sussex coast. The house is an irregular brick building of various dates, the earliest parts built in Elizabethan days, and it contains many interesting relics of Evelyn, whose diary has contributed so much to English history from the reign of Charles I. to Queen Anne. He was a great botanist, and has left a prominent and valuable work in Sylva, his treatise on trees. It was to the north-west of Wotton, on a tract of common known as Evershed Rough, that Bishop Samuel Wilberforce, while riding with Earl Granville in 1873, was thrown from the saddle by his stumbling horse, and striking the ground with his head was almost immediately killed. A cross marks the sad and lonely spot.

EPSOM AND REIGATE.

On the northern verge of the chalk-downs, and about fifteen miles south of London, is the famous race-course at Epsom, whither much of London goes for a holiday on the “Derby Day.” Epsom is a large and rather rambling town located in a depression in the hills, and two hundred years ago was a fashionable resort for its medicinal waters, so that it soon grew from a little village to a gay watering-place. Its water was strongly impregnated with sulphate of magnesia, making the Epsom salts of the druggist, and also with small quantities of the chlorides of magnesium and calcium. None of these salts are now made at Epsom, they being manufactured artificially in large amounts at a low price. The Epsom well, however, that produced the celebrated waters, still remains on the common near the town. From a watering-place Epsom became transformed into a race-ground about a hundred years ago. There is a two days’ meeting in April, but the great festival comes in May, continuing four days from Tuesday to Friday before Whitsuntide, unless Easter is in March, when it occurs in the week after Whitsunday. Wednesday is the grand day, when a vast crowd gathers to witness the Derby race, established in 1780 and named from the Earl of Derby’s seat at Woodmansterne, near by. This is a race of a mile and a half for three-year olds. The Oaks Stakes are run for on Friday over the same course, but for three-year-old fillies only. This race is named from Lambert’s Oaks, near the neighboring village of Banstead. The race-hill is elevated about five hundred feet above the sea, and the grand stand, which is the most substantial in England, affords magnificent views, stretching far away beyond Windsor Castle and the dome of St. Paul’s in London. Epsom Downs on the Derby Day show the great annual festival of England, but at other times the town is rather quiet, though its Spread Eagle Inn is usually a head-quarters for the racing fraternity.

The ruins of Reigate Castle are a short distance south of Epsom, the pretty village of Reigate standing near the head of the lovely Holmsdale on the southern verge of the chalk-ranges. Beautiful views and an unending variation of scenery make this an attractive resort. Surrey is full of pleasant places, disclosing quaint old houses that bring down to us the architecture of the time of Elizabeth and the days of the “good Queen Anne.” Some of these buildings, which so thoroughly exemplify the attractions of the rural homes of England, are picturesque and noteworthy. As specimens of many we present Pierrepoint House and Longfield, East Sheen. These are the old models now being reproduced by modern architects, combining novelty without and comfort within, and they are just far enough from London to make them pleasant country-houses, with all the advantage of city luxuries.

THE WEALD OF KENT.

Proceeding eastward along the chalk-downs and over the border into Kent, we reach the Wealden formation, the “wooded land” of that county so named by the Saxons which stretches between the North and South Downs, the chalk-formations bordering this primeval forest, but now almost entirely transformed into a rich agricultural country. The Weald is a region of great fertility and high cultivation, still bearing numerous copses of well-grown timber, the oak being the chief, and furnishing in times past the material for many of its substantial oaken houses. The little streams that meander among the undulating hills of this attractive region are nearly all gathered together to form the Medway, which flows past Maidstone to join the Thames. It was the portions of the Weald around Goudhurst that were memorable for the exploits of Radford and his band, the originals of G. P. R. James’s Smugglers. Goudhurst church-tower, finely located on one of the highest hills of the Wealden region, gives a grand view on all sides, especially to the southward over Mr. Beresford Hope’s seat at Bedgebury Park. In this old church of St. Mary are buried the Bedgeburys and the Colepeppers. Their ancient house, surrounded by a moat, has been swept away, and the present mansion was built in the seventeenth century out of the proceeds of a sunken Spanish treasure-ship, Sir James Hayes, who built the house, having gone into a speculation with Lord Falkland and others to recover the treasure. This origin of Bedgebury House is recorded on its foundation-stone: it has been greatly enlarged by successive owners, and is surrounded by ornamental gardens and grounds, with a park of wood, lake, and heather covering two thousand acres. In the neighboring church of Kilndown, Field-marshal Beresford, the former owner of Bedgebury, reposes in a canopied sepulchre. Just to the eastward is Cranbrook, the chief market-town of the Weald, the ancient sanctuary of the Anabaptists and the historical centre of the Flemish cloth-trade, which used to be carried on by the “old gray-coats of Kent.” Their descendants still live in the old-time factories, which have been converted into handsome modern houses. Edward III. first induced the Flemings to settle in Kent and some other parts of England, and from his reign until the last century the broadcloth manufacture concentrated at Cranbrook. When Queen Elizabeth once visited the town she was entertained at a manor about a mile from Cranbrook, and walked thence into the town upon a carpet, laid down the whole way, made of the same cloth that her loyal men of Kent wore on their backs. In Cranbrook Church were held the fierce theological disputes of Queen Mary’s reign which resulted in the imprisonment of the Anabaptists and other dissenters by Chancellor Baker. Over the south porch is the chamber with grated windows known as “Bloody Baker’s Prison.” Among the old customs surviving at Cranbrook is that which strews the path of the newly-wedded couple as they leave the church with emblems of the bridegroom’s trade. The blacksmith walks upon scraps of iron, the shoemaker on leather parings, the carpenter on shavings, and the butcher on sheepskins. In an adjacent glen almost surrounded by woods are the ruins of Sissinghurst, where Chancellor Baker lived and built the stately mansion of Saxenhurst, from which the present name of its ruins is derived. The artists Horsley and Webster lived at Sissinghurst and Cranbrook for many years, and found there frequent subjects of rustic study. The Sissinghurst ruins are fragmentary, excepting the grand entrance, which is well preserved. Baker’s Cross survives to mark the spot where the Anabaptists had a skirmish with their great enemy; and the legend is that he was killed there, though history asserts that this theological warrior died in his bed peaceably some time afterwards in London.

Near Lamberhurst, on the Surrey border and on the margin of the Teise, is the Marquis of Camden’s seat at Bayham Abbey. Its ruins include a church, a gateway, and some of the smaller buildings. It was once highly attractive, though small, and its ruined beauty is now enhanced by the care with which the ivy is trained over the walls and the greensward floor is smoothed. Ralph de Dene founded this abbey about the year 1200, and after the dissolution Queen Elizabeth granted it to Viscount Montague. It was bought in the last century by Chief-Justice Pratt, whose son, the chancellor, became Marquis of Camden. The modern mansion is a fine one, and from it a five-mile walk through the woods leads to Tunbridge on the Medway. Chief among the older remains of this pleasantly-located and popular town is Tunbridge Castle, its keep having stood upon a lofty mound above the river. This “Norman Mound,” as it is called, is now capped with ruined walls, and an arched passage leads from it to the upper story of the elaborate gate-house, still in excellent preservation. Richard Fitzgilbert built the keep, and ruled the “League of Tunbridge,” but his castle, after a long siege by Henry III., was taken away from his successor, who assumed the name of Gilbert de Clare. From the De Clares the stronghold passed to the Audleys and Staffords, and it is now held by Lord Stafford. The gate-house is a fine structure, square in form, with round towers at each corner. The ruins are richly adorned with mouldings and other decorations, and within is a handsome state-apartment. Tunbridge is a quiet town, standing where five of the tributaries of the Medway come together, over which it has as many stone bridges. One of these streams, the Tun, gives the town its name. In St. Stephen’s Church, a badly mutilated building with a fine spire, many of the De Clares are buried, and the quaint half-timbered building of the “Chequers Inn” helps maintain the picturesque appearance of the Tunbridge High Street. The spa of Tunbridge Wells, with its chalybeate springs and baths, is a few miles southward, but the days of its greatest glory have passed away, though fashion to a moderate extent still haunts its pump-room and parade. This famous watering-place stands in a contracted valley enclosed by the three hills known as Mount Ephraim, Mount Zion, and Mount Pleasant.

To the westward of Tunbridge, and in the Medway Valley, is Penshurst, celebrated as the home of Sir Philip Sidney a grand, gray old house, built at many periods, begun in the fourteenth century and not completed until a few years ago. It is a pretty English picture within a setting of wooded hills and silver rivers, the pattern from which Sidney drew his description of “Laconia” in Arcadia. The buildings, particularly their window-heads, are ornamented with the tracery peculiar to Kent. The great hall, the earliest of these buildings, has a characteristic open-timber roof, while its minstrel-gallery, fronted by a wainscot screen, is ornamented with the badge of the Dudleys, the “bear and ragged staff.” Within these halls are the family portraits of a noble lineage. Of Mary, daughter of Sir Henry Sidney and heiress of Sir John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland, Ben Jonson wrote this epitaph:

“Underneath this sable hearse Lies, the subject of all verse, Sidney’s sister, Pembroke’s mother. Death! ere thou hast slain another Learned and fair and good as she, Time shall throw a dart at thee.”

Sir Philip Sidney was her brother, born at Penshurst in 1554. The estate came through various owners, until, in the reign of Henry II., it was granted to Sir William Sidney, who commanded a wing of the victorious English at Flodden. Sir Philip, we are told, would have been King of Poland had not Queen Elizabeth interposed, “lest she should lose the jewel of her times.” Algernon Sidney, beheaded on Tower Hill, was his descendant. Penshurst is now held by Baron de l’Isle, to whom it has descended through marriage. On the estate stands the quaint old Penshurst Church with its ivy-covered porch. The Eden River falls into the Medway near Penshurst, and alongside its waters is the well-known castellated residence which still survives from the Tudor days, Hever Castle, where, it is said, Anne Boleyn was born. Sir Geoffrey Boleyn, her great-grandfather, who was Lord Mayor of London in the reign of Henry VI., began Hever Castle, which was completed by his grandson, Anne’s father. It was at Hever that King Henry wooed her. The house is a quadrangle, with high pitched roofs and gables and surrounded by a double moat, and is now a farm-house. Here they show the visitor Anne Boleyn’s rooms, and also the chamber where her successor, Anne of Cleves, is said to have died, though this is doubted. King Henry, however, seized the estate of Hever from his earlier wife’s family, and granted it to his subsequently discarded consort after he separated from her. Northward of Tunbridge, and near Sevenoaks, is Knole, the home of the family of Hon. L. S. Sackville-West, the present British minister at Washington. It is one of the most interesting baronial mansions in England, enclosed by a park five miles in circumference.

Proceeding eastward towards the outskirts of the Weald, we come to Leeds Castle, once the great central fortress of Kent. Standing in a commanding position, it held the road leading to Canterbury and the coast, and it dates probably from the Norman Conquest. Its moat surrounds three islands, from which, as if from the water, rise its walls and towers. This castle is now the residence of Mr. Wykeham Martin and contains many valuable antiquities. Also near the eastern border of the Weald is Tenterden, famous for its church-steeple, which Bishop Latimer has invested with a good story. The bishop in a sermon said that Sir Thomas More was once sent into Kent to learn the cause of the Goodwin Sands and the obstructions to Sandwich Haven. He summoned various persons of experience, and among others there “came in before him an olde man with a white head, and one that was thought to be little lesse than an hundereth yeares olde. When Maister More saw this aged man he thought it expedient to hear him say his minde in this matter, for being so olde a man, it was likely he knew most of any man in that presence and company. So Maister More called this olde aged man unto him, and sayd, ’Father, tell me if ye can what is the cause of this great arising of the sande and shelfs here about this haven, the which stop it up that no shippes can arrive here. Ye are the oldest man that I can espie in all this companye, so that, if any man can tell any cause of it, ye of likelihode can say most in it, or at leastwise more than any man here assembled.’ ’Yea, forsooth, good master,’ quod this olde man, ’for I am wellnigh an hundreth years olde, and no man here in this companye anything neare unto mine age.’ ’Well, then,’ quod Maister More, ’how say you in this matter? What think ye to be the cause of these shelfs and flattes that stop up Sandwich Haven?’ ’Forsooth, syr,’ quoth he, ’I am an olde man; I think that Tenterton Steeple is the cause of Goodwin Sandes. For I am an olde man, syr,’ quod he, ’and I may remember the building of Tenterton Steeple, and I may remember when there was no steeple at all there. And before that Tenterton Steeple was a-building there was no manner of speaking of any flattes or sandes that stopped the haven; and, therefore, I thinke that Tenterton Steeple is the cause of the destroying and decaying of Sandwich Haven.’ And even so to my purpose,” says Latimer in conclusion, “is preaching of God’s worde the cause of rebellion, as Tenterton Steeple is a cause that Sandwich Haven is decayed.” Now this “olde aged man” had some excuse for his theory in the Kentish tradition, which says that the abbot of St. Augustine, who built the steeple, used for it the stones collected to strengthen the sea-wall of Goodwin Sands, then part of the main land. The next storm submerged the district, of which the Goodwins are the remains, and thus the steeple caused the quicksands, according to the Kentish theory.

ROCHESTER AND CHATHAM.

Proceeding down the Medway, it flows past the city of Rochester, the river being crowded with vessels and crossed here by a bridge with a swinging draw. Rochester has a fine old cathedral, rather dilapidated, and in part restored, but its chief attraction is the castle towering above the river, its Norman keep forming a tower over seventy feet square and rising one hundred feet high, its masonry disclosing vast strength and impressive massiveness. Cobham Hall, the residence of Earl Darnley, is near Rochester, standing in a nobly wooded park seven miles in circumference. Just north of Cobham Park is Gad’s Hill, where Charles Dickens lived. Beyond Rochester the powerful modern defensive work of Fort Pitt rises over Chatham to defend the Medway entrance and that important dockyard. The town is chiefly a bustling street about two miles long. The dockyard is one of the largest in England, and its defensive works, as yet incomplete, will when finished make it a powerful fortress, there being several outlying batteries and works still to complete. The Gun Wharf contains a large park of artillery, and there are barracks for three thousand men extending along the river. There is also an extensive convict-prison with two thousand inmates, who work upon the dock extension and at making bricks for its construction. Chatham has several military and naval hospitals. Opposite the dockyard is Upnor Castle, used as a powder-magazine and torpedo-school. This castle, the original defensive work of Chatham, was bombarded by Van Tromp when he came up the Medway in Charles II.’s reign an audacity for which he was afterwards punished. The suburb of Brompton is completely enveloped by the forts and buildings of the post, contains barracks and hospitals for five thousand men, and is also the head-quarters of the Royal Engineers.

CANTERBURY.

Leaving the estuary of the Medway, still farther east in Kent, in the vale of the Stour, is the ancient cathedral city of Canterbury, whereof Rimmer says it “is one of the most delightful cities in England for an antiquary.” Its cathedral is approached through the quaint narrow street of Mercery Lane, where once stood the Checquers Inn that was the resort of Chaucer’s pilgrims. At the end of this lane is the principal entrance to the cathedral close Prior Goldsmith’s Gate, commonly called Christ Church Gate, built in 1517: it was formerly surmounted by turrets, but these have been partly taken down. The arms of Becket are carved upon the gateway, and beyond it rise the gray towers of the venerable cathedral. On the east side of the close is Broad Street, where part of the old city-walls are still preserved. This was the site of St. Augustine’s monastery, and Lanfranc, the first archbishop after the Conquest, rebuilt the cathedral church, which was continued by his successor, Anselm. It was in this church that Becket was murdered in 1170, and “in the glorious choir of Conrad” his corpse was watched by the monks on the following night. This choir was burned down four years later, but afterwards rebuilt. The present cathedral consists of work extending from Lanfranc’s time until that of Prior Goldstone in the fifteenth century, thus exhibiting specimens of all the schools of Gothic architecture. Canterbury Cathedral is among the largest churches in England, being five hundred and twenty-two feet long, and its principal entrance is by the south porch. The nave is striking, and in the choir the eye is immediately attracted by its great length, one hundred and eighty feet the longest in the kingdom and by the singular bend with which the walls at the eastern end approach each other. The architecture is antique, and the interior produces an impression of great solemnity. The north-western transept is known as the Transept of the Martyrdom, where Becket was slain just after Christmas by four knights in 1170. A small square piece cut out of one of the flagstones marks the spot, and there still remain the door leading from the cloisters by which Becket and the knights entered the cathedral, and the part of the wall in front of which the assassinated archbishop fell. There is an attractive window in this transept, the gift of Edward IV. The cathedral is full of monuments, and in Trinity Chapel, behind the choir, where Becket had sung his first mass when installed as archbishop, was the location chosen for his shrine, but it long ago disappeared. Here is also the monument of Edward the Black Prince, with his effigy in brass, and suspended above it his helmet, shield, sword-scabbard, and gauntlets. Henry IV. is also buried in Canterbury, with his second wife, Joan of Navarre; Cardinal Pole is entombed here; and in the south-western transept is the singular tomb of Langton, archbishop in the days of Magna Charta, the stone coffin so placed that the head alone appears through the wall. In the crypt was Becket’s tomb, which remained there until 1220, and at it occurred the penance and scourging of Henry II. The cathedral has two fine western towers, the northern one, however, not having been finished until recently. The central tower, known as “Bell Harry,” rises two hundred and thirty-five feet, and is a magnificent example of Perpendicular Gothic. In the close are interesting remains of St. Augustine’s Monastery, including its fine entrance-gate and guest-hall, now part of St. Augustine’s College, one of the most elaborate modern structures in Canterbury. The monastery had been a brewery, but was bought in 1844 by Mr. Beresford Hope and devoted to its present noble object. On the hill above St. Augustine, mounted by the Longport road, is the “mother church of England,” St. Martin’s, which had been a British Christian chapel before the Saxons came into the island, and was made over to Augustine. The present building occupies the site of the one he erected.

Close to the old city-wall is Canterbury Castle, its venerable Norman keep being now used as the town gasworks. There are many old houses in Canterbury, and its history has been traced back twenty-eight hundred years. It was the Roman colony of Durovernum. Among its quaint houses is the Falstaff Inn, still a comfortable and popular hostelrie, having a sign-board supported by iron framework projecting far over the street. Adjoining is the West Gate the only one remaining of the six ancient barriers of the city built by Archbishop Sudbury, who was killed in 1381 by Wat Tyler’s rebels. This gate stands on the road from London to Dover, and guards the bridge over a little branch of the Stour; the foundations of the lofty flanking round towers are in the river-bed. The gate-house was long used as a city prison. It was in this weird old city that Chaucer located many of his Canterbury Tales, that give such an insight into the customs of his time. The landlord of the Tabard Inn in Southwark, whose guests were of all ranks, proposed a journey to Canterbury after dinner, he to adjudge the best story any of them told on the road. Chaucer’s characters were all cleverly drawn and lifelike, while his innkeeper was a man of evidently high “social status,” and, as he himself said, “wise and well taught.” The Stour flows on to the sea, whose generally low shores are not far away, with the Isle of Thanet to the northward and London’s watering-place of Ramsgate on its outer verge. Here is Pegwell Bay, noted for its shrimps, and a short distance westward from Ramsgate is Osengal Hill, from which there is a fine view, the summit being covered by the graves of the first Saxon settlers of Thanet. To the northward a short distance is the sister watering-place of Margate, near the north-eastern extremity of Thanet and ninety miles from London: its pier is nine hundred feet long. On the extremity of Thanet, about three miles from Margate, is the great lighthouse of the North Foreland.

THE CINQUE PORTS.

Off the mouth of the Stour and the Goodwin Sands, and thence down the coast to Dover, is the narrowest part of the strait between England and France. This is a coast, therefore, that needed defence from the earliest times, and the cliff-castles and earthworks still remaining show how well it was watched. The Romans carefully fortified the entire line of cliffs from the Goodwin Sands to Beachy Head beyond Hastings. There were nine fortresses along the coast, which in later times were placed under control of a high official known as the “Count of the Saxon Shore,” whose duty was to protect this part of England against the piratical attacks of the Northern sea-rovers. These fortresses commanded the chief harbors and landing-places, and they marked the position of the famous Cinque Ports, whose fleet was the germ of the British navy. They were not thus named until after the Norman Conquest, when John de Fiennes appeared as the first warden. The Cinque Ports of later English history were Sandwich, Dover, Hythe, Romney, and Hastings, each of which had its minor ports or “limbs,” such as Deal, Walmer, Folkestone, Rye, Winchelsea, and Pevensey, that paid tribute to the head port and enjoyed part of its franchises. The duty of the Cinque Ports was to furnish fifty-seven ships whenever the king needed them, and he supplied part of the force to man them. In return the ports were given great freedom and privileges; their people were known as “barons,” were represented in Parliament, and at every coronation bore the canopy over the sovereign, carrying it on silver staves having small silver bells attached. The canopy was usually afterwards presented to Becket’s shrine at Canterbury, and its bearers after the coronation dined in Westminster Hall at the king’s right hand. But the glory of these redoubtable Cinque Ports has departed. Dover is the only one remaining in active service; Sandwich, Hythe, and Romney are no longer ports at all; while Hastings is in little better condition. The tides have gradually filled their shallow harbors with silt. Of the “limbs,” or lesser ports, two, Winchelsea and Pevensey, are now actually inland towns, the sea having completely retired from them. Such has also been the fate of Sandwich, which in the time of Canute was described as the most famous harbor of England. The coast has greatly changed, the shallow bays beyond the old shore-line, which is still visible, being raised into green meadows. In this way the water-course that made Thanet an island has been closed.

SANDWICH.

This silting up began at a remote era, closing one port after another, and Sandwich rose upon their decline. It is the most ancient of the Cinque Ports, and existed as a great harbor until about the year 1500, when it too began to silt up. In a century it was quite closed, traffic had passed away, and the town had assumed the fossilized appearance which is now chiefly remarked about it. Sandwich lingers as it existed in the Plantagenet days, time having mouldered it into quaint condition. Trees grow from the tops of the old walls, and also intrude upon the deep ditch with its round towers at the angles. Large open spaces, gardens, and orchards lie between the houses within the walls of the city. Going through the old gateway leading to the bridge crossing the Stour, a little church is found, with its roof tinted with yellowish lichens, and a bunch of houses below it covered with red, time-worn tiles, and the still and sleepy river near by. This was the very gate of that busy harbor which four centuries ago was the greatest in England and the resort of ships from all parts of the then known world. Its customs dues yielded $100,000 annually at the small rates imposed, and the great change that has been wrought can be imagined, as the visitor looks out over the once famous harbor to find it a mass of green meadows with venerable trees growing here and there. Sandwich has no main street, its winding, narrow and irregular passage-ways being left apparently to chance to seek out their routes, while a mass of houses is crushed together within the ancient walls, with church-towers as the only landmarks. These churches give the best testimony to the former wealth and importance of the town, the oldest being that of St. Clement, who was the patron of the seafarers. This church is rather large, with a central tower, while the pavement contains many memorials of the rich Sandwich merchants in times long agone. St. Peter’s Church remains only as a fragment; its tower has fallen and destroyed the south aisle. It contains a beautiful tomb erected to one of the former wardens of the Cinque Ports. The old code of laws of Sandwich, which still survives, shows close pattern after the Baltic towns of the Hanseatic League. Female criminals were drowned in the Guestling Brook, which falls into the Stour; others were buried alive in the “thief duns” near that stream. Close by the old water-gate of Sandwich is the Barbican, and from it a short view across the marshes discloses the ancient Roman town of Rutupiae and the closed-up port of Ebbsfleet, where Hengist and Horsa are said to have first landed. Here was the oyster-ground of the Romans, who loved the bivalves as well as their successors of to-day. Of the walls of the Roman town there still remain extensive traces, disclosing solid masonry of great thickness, composed of layers of rough boulders encased externally with regular courses of squared Portland stone. There are square towers at intervals along these walls, with loopholed apartments for the sentinels. Vast numbers of Roman coins have been found in and around this ancient city, over one hundred and forty thousand, it is said, having come to light, belonging to the decade between 287 and 297, when Britain was an independent Roman island. Passing southward along the coast, we skirt the natural harbor of the Downs, a haven of refuge embracing about twenty square miles of safe anchorage, and bounded on the east by the treacherous Goodwin Sands, where Shakespeare tells us “the carcase of many a tall ship lies buried.” It is possible at low water to visit and walk over portions of these shoals. They are quicksands of such character that if a ship strikes upon them she will in a few days be completely swallowed up. Modern precautions, however, have rendered them less formidable than formerly. The great storm of 1703, that destroyed the Eddystone Lighthouse, wrecked thirteen war-ships on the Goodwins, nearly all their crews perishing. As we look out over them from the low shores at Deal and Walmer below Sandwich, or the chalk-cliffs of Dover beyond, a fringe of breakers marks their line, while nearer the coast merchant-ships at anchor usually crowd the Downs. In Walmer Castle was the official residence of the lord warden of the Cinque Ports, an office that is soon to be abolished, and which many famous men have held. Here lived Pitt, and here died the Duke of Wellington, closing his great career.

DOVER.

Beyond, the coast rises up from the low sandy level, and rounding the South Foreland, on which is a fine electric lighthouse of modern construction, we come to the chalk-cliffs, on top of which are the dark towers of Dover Castle, from whose battlements the road descends to the town along the water’s edge and in the valley of the little stream that gives the place its name the Dour, which the Celts called the Dwr or “water,” and the Romans the Dubrae. The great keep of Dover dates from William Rufus’s reign, and is one of the many badges left in England of the Norman Conquest. There are earthworks at Dover, however, of much earlier origin, built for protection by the Celts and Romans, and forming part of the chain that guarded this celebrated coast, of which Dover, being at the narrowest part of the strait, was considered the key. But no such Norman castle rises elsewhere on these shores. “It was built by evil spirits,” writes a Bohemian traveller in the fifteenth century, “and is so strong that in no other part of Christendom can anything be found like it.” The northern turret on the keep rises four hundred and sixty-eight feet above the sea at the base of the hill, and from it can be had a complete observation of both the English and French coasts for many miles. Within the castle is the ancient Pharos, or watch-tower, a Roman work. Over upon the opposite side of the harbor is Shakespeare’s Cliff,

“ whose high and bending head Looks fearfully on the confined deep.”

There is no more impressive view in England than that from the Castle Hill of Dover, with the green fields and white chalk headlands stretching far away on either hand fringed by the breakers, the hills and harbors faintly seen across the strait in France, and the busy town of Dover lying at the foot of the cliff. This is half watering-place and half port of transit to the opposite coast. Its harbor is almost entirely artificial, and there has been much difficulty in keeping it open. That there is any port there now at all is due mainly to Raleigh’s advice, and there is at present a well-protected harbor of refuge, with a fine pier extending nearly a half mile into the sea, with a fort at the outer end. From the top of the hill there looks down upon this pier the Saluting-Battery Gate of the castle, within which is kept that curious specimen of ancient gunnery known as “Queen Elizabeth’s Pocket Pistol.”

Farther down the coast is the ancient “limb” of Dover, which has grown into the rival port of Folkestone. This modern port, created to aid the necessities of travel across the Channel, stands at the north-eastern corner of the Romney Marsh, a district that has been raised out of the sea and is steadily increasing in front of the older coast-line, shown by a range of hills stretching westward from Folkestone. This marsh has made the sea retreat fully three miles from Hythe, whose name signifies “the harbor,” though it is now an inland village, with a big church dedicated to St. Leonard, the deliverer of captives, who was always much reverenced in the Cinque Ports, their warlike sailors being frequently taken prisoner. In a crypt under its chancel is a large collection of skulls and bones, many of them bearing weapon scars and cuts, showing them to be relics of the wars. Beyond Hythe the Rother originally flowed into the Channel, but a great storm in the reign of Edward I. silted up its outlet, and the river changed its course over towards Rye, so as to avoid the Cinque port of Romney that was established on the western edge of the marshes to which it gave the name. Romney is now simply a village without any harbor, and of the five churches it formerly had, only the church of St. Nicholas remains as a landmark among the fens that have grown up around it, an almost treeless plain intersected by dykes and ditches.

RYE AND WINCHELSEA.

The unpicturesque coast is thrust out into the sea to the point at Dungeness where the lighthouse stands a beacon in a region full of peril to the navigator; and then the coast again recedes to the cove wherein is found the quaint old town of Rye, formerly an important “limb” of the Cinque port of Hastings. It has about the narrowest and crookedest streets in England, and the sea is two miles away from the line of steep and broken rock along which “Old Rye” stretches. The ancient houses, however, have a sort of harbor, formed by the junction of the three rivers, the Rother, Brede, and Tillingham, and thus Rye supports quite a fleet of fishing-craft. Thackeray has completely reproduced in Denis Duval the ancient character of this place, with its smuggling atmosphere varied with French touches given by the neighborhood of the Continent. Rye stands on one side of a marshy lowland, and Winchelsea about three miles distant on the other side. The original Winchelsea, we are told, was on lower ground, and, after frequent floodings, was finally destroyed by an inundation in 1287. King Edward I. founded the new town upon the hill above. It enjoyed a lucrative trade until the fifteenth century, when, like most of the others, its prosperity was blighted by the sea’s retiring. The harbor then became useless, the inhabitants left, the houses gradually disappeared, and, the historian says, the more massive buildings remaining “have a strangely spectral character, like owls seen by daylight.” Three old gates remain, including the Strand Gate, where King Edward nearly lost his life soon after the town was built. It appears that the horse on which he was riding, frightened by a windmill, leaped over the town-wall, and all gave up the king for dead. Luckily, however, he kept his saddle, and the horse, after slipping some distance down the incline, was checked, and Edward rode safely back through the gate. There is a fine church in Winchelsea St. Thomas of Canterbury within which are the tombs of Gervase Alard and his grandson Stephen. They were the most noted sailors of their time, and Gervase in 1300 was admiral of the fleet of the Cinque Ports, his grandson Stephen appearing as admiral in 1324. These were the earliest admirals known in England, the title, derived from the Arabic amir, having been imported from Sicily. Gervase was paid two shillings a day. At the house in Winchelsea called the “Friars” lived the noted highwaymen George and Joseph Weston, who during the last century plundered in all directions, and then atoned for it by the exercise of extensive charity in that town: one of them actually became a churchwarden.

HASTINGS AND PEVENSEY.

The cliffs come out to the edge of the sea at Winchelsea, and it is a pleasant walk along them to Hastings, with its ruined castle, the last of the Cinque Ports. This was never as important a port as the others, but the neighboring Sussex forests made it a convenient place for shipbuilding. The castle ruins are the only antiques at Hastings, which has been gradually transformed into a modern watering-place in a pretty situation. Its eastern end, however, has undergone little transition, and is still filled with the old-fashioned black-timber houses of the fishermen. The battle of Hastings, whereby William the Conqueror planted his standard on English soil, was fought about seven miles inland. His ships debarked their troops all along this coast, while St. Valery harbor in France, from which he sailed, is visible in clear weather across the Channel. William himself landed at Pevensey, farther westward, where there is an old fortress of Roman origin located in the walls of the ancient British-Roman town that the heathen Saxons had long before attacked, massacring the entire population. Pevensey still presents within these walls the Norman castle of the Eagle Honour, named from the powerful house of Aquila once possessing it. The Bayeux Tapestry depicts the landing of William at Pevensey, which was a “limb” of Hastings. Its Roman name was Anderida, the walls enclosing an irregular oval, the castle within being a pentagon, with towers at the angles. Beyond it the Sussex coast juts out at the bold white chalk promontory of Beachy Head.

A short distance inland from Pevensey is the great Sussex cattle-market at Hailsham, where the old Michelham Priory is used as a farm-house and its crypt as a dairy. Not far away is Hurstmonceux Castle, a relic of the times of Henry VI., and built entirely of brick, being probably the largest English structure of that material constructed since the Roman epoch. Only the shell of the castle remains, an interesting and picturesque specimen of the half fortress, half mansion of the latter days of feudalism. The main gateway on the southern front has flanking towers over eighty feet high, surmounted by watch-turrets from which the sea is visible. The walls are magnificently overgrown with ivy, contrasting beautifully with the red brick. Great trunks of ivy grow up from the dining-room, and all the inner courts are carpeted with green turf, with hazel-bushes appearing here and there among the ruined walls. A fine row of old chestnuts stands beyond the moat, and from the towers are distant views of Beachy Head, its white chalk-cliffs making one of the most prominent landmarks of the southern coast.

BRIGHTON.

Westward of Beachy Head is the noted watering-place of this southern coast, Brighton, the favorite resort of the Londoners, it being but fifty-one miles south of the metropolis. This was scarcely known as a fashionable resort until about 1780, when George IV., then the Prince of Wales, became its patron. Taken altogether, its large size, fine buildings, excellent situation, and elaborate decorations make Brighton probably the greatest sea-coast watering-place in Europe. It stretches for over three miles along the Channel upon a rather low shore, though in some places the cliffs rise considerably above the beach. Almost the entire sea-front, especially to the eastward, is protected by a strong sea-wall of an average height of sixty feet and twenty-three feet thick at the base. This wall cost $500,000 to build, and it supports a succession of terraces available for promenade and roadway. In front the surf rolls in upon a rather steep pebbly beach, upon which are the bathing-machines and boats. Along the beach, and behind the sea-wall, Brighton has a grand drive, the Marine Parade, sixty feet wide, extending for three miles along the shore and in front of the buildings, with broad promenades on the sea-side ornamented with lawns and gardens, and on the other side a succession of houses of such grand construction as to resemble rows of palaces, built of the cream-colored Portland stone. The houses of the town extend far back on the hillsides and into the valleys, and the permanent population of 130,000 is largely augmented during the height of the season October, November, and December. Enormous sums have been expended upon the decoration of this great resort, and its Marine Parade, when fashion goes there in the autumn, presents a grand scene. From this parade two great piers extend out into the water, and are used for promenades, being, like the entire city front, brilliantly illuminated at night. The eastern one is the Chain Pier, built in 1823 at a cost of $150,000, and extending eleven hundred and thirty-six feet into the sea. The West Pier, constructed about fifteen years ago, is somewhat broader, and stretches out eleven hundred and fifteen feet. Each of the piers expands into a wide platform at the outer end, that of the West Pier being one hundred and forty feet wide, and here bands play and there are brilliant illuminations. Both piers are of great strength, and only four cents admission is charged to them. Prince George built at Brighton a royal pavilion in imitation of the pagodas of the Indies, embosomed in trees and surrounded by gardens. This was originally the royal residence, but in 1850 the city bought it for $265,000 as a public assembly-room. The great attraction of Brighton, however, is the aquarium, the largest in the world, opened in 1872. It is constructed in front of the Parade, and, sunken below its level, stretches some fourteen hundred feet along the shore, and is one hundred feet wide, being surmounted by gardens and footwalks. It is set at this low level to facilitate the movement of the sea-water, and its design is to represent the fishes and marine animals as nearly as possible in their native haunts and habits, to do which, and not startle the fish, the visitors go through darkened passages, and are thus concealed from them, all the light coming in by refraction through the water. Their actions are thus natural, and they move about with perfect freedom, some of the tanks being of enormous size. Here swim schools of herring, mackerel, and porpoises as they do out at sea, the octopus gyrates his arms, and almost every fish that is known to the waters of that temperature is exhibited in thoroughly natural action. The tanks have been prepared most elaborately. The porpoises and larger fish have a range of at least one hundred feet, and rocks, savannahs, and everything else they are accustomed to are reproduced. The visitors walk through vaulted passages artistically decorated, and there is music to gladden the ear. This aquarium also shows the processes of fish-hatching, and has greatly increased the world’s stock of knowledge as to fish-habits. The tanks hold five hundred thousand gallons of fresh and salt water.

Back of Brighton are the famous South Downs, the chalk-hills of Sussex, which stretch over fifty miles parallel to the coast, and have a breadth of four or five miles, while they rise to an average height of five hundred feet, their highest point being Ditchling Beacon, north of Brighton, rising eight hundred and fifty-eight feet. They disclose picturesque scenery, and the railways from London wind through their valleys and dart into the tunnels under their hills, whose tops disclose the gyrating sails of an army of windmills, while over their slopes roam the flocks of well-tended sheep that ultimately become the the much-prized South Down mutton. The chalk-cliffs bordering the Downs slope to the sea, and in front are numerous little towns, for the whole coast is dotted with watering-places. A few miles east of Brighton is the port of New Haven on a much-travelled route across the Channel to Dieppe.

WISTON PARK.

To the westward of Brighton and in the South Downs is the antique village of Steyning, near which is Rev. John Goring’s home at Wiston Manor, an Elizabethan mansion of much historical interest and commanding views of extreme beauty. This is one of the most attractive places in the South Downs, a grand park with noble trees, herds of deer wandering over the grass, and the great ring of trees on top of Chanctonbury Hill, planted in 1760. Charles Goring, the father of the present owner, planted these trees in his early life, and sixty-eight years afterwards, in 1828, he then being eighty-five years old, addressed these lines to the hill:

“How oft around thy Ring, sweet Hill, a boy I used to play, And form my plans to plant thy top on some auspicious day! How oft among thy broken turf with what delight I trod! With what delight I placed those twigs beneath thy maiden sod! And then an almost hopeless wish would creep within my breast: ‘Oh, could I live to see thy top in all its beauty dressed!’ That time’s arrived; I’ve had my wish, and lived to eighty-five; I’ll thank my God, who gave such grace, as long as e’er I live; Still when the morning sun in spring, whilst I enjoy my sight, Shall gild thy new clothed Beech and sides, I’ll view thee with delight.”

The house originally belonged to Earl Godwine, and has had a strange history. One of its lords was starved to death at Windsor by King John; Llewellyn murdered another at a banquet; a third fell from his horse and was killed. Later, it belonged to the Shirleys, one of whom married a Persian princess; it has been held by the Görings for a long period. This interesting old mansion has a venerable church adjoining it, surmounted by an ivy-clad tower. Chanctonbury Hill rises eight hundred and fourteen feet, and its ring of trees, which can be seen for many miles, is planted on a circular mound surrounded by a trench, an ancient fortification. From it there is a grand view over Surrey and Sussex and to the sea beyond a view stretching from Windsor Castle to Portsmouth, a panorama of rural beauty that cannot be excelled.

ARUNDEL CASTLE.

The little river Arun flows from the South Downs into the sea, and standing upon its banks is Arundel Castle, which gives the title of earl to the unfortunate infant son and heir of the Duke of Norfolk, whose blindness shows that even the greatest wealth and highest rank do not command all things in this world. A village of two steep streets mounts up the hill from the river-bank to the castle, which has unusual interest from its striking position and the long line of its noble owners the Fitzalans and Howards. The extensive ramparts surround a ponderous keep and there are fine views in all directions. This is a favorite home of the Duke of Norfolk, and is surrounded by an extensive park. The tombs of his ancestors are in the old parish church of St. Nicholas, built in the fourteenth century, alongside which the duke has recently constructed a magnificent Roman Catholic church in Decorated Gothic at a cost of $500,000. The architect of this church was Mr. Hansom, who invented for the benefit of London the Hansom cab. Westward of Arundel is Chichester, distinguished for its cathedral and cross, the ancient Regnum of the Romans. The cathedral, recently restored, is peculiar from having five aisles with a long and narrow choir. Here is buried Richard Fitzalan, Earl of Arundel in the fourteenth century. This cathedral has a consistory court over the southern porch, reached by a spiral staircase, from which a sliding door opens into the Lollards’ Dungeon. It has a detached campanile or bell-tower rising on the north-western side, the only example in England of such an attachment to a cathedral. The Chichester market-cross, standing at the intersection of four streets in the centre of the town, is four hundred years old. In front of Chichester, but nine miles away, the low peninsula of Selsey Bill projects into the sea and is the resort of innumerable wild-fowl. Three miles out of town is Goodwood, where the races are held. Goodwood is the seat of the Duke of Richmond and Gordon, who has a fine park, and a valuable picture-gallery particularly rich in historical portraits. At Bigner, twelve miles from Chichester over the chalk-downs, are the remains of an extensive Roman villa, the buildings and pavements having been exhumed for a space of six hundred by three hundred and fifty feet. The Rother, a tributary of the Arun, flows down from Midhurst, where are the ruins of Cowdray, an ancient Tudor stronghold that was burned in 1793, its walls being now finely overgrown with ivy. Dunford House, near Midhurst, was the estate presented to Richard Cobden by the “Anti-Corn Law League.”

SELBORNE.

Crossing from Midhurst over the border into Hampshire, the village of Selborne is reached, one of the smallest but best known places in England from the care and minuteness with which Rev. Gilbert White has described it in his Natural History of Selborne. It is a short distance south-east of Alton and about fifty miles south-west of London, while beyond the village the chalk-hills rise to a height of three hundred feet, having a long hanging wood on the brow, known as the Hanger, made up mainly of beech trees. The village is a single straggling street three-quarters of a mile in length, in a sheltered valley and running parallel with the Hanger. At each end of Selborne there rises a small rivulet, the one to the south becoming a branch of the Arun and flowing into the Channel, while the other is a branch of the Wey, which falls into the Thames. This is the pleasant little place, located in a broad parish, that Gilbert White has made famous, writing of everything concerning it, but more especially of its natural history and peculiarities of soil, its trees, fruits, and animal life. He was born at Selborne in 1720, and died there in 1793, in his seventy-third year. He was the father of English natural history, for much of what he wrote was equally applicable to other parts of the kingdom. His modest house, now overgrown with ivy, is one of the most interesting buildings in the village, and in it they still keep his study about as he left it, with the close-fronted bookcase protected by brass wire-netting, to which hangs his thermometer just where he originally placed it. The house has been little if any altered since he was carried to his last resting-place. He is described by those who knew him as “a little thin, prim, upright man,” a quiet, unassuming, but very observing country parson, who occupied his time in watching and recording the habits of his parishioners, quadruped as well as feathered. At the end of the garden is still kept his sun-dial, the lawn around which is one of the softest and most perfect grass carpets in England.

The pleasant little church over which White presided is as modest and almost as attractive as his house. It was dedicated to the Virgin Mary, and measures fifty-four by forty-seven feet, being almost as broad as it is long, consisting of three aisles, and making no pretensions, he says, to antiquity. It was built in Henry VII.’s reign, is perfectly plain and unadorned, and without painted glass, carved work, sculpture, or tracery. Within it, however, are low, squat, thick pillars supporting the roof, which he thinks are Saxon and upheld the roof of a former church, which, falling into decay, was rebuilt on these massive props because their strength had preserved them from the injuries of time. They support blunt Gothic arches. He writes that he remembers when the beams of the middle aisle were hung with garlands in honor of young women of the parish who died virgins. Within the chancel is his memorial on the wall, and he rests in an unassuming grave in the churchyard. The belfry is a square embattled tower forty-five feet high, built at the western end, and he tells pleasantly how the three old bells were cast into four in 1735, and a parishioner added a fifth one at his own expense, marking its arrival by a high festival in the village, “rendered more joyous by an order from the donor that the treble bell should be fixed bottom upward in the ground and filled with punch, of which all present were permitted to partake.” The porch of the church to the southward is modern and shelters a fine Gothic doorway, whose folding doors are evidently of ancient construction. The vicarage stands alongside to the westward, an old Elizabethan house.

Among the singular things in Selborne to which White calls attention are two rocky hollow lanes, one of which leads to Alton. These roads have, by the traffic of ages and the running of water, been worn down through the first stratum of freestone and partly through the second, so that they look more like water-courses than roads. In many places they have thus been sunken as much as eighteen feet beneath the level of the fields alongside, so that torrents rush along them in rainy weather, with miniature cascades on either hand that are frozen into icicles in winter. These lanes, thus rugged and gloomy, affright the timid, but, gladly writes our author, they “delight the naturalist with their various botany.” The old mill at Selborne, with its dilapidated windsails, presents a picturesque appearance, and up on the chalk-hills, where there is a far-away view over the pleasant vale beyond, is the Wishing Stone, erected on a little mound among the trees. All these things attracted our author’s close attention, and as his parish was over thirty miles in circumference, as may be supposed his investigations covered a good deal of ground. His work is chiefly written in the form of a series of letters to friends, and he occasionally digresses over the border into the neighboring parishes to speak of their peculiarities or attractions. They all had in his day little churches, and the parish church of Greatham, not far from Selborne, is a specimen of the antique construction of the diminutive chapels that his ancestors handed down to their children for places of worship, each surrounded by its setting of ancient gravestones. The History of Selborne shows how the country parson in the olden time, whose flock was small, parish isolated, and visitors few, amused himself; but he has left an enduring monument that grows the more valuable as the years advance. In fact, it is a text-book of natural history; and so complete have been his observations that he not only describes all the plants and animals, birds, rocks, soils, and buildings, but he also has space to devote to the cats of Selborne, and to tell how they prowl in the roadway and mount the tiled roofs to capture the chimney swallows. How he loved his home is shown in the poem with which his work begins. We quote the opening stanza, and also some other characteristic portions of this ode, which describes the attractions of Selborne in the last century:

“See Selborne spreads her boldest beauties round, The varied valley, and the mountain ground Wildly majestic: what is all the pride Of flats with loads of ornament supplied? Unpleasing, tasteless, impotent expense, Compared with Nature’s rude magnificence. Oft on some evening, sunny, soft, and still, The Muse shall hand thee to the beech-grown hill, To spend in tea the cool, refreshful hour, Where nods in air the pensile, nest-like bower; Or where the Hermit hangs his straw-clad cell, Emerging gently from the leafy dell: Romantic spot! from whence in prospect lies Whate’er of landscape charms our feasting eyes; The pointed spire, the hall, the pasture-plain, The russet fallow, and the golden grain; The breezy lake that sheds a gleaming light, Till all the fading picture fails the sight.... Now climb the steep, drop now your eye below, Where round the verdurous village orchards blow; There, like a picture, lies my lowly seat, A rural, sheltered, unobserved retreat. Me far above the rest, Selbornian scenes. The pendant forest and the mountain-greens, Strike with delight: ... There spreads the distant view That gradual fades, till sunk in misty blue.”

WINCHESTER.

About sixteen miles south-west of Selborne is the chief city of Hampshire and one of the great historical cities of the realm Winchester built on the side of a chalk-hill rising from the valley of the Itchen, a stream that was Izaak Walton’s favorite fishing-ground. This was the Roman Venta Belgarum, and was made an episcopal see in the seventh century. Nothing remains of the earlier cathedral, which was replaced by the present structure, begun in the eleventh century, but not finished until the fifteenth. Winchester Cathedral is five hundred and sixty feet long, and its nave is in the highest degree impressive, being the longest in England, extending two hundred and sixty-five feet. The western front has recently been restored. Within the cathedral are many noted tombs, including that of William Rufus, and above the altar is West’s painting of the “Raising of Lazarus.” In the presbytery are six mortuary chests containing the remains of kings and bishops of the ancient Saxon kingdom of Wessex. St. Swithin’s shrine was the treasure of Winchester: he was bishop in the ninth century and the especial patron of the city and cathedral. Originally interred in the churchyard, his remains were removed to the golden shrine given by King Edgar, though tradition says this was delayed by forty days of rain, which is the foundation of the popular belief in the continuance of wet weather after St. Swithin’s Day, July 15. In the Lady Chapel, Queen Mary was married to Philip of Spain in 1554, and the chair on which she sat is still preserved there. The cathedral close is extremely picturesque, surrounded by houses of considerable antiquity. Among the prelates of Winchester were William of Wykeham and Cardinal Beaufort: the former founded St. Mary’s College there in the fourteenth century a fine structure, with the picturesque ruins of the old palace of the bishops, Wolvesey Castle, near by; the latter, in the fifteenth century, built Cardinal Beaufort’s Tower and Gateway in the southern suburbs, on the Southampton road, when he revived the foundation of St. Cross. This noble gateway, when approached from the city, is seen through the foliage, with a background of quaint high chimneys, church, and green leaves. The river Itchen flows alongside the road, half hidden among the trees. The St. Cross Hospital, with the thirteen brethren still living there in their black gowns and silver crosses, gives a vivid picture of ancient England. Adjoining the gateway on the left hand is the brewery, formerly known as the “Hundred Men’s Hall,” because a hundred of the poorest men in Winchester were daily entertained there at dinner, and, as the repast was provided on a bountiful scale, the guests always had ample provisions to carry home to their families. The tower and surrounding buildings are excellent examples of the domestic architecture of the fifteenth century. In this hospital the custom still prevails of giving the wayfarer a horn of ale and dole of bread, the ale being brewed on the premises and of the same kind made there centuries ago. The old West Gate of Winchester, the only survivor of the city’s four gates, is a well-preserved specimen of the military architecture of the time of Henry III. Winchester Castle was originally built by William the Norman, and continued a residence of the kings until Henry III., but of it little remains beyond the hall and some subterranean fragments. Here hangs on the wall what is said to be the top of King Arthur’s round table. There is a beautiful cross in Winchester, recently restored, and originally erected on the High Street by Cardinal Beaufort, who seems to have spent much of his vast and ill-gotten wealth in splendid architectural works. Shakespeare introduces him in Henry VI., and in the scene that closes his career truthfully depicts him:

“If thou be’st death, I’ll give thee England’s treasure, Enough to purchase such another island. So thou wilt let me live and feel no pain.”

THE NEW FOREST.

The Itchen flows into the estuary of Southampton Water, and from its western shores spreads far away the domain of the New Forest, stretching down into the south-western part of Hampshire. This is a remnant of the forests that once covered the greater part of the island, and is the most extensive left in the English lowlands. It was made a royal forest by William the Norman, and thus continues to the present time, the largest tract of uncultivated land and one of the finest examples of woodland scenery in the kingdom. It covers almost the whole surface between Southampton Water and the Avon, which is the western border of Hampshire, but in recent years its area has been gradually curtailed, though its extent has never been accurately measured. Stretching about fifteen miles from east to west and twenty miles from north-west to south-east, it includes about ninety-one thousand acres, of which twenty-six thousand belong to private landowners, two thousand are the absolute property of the Crown, and the remaining sixty-three thousand acres have common and other rights due to a large number of tenants, though the title is in the Crown. About twenty-five thousand acres are covered with timber, but only five thousand acres of this is old timber, the remainder having been planted with trees within the last two hundred years. The surface is gently undulating, becoming hilly in the northern parts; the soil is usually arid, and the scenery discloses wide expanses of heathery moor, often marshy in the lower grounds, with here and there copses that gradually thicken into woodland as the true forest district is approached. The chief trees are oak and beech, which attain to noble proportions, while there are occasional tufts of holly and undergrowth.

Almost in the centre of the forest is the village of Lyndhurst, regarded as the best point of departure for its survey a hamlet with one long street and houses dotted about on the flanks of a hill, the summit of which is adorned by a newly-built church of red brick with bath-stone dressings. Within this church is Sir Frederick Leighton’s fresco of the “Wise and Foolish Virgins.” In the ponderous “Queen’s House,” near the church, lives the chief official of the forest, and here are held the courts. Formerly, this official was always a prince royal and known as the lord warden, but now his powers are vested in the “First Commissioner of Woods and Forests:” here the poacher was in former days severely punished. The New Forest was originally not only a place for the king’s pleasure in the chase, but it also furnished timber for the royal navy, though this fell into disuse in the Civil War. Subsequently parts were replanted, and William III. planted by degrees six thousand acres with trees. The great storm of 1703 uprooted four thousand fine trees, and then again there was partial neglect, and it was not until within a half century that a serious effort was made to fully restore the timber. There have now been ten thousand acres planted: a nursery for young trees has been established, and about seven hundred acres are annually planted, the young oaks being set out between Scotch firs, whose more rapid growth protects the saplings from the gales, and when they are able to stand alone the firs are thinned out. About four miles north of Lyndhurst and beyond Minstead is Rufus’s Stone. Around Minstead Manor the land has long been enclosed and cultivated, and looks as little like a wild forest as can be imagined, while northward the ground rises to the top of Stony Cross Hill, disclosing one of the finest views in this region, looking down over a wide valley, with cultivated fields on its opposite sides and woodland beyond, gently shelving to Southampton Water, of which occasional glimpses may be had. There is an abundance of woodland everywhere, checquered by green lawns. At our back is the enclosed park, within which some intrenchments mark the site of Castle Malwood, where tradition says that William Rufus passed the night previous to his death. The king just before dawn aroused his attendants by a sudden outcry, and rushing into the chamber they found him in such agitation that they remained there until morning. He had dreamed he was being bled, and that the stream from his veins was so copious that it rose to the sky, obscuring the sun. The daylight also brought other omens: a foreign monk at the court had been dreaming, and saw the king enter a church, seize the rood, and rend it with his teeth; the holy image at first submitted to the insult, then struck down the king, who, while prostrate, vomited fire and smoke which masked the stars. The king, whose courage had returned with daylight, made light of the monk’s tale, though he did not go to hunt as usual that morning, but after dinner, having taken liberal drafts of wine, rode out with a small party, including Walter Tyril, lord of Pontoise, lately arrived from Normandy. They hunted throughout the afternoon, and near sunset the king and Tyril found themselves alone in a glade below the castle. A stag bounded by, and the king unsuccessfully shot at him; then another ran past, when Tyril shot his arrow, bidden, as tradition says, by the king “in the devil’s name.” The arrow struck William Rufus full in the chest, and he dropped lifeless. Tyril, putting spurs to his horse, galloped westward to a ford across the Avon into Dorsetshire. Soon after a charcoal-burner named Purkis, whose descendants still live in the New Forest, came past, found the king’s body, and, placing it on his cart, bore it, still bleeding, to Winchester. Tyril’s arrow had glanced from a tree, which long existed, but, decaying centuries afterward, Rufus’s Stone was set up to mark the spot. This became mutilated, and has been enclosed in an iron casing, with copies of the original inscriptions on the outside. It is now a cast-iron pillar about five feet high, with a grating at the top, through which may be seen the stone within. It stands on a gentle slope, not quite at the bottom of the valley, with pretty scenery around. Tyril got his horse shod at the Avon ford, for which offence the blacksmith afterwards paid an annual fine to the Crown. He was not very hotly pursued, however, and made his escape into Normandy, where he sturdily denied that the arrow was shot by him at all, laying the blame to a conspiracy of the king’s enemies, of whom he had many.

Southward from Lyndhurst the road goes over undulating ground and through magnificent oaks and beeches to Brockenhurst, past a heronry at Vinney Ridge. This section contains some of the finest trees in the forest, with plenty of dense holly and an occasional yew. The ground discloses the bracken fern, and gray lichen clings thickly to the trunks and branches of the trees. The woodland views along this road are splendid, and only need the wild animals of a former era to bring back the forest-life of mediaeval times. Off to the eastward, standing on the little river Exe, are the foliage-clad ruins of Beaulieu Abbey, founded by King John, and now held by the Duke of Buccleuch, who has a mansion near by. Here was buried John’s mother, Eleanor of Aquitaine, and here came the widow of Warwick the King-maker, after the battle of Barnet, for sanctuary. Perkin Warbeck when defeated also took refuge at Beaulieu, where he surrendered on promise of mercy. The abbey is a wreck now, for after its dissolution we are told that its stones “went to build Henry VIII.’s martello tower at Hurst, and its lead to repair Calshot” on Southampton Water, while the gate-house serves as the entrance to the modern ducal mansion, and the refectory is the parish church. Here are the tombs of Mary Dore and Mary Do. The former was a noted witch, “who could transform herself into a hare or cat, and afflict or cure all the cattle in the neighborhood.” The latter is credited with more celestial attributes in the obituary that survives her than were allotted her unfortunate companion; and the acrostic inscription on her tomb is often quoted:

“Merciless fate (to our greate griefe and woe) A prey hath here made of our deere Moll Do, Rapte up in duste and hid in earthe and claye, Yet live her soule and virtues now and aye; Death is a debt all owe which must be paide Oh that she knew, and of it was not afraide!”

To the westward of Beaulieu is Brockenhurst, a pretty forest village, along whose main street we are told the deer formerly galloped on a winter’s night, to the great excitement of all the dogs therein. The forest almost blends with the village-green, and on a low artificial mound stands its church, with traces of almost every style of architecture since the Conquest, and guarded by a famous yew and oak. At Boldre, near Brockenhurst, lived Rev. W. Gilpin, the vicar of the parish, the author of several works on sylvan scenery, and reputed to be the original of the noted Dr. Syntax, who made such a humorous “Tour in Search of the Picturesque.” He now lies at rest under a maple alongside his church, in which Southey was married. Ringwood is the chief town of the western forest-border upon the level plain that forms the Avon Valley where Tyril escaped across the ford. It is not a very interesting place. A little way up the river, near Horton, “King Monmouth” was captured after Sedgemoor, and from Ringwood he wrote the abject letters begging his life from King James, who turned a deaf ear to all entreaty. Alice Lisle, who was judicially murdered by Judge Jeffreys for sheltering two refugees from that battle, also lived at Moyle Court, near Ringwood. The chief inn is the “White Hart,” named in memory of Henry VII.’s hunt in the New Forest, where the game, a white hart, showed fine running throughout the day, and ultimately stood at bay in a meadow near the village, when, at the intercession of the ladies, the hounds were called off, the hart secured, given a gold collar, and taken to Windsor. The inn where the king partook of refreshments that day had its sign changed to the White Hart. It was at Bisterne, below Ringwood, that Madonie of Berkeley Castle slew the dragon, for which feat King Edward IV. knighted him a tale that the incredulous will find confirmed by the deed still preserved in Berkeley Castle which records the event, confers the knighthood, and gives him permission to wear the dragon as his badge.

CHRISTCHURCH.

From Brockenhurst the Lymington River flows southward out of the New Forest into the Solent, across which is the Isle of Wight, steamers connecting Lymington at the mouth of the river with Yarmouth on the island. About twelve miles westward from Lymington is Christchurch, at the confluence of the Avon and Stour Rivers, which here form the estuary known as Christchurch Bay. The Avon flows down past Ringwood on the western verge of the New Forest, its lower valley being a wide grassy trough in a rolling plateau of slight elevation. The moors, with many parts too arid for cultivation, extend to the sea, having glens here and there whose sandy slopes are often thickly wooded, and whose beds are traversed by the “bournes” that give names to so many localities in this region. Along all the sea-border fashionable watering-places are springing up, which enjoy views over the water to the distant chalk-downs of the Isle of Wight, one of the best being that from Boscombe Chine. Through this land the Avon flows, and the Stour enters it from the west, with the ancient town of Christchurch standing on the broad angle between them. It is of Roman origin, and the remains of a British castle crown the neighboring promontory of Hengistbury Head. The chief attraction is the magnificent Priory Church, founded before the Norman Conquest, but rebuilt afterwards and dedicated to the Holy Trinity. The ancient town was known as Twynham from the two rivers, and it then became Christchurch-at-Twynham, but the original name was ultimately dropped. It was a royal demesne in Edward I.’s reign, and Edward III. granted it to the Earl of Salisbury, whose countess was the heroine of the institution of the Order of the Garter. It is a sleepy, old-fashioned place, with little of interest excepting the Priory Church and the castle. The square church-tower rises high above the Avon, a landmark from afar, its mass of gray masonry catching the eye from away over the sea. The church is of large dimensions, cruciform in plan, with short transepts, and a Lady chapel having the unusual peculiarity of an upper story. It is about three hundred and ten feet long, with the tower at the western end, and a large northern porch. The oldest part of the church was built in the twelfth century by Flambard, Bishop of Durham, who was granted this priory by William Rufus. Subsequently, he fell into disfavor, and the priory became a college of the Augustinians. Only the nave and transepts are left of his Norman church, the remainder being of later construction. The north porch, which has an extremely rich Decorated doorway, is of unusual size, having an upper chamber, and dating from the thirteenth century. The nave is of great beauty, being separated from the aisles by massive semicircular arches, rich in general effect, with a triforium above consisting of a double arcade, making it worthy to compete with the finest naves in England. The clerestory is more modern, being of Pointed Gothic, and the aisles are also of later construction: the northern aisle contains a beam to which is attached the legend that the timber was drawn out as if an elastic material “by the touch of a strange workman who wrought without wages and never spoke a word with his fellows.” The western tower is of Perpendicular architecture, added by the later builders, and beneath it is the handsome marble monument erected to the memory of the poet Shelley, drowned at Spezzia in 1822: his family lived near Christchurch. The tower contains a peal of eight bells, two of them ancient, and from the belfry there is a noble view over the valleys of the two rivers, the distant moorlands and woods of the New Forest, the estuary winding seaward and glittering in the sun, while beneath are the houses and gardens of the town spread out as on a map. Among the many monuments in the church is that to Margaret, Countess of Salisbury, the last of the line who possessed the priory, and the closing heiress of the race of Plantagenets. She was the mother of Cardinal Pole, who upheld the cause of the pope against Henry VIII., and she was a prisoner in the Tower, held as hostage for his good behavior. At seventy years of age she was ordered out for execution, but refused to lay her head upon the block, saying, “So should traitors do, and I am none.” Then, the historian says, “turning her gray head in every way, she bade the executioner, if he would have her head, to get it as he could, so that he was constrained to fetch it off slovenly.” She was beheaded in May, 1541, being too near in kinship to the throne to be allowed to live. Little is left of the ancient priory buildings beyond the ruins of the old Norman gateway. The castle of Christchurch has also almost disappeared, leaving only massive fragments of the wall of the keep crowning a mound. It was of slight historical importance; and a more perfect relic is the ruin of the ancient Norman house standing near by on the bank of the Stour, an ivy-clad shell of masonry still showing the staircase and interior apartments. This crumbling memorial of the twelfth century was the home of Baldwin de Redvers, then Earl of Devon.

SOUTHAMPTON.

Crossing over the New Forest back to the Southampton Water on its eastern border, the river Itchen debouches on the farther shore near the head of the estuary, making a peninsula; and here is the celebrated port of Southampton, located between the river Itchen and the river Test, and having an excellent harbor. The Southampton Water extends from the Red Bridge, a short distance above the city, to Calshot Castle, about seven miles below, and varies in breadth from a mile and a half to two miles, the entrance being well protected by the Isle of Wight, which gives the harbor the peculiarity of four tides in the twenty-four hours double the usual number, owing to the island intercepting a portion of the tidal wave in its flow both ways along the Channel. Southampton comes down from the Romans, and remains of their camp, Clausentum, now known as Bittern Manor, are still to be seen in the suburbs, while parts of the Saxon walls and two of the old gates of the town are yet preserved. The Danes sacked it in the tenth century, and afterwards it was the occasional residence of Canute, its shore being said to be the scene of his rebuke to his courtiers when he commanded the tide to cease advancing and it disobeyed. Southampton was destroyed by foreign invaders in the fourteenth century, and rebuilt by Richard II. and strongly fortified. For many years it was a watering-place, but within half a century extensive docks have been built, and it has become a great seaport, being the point of departure for steamship-lines to all parts of the world, especially the East Indies and America, as it is but seventy miles south-west of London, and thus shortens the sea voyage for trade from the metropolis. The harbor is a fine one, the channel being deep and straight, and affording good anchorage. In exploring the antiquities of Southampton the visitor will be attracted by an ancient house of the Plantagenet period located on St. Michael’s Square, said to have been occupied by Henry VIII. and Anne Boleyn, and the remains of the town-walls. The old Bargate in these walls crosses the High Street, dividing it into “Above Bar” and “Below Bar.” In the ancient walls are the antique towers known as Arundel Tower and Catch-Cold Tower, and also a house (one of the oldest in England) built anterior to the twelfth century, and known as King John’s Palace. Southampton Park, called the Common, is a pretty enclosure of three hundred and sixty acres just north of the city. The picturesque ruins of Netley Abbey are about three miles south of the city, and near them is the Royal Victoria Hospital, established just after the Crimean War, both of them on the eastern bank of Southampton Water.

PORTSMOUTH.

We will follow Southampton Water down to its entrance, where the two broad channels dividing the Isle of Wight from the mainland the Solent and Spithead join, and at the point jutting out on the western angle pass Calshot Castle, founded for coast-defence by Henry VIII., and now occupied by the coast-guard. Skirting along Spithead, which is a prolongation of the Southampton Water, without change of direction, at about twenty miles from Southampton we round Gillkicker Point, forming the western boundary of Portsmouth harbor. Here is Gosport, and east of it is Portsea Island, about four miles long and two and a half miles broad, on which Portsmouth is located, with its suburbs known as Portsea, Landport, and Southsea. Portsmouth is on the south-western part of the island, separated from Portsea by a small stream to the northward, both being united in a formidable fortress whose works would require thirteen thousand men to man, though the ordinary garrison is about twenty-five hundred. The royal dockyard, covering one hundred and twenty acres, is at Portsea, and at Gosport, opposite, are the storehouses, the channel between them, which extends for several miles between Portsea Island and the mainland, gradually widening until it attains three miles’ breadth at its northern extremity. This channel affords anchorage for the largest vessels, and is defended by Southsea Castle on the eastern side and Moncton Fort on the western side of the entrance into Spithead, where the roadstead is sheltered by the Isle of Wight. Portsmouth was a port in the days of the Saxons, who in the sixth century called it Portsmuthe. It fitted out a fleet of nine ships to aid King Alfred defeat the Danes, and its vessels ineffectually endeavored to intercept the Normans when they landed near Hastings. In the fourteenth century the French burned the town, but were afterwards defeated with heavy loss. Ever since then the fortifications have been gradually improved, until now it is one of the strongest British fortresses. The Duke of Buckingham was murdered here in 1628, and part of the house where he was killed still remains. In 1757, Admiral Byng was executed here, and in 1782 the ship “Royal George” was sunk with Admiral Kempenfelt and “twice four hundred men.” The town of Portsmouth contains little that is attractive beyond its ancient church of St. Thomas a Becket, built in the reign of Henry II., and containing on its register the record of the marriage of Charles II. with Catharine of Braganza in 1662. This marriage took place in the garrison chapel, which was originally the hospital of St. Nicholas, founded in the time of Henry III. The chief place of interest is the dockyard at Portsea, the entrance to which, by the Common Hard, or terrace fronting the harbor, bears the date of 1711. Here they have many relics of famous ships, and also vast numbers of boats, and all kinds of materials for building war-vessels, especially iron and armor-plated ships, with the docks and slips for their construction. Off the dockyard lies at anchor the most famous of the “wooden walls of old England,” the “Victory,” the ship in which Nelson died at Trafalgar, then the most powerful vessel of the British navy. Near her is anchored another celebrated man-of-war, the port-admiral’s flag-ship, the “Duke of Wellington.” The stores across the harbor at Gosport are on a large scale, and are known as the Royal Clarence Victualling Yard. In the southern part of Gosport is the Haslar Hospital for sick and disabled sailors and soldiers. From Gillkicker Point beyond, a sandbank stretches about three miles out from the shore in a south-easterly direction, and is called the Spit. This gives the name to the roadstead of Spithead, west of which is the quarantine station of Motherbank. This is the great roadstead of the British navy, and in the miles of docks, sheds, forges, basins, and shops of Portsmouth harbor that weary the tourist, who thinks he ought to dutifully go through them, are fashioned many of the monster iron-clads that modern improvements have made necessary in naval architecture.

THE ISLE OF WIGHT.

Crossing over the narrow strait for there is ample opportunity by several routes we will complete this English tour by a journey beyond the Solent and Spithead to the Isle of Wight. This island, formed like an irregular lozenge about twenty-two miles long and thirteen broad, is rich in scientific and historical associations, and a marvel of climate and scenery. Its name of Wight is said to preserve the British word “gwyth,” the original name having been “Ynys-gwyth,” or the “Channel Island.” The Roman name was “Vectis,” Rome having conquered it in Claudius’ time. The English descended upon it in the early part of the sixth century, and captured its chief stronghold, Whitgarasbyrg, now Carisbrooke Castle. It afterwards became part of the Saxon kingdom of Wessex, and St. Wilfrid, Archbishop of York, is said to have converted its people to Christianity. Then the Danes devastated it, and after the Norman Conquest it was subdued by Fitzosborne, Earl of Hereford, whose descendants ruled it until Edward I. recovered the wardenship for the Crown. Richard II. granted it to the Earl of Salisbury, and Henry VI. created the Earl of Warwick, Henry Beauchamp, “king of the Isle of Wight,” crowning him with his own hands. The title reverted to the Crown in the time of Henry VII. The French several times invaded the island, and it was the intention of the leaders of the Spanish Armada to capture and use it as a base for operations against England, but the English fleet harassed them so badly that they had to sail past without effecting a landing. In the Civil War the Isle of Wight made a considerable figure.

Beginning at the western end of the lozenge-shaped island, beyond which are the Needles, the entrance to the Solent is found defended by successive batteries on every headland, with Hurst Castle on the Hampshire shore. High Down, with its fine chalk-cliffs, rises six hundred feet above the sea, being haunted by numerous sea-gulls, and under it is Scratchell’s Cave, a singular recess in the rock accessible only by boat. Sheltered by the bold headland is Alum Bay, with its tinted sands, gray, buff, and red, and from Headon Hill, its eastern boundary, the coast stretches away to Yarmouth, a little town on the Solent, where are the remains of one of the defensive blockhouses built by Henry VIII. The shores of the strait trend to the north-east, with pleasant views across on the coast of Hampshire, until the northernmost point of the Isle of Wight is reached, where its chief stream, the Medina, flows into the strait through an estuary about five hundred yards wide. Here is Cowes, divided by the river into the West Cow and the East Cow, the plural form of the name being modern. It is a popular bathing-place, but gets the most fame from being the headquarters of the Royal Yacht Club; their house is the old castle at the Medina entrance, built by Henry VIII., it is said, with portions of the masonry of Beaulieu Abbey. The harbor, at the proper season, is usually dotted with yachts. There is steam communication with the mainland, and a railway runs inland to Newport, the chief town of the island. Near East Cowes is Whippingham, which was the birthplace of Dr. Arnold, the famous head-master of Rugby School. Ascending the Medina, the beautiful park and gardens of Osborne House, the marine residence of Queen Victoria, border its eastern margin. This was the ancient manor of Austerbourne, and its owner in the Civil War buried all his money and plate in an adjoining wood, called the Money Copse, so as to preserve it. When peaceful days came back he went to get it, but found he had concealed it so thoroughly that it could not be recovered. The queen bought the estate in 1844, and the plain mansion was extended into an elegant marine villa just back from the sea-coast. It was the queen’s childhood attachment to the locality that made her settle here, for when a young princess she had passed many pleasant days in the neighboring Norris Castle.

East of the Medina the coast trends to the south-east, the shores being lined by fine villas surrounded with highly-cultivated grounds; indeed, the coast of the strait seems like an extended park. Here, opposite Portsmouth, is the famous watering-place of Ryde, in a beautiful situation, and with railways running across the island to Sandown and Ventnor. The land steeply rises from the sea, with the town stretching along its slope, a panorama of villas whose trees grow down to the water’s edge. It is an ancient town, having existed in the reign of Richard II., when the French burned it, but none of the present buildings are of much antiquity, it having in later years been gradually converted into a fashionable watering-place. The pier is the popular promenade, and the Spithead roadstead in front is closely connected with English naval history. It was here that the “Royal George” went down on a calm day and drowned her admiral and eight hundred men: she was careened over, the better to make some repairs, and, a squall striking her, it is said the heavy guns slid down to the lower side and tipped the vessel over, when she quickly filled and sank. Here also, in 1797, was the great mutiny in Lord Bridport’s fleet, the sailors, when the signal to weigh anchor was given, declining to do it until their just demands were granted; the mutiny was suppressed and the leaders severely punished. All the neighboring shores bristle with forts and batteries protecting the entrance to Spithead. Inland are the Binstead quarries, whose stone was in demand in the Middle Ages and built parts of Winchester Cathedral, Beaulieu Abbey, and Christchurch; also, here are the scanty remains of Quarr Abbey. Eastward of Ryde the coast is low and bends more to the southward, reaching the estuary known as Brading Harbor, a broad sheet of water at full tide, but a dismal expanse of mud at low water, through which a small stream meanders. At Brading is the old Norman church which St. Wilfrid founded, of which Rev. Legh Richmond, author of the Annals of the Poor, was the curate. In the churchyard is the grave of his heroine, little Jane, the “Dairyman’s Daughter.” Extensive remains of a Roman villa have been discovered at Morton, near Brading, and to the eastward of them a hyptocaust. Rounding the Foreland, which is the easternmost point of the island, the chalk-rocks rise again, and Whitecliff Bay nestles under the protection of the lofty Culver Cliff as the coastline bends south-west and then makes a grand semicircular sweep to the southward around Sandown Bay. This wide expanse broadens between the two chalk-ridges that cross the Isle of Wight from its western side. The railway from Ryde runs across the chalk-downs to the growing watering place of Sandown, standing on the lowest part of the shores of the bay. Here the coast is guarded by a grim fort, and here in the last century came the noted John Wilkes to recuperate after his contests with the House of Commons, which vainly tried to keep him out of his seat.

The chalk-ranges to the southward provide magnificent scenery, and two miles from Sandown, but on higher ground, is Shanklin, from which its celebrated chine descends to the sea. This little ravine is about four hundred and fifty yards long and at its mouth about two hundred feet deep. It has been gradually worn in the brown sandstone rock by the action of a diminutive brook that bubbles over a little cascade at the upper end. The rich colors of the crags, the luxuriant foliage of the slopes, and the rhapsodies of guide books combine to give the Shanklin Chine a world-wide fame. It was here that a party of French under the Chevalier d’Eulx landed in 1545 to get some fresh water. The process was tedious, the stream being so small, and the chevalier and some of his party, wandering inland, were caught in an ambuscade. He and most of the others were killed, though they defended themselves bravely. South of Shanklin the chalk-cliffs are bold and lofty, and off these pretty shores the “Eurydice” was lost in a squall, March 24, 1878, when returning from her training-cruise in the West Indies. It was at four o’clock on Sunday afternoon, and her ports being open when the squall struck her, she capsized and almost immediately foundered, only two survivors remaining out of the three hundred persons on board. Climbing the cliffs south of Shanklin and crossing the summit, we reach Bonchurch on the southern coast, described by Dr. Arnold as the most beautiful thing on the sea-coast north of Genoa. Here villas are dotted and the villages are spreading into towns, for the coast of the Undercliff is becoming one of the most fashionable resorts the English have. Already complaints are made that a too general extension of settlements is interfering with the picturesque wildness of scenery and luxuriant vegetation that are the great charm of this delightful region. The Undercliff stretches along the southern coast for several miles to the westward of Bonchurch an irregular terrace formed by the sliding forward of the chalk-downs, which dip gently towards the sea. This makes a lofty natural terrace, backed by cliffs to the northward and open to the full influence of the southern sun. It has the climate of Madeira, and is fanned by the sea-breezes that invigorate but do not chill. The mildness of the winter makes it a popular resort for invalids, and many greenhouse plants live outdoors throughout the year, the almost perpendicular rocks of the Undercliff absorbing during the day the heat that they radiate throughout the night. Yet at Bonchurch many who had sought health in this beautiful region ultimately found a grave, and of its churchyard it has been written, “It might make one in love with death to think one would be buried in so sweet a place.” The ancient little Norman church of St. Boniface is still here, but a new and larger church was built not long ago. Here lies Rev. W. Adams, who wrote the allegory Under the Shadow of the Cross, and it is strictly true, for the cross raised as his monument casts its shadow on the slab over his grave. Admiral Hobson was born at Bonchurch, and ran away from the tailor’s shop in which he was apprenticed to come back knighted for his victory over the Spaniards at Vigo Bay. Ventnor, known as the “metropolis of the Undercliff,” is beyond Bonchurch, and is also a thriving wateringplace, above which rises the attractive spire of Holy Trinity Church, built by the munificence of three sisters.

From Ventnor the most beautiful part of the island coast stretches westward to Niton. The bold chalk-downs rise from their craggy bases, the guardians of the broken terrace intervening between them and the sea. Foliage and ivy cling to them; flowers cluster on the turf and banks and gleam in the crevices; and little streams come down the ravines. Here was the smallest church of England St. Lawrence twenty feet long, twelve wide, and six feet high to the eaves. A chancel has lately been added, while below are the ivy-clad ruins of the ancient Woolverton Chapel. Near Niton, at Puckaster Cove, Charles II. landed after a terrific storm; and beyond is Roche End, the southern point of the island. The coast, a dangerous one, then trends to the north-west, and wrecks there are frequent, while inland St. Catharine’s Down rises steeply, there being a magnificent view of the island from its summit, elevated seven hundred and fifty feet. Here in the fourteenth century was founded, on the highest part of the Isle of Wight, a chantry chapel where a priest prayed for the mariner and at night kept a beacon burning to warn him off the reefs. An octagonal tower of the chapel remains, but a lighthouse supersedes the pious labors of the priest; a column near by commemorates a visit of the Russian Czar to the summit of the hill in 1814. The wild scenery of this region is varied by the great landslip which in 1799 carried about one hundred acres down towards the sea, the marks of its progress being still shown in the rended rocks and wave-like undulations of the earth. About a mile to the westward is the most noted and wildest of the ravines of the island, the Blackgang Chine, now filled with paths and summer-houses, for the thrifty hotel-keepers could not help domesticating such a prize. It is a more open ravine than that at Shanklin, and like it cut out by a tiny stream, while far away through the entrance is a distant view westward to Portland Isle and St. Aldhelm’s Head. The rocks are dark green, streaked with gray and brown sandstone, looking like uncouth courses of masonry. The adjoining coast is guarded by grim crags on which many ships have been shattered. There are other chines to the westward all of great attractions, though of less size and celebrity. The coast is not of so much interest beyond, but the cliffs, which are the outposts of the chalk-measures, become more lofty at Freshwater Gate, and our survey of the island shores terminates at the Main Bench, whose prolonged point goes out to the Needles.

CARISBROOKE CASTLE.

Following up the Medina River a few miles, almost to the centre of the island, it leads to the metropolis, the little town of Newport, and here, upon an outer precipice of the chalk-downs overlooking the river-valley and the town, and elevated two hundred feet above the sea, is Carisbrooke Castle. The oldest part of the present remains come down from Fitzosborne, but additions were afterwards made, and Queen Elizabeth, in anticipation of the descent of the Armada, had an outer line of defence constructed, pentagonal in shape and enclosing considerable space. The loyalty of the people in that time of trial was shown by their subscribing money and laboring without pay on these works. The ruins are not striking, but are finely situated on the elevated ridge. They are much decayed, but the entrance-gateway is well preserved, with its flanking round towers, portcullis, and ancient doors. Here lived Charles I. and two of his children. A small stone building within the enclosure covers the famous well of Carisbrooke, sunk in Stephen’s days, two hundred and forty feet deep, of which ninety feet are filled with water. A solemn donkey in a big wooden wheel works the treadmill that winds the bucket up. Formerly, every visitor dropped a pebble into the well to hear the queer sounds it made in falling “His head as he fell went knicketty-knock, like a pebble in Carisbrooke Well,” used to be a proverb but as this amusement threatened to fill up the well, it has been prohibited. The keep is at the north-eastern angle of the castle, polygonal in plan and of Norman architecture. Carisbrooke was held for the empress Maud against Stephen, but the failure of the old well in the keep, now filled up, caused its surrender. The new one, which has never been known to give out, was then bored. In the reign of Charles I. the castle was invested by militia on behalf of the Parliament, and was surrendered to them by the wife of the governor, the Countess of Portland. She obtained specially advantageous conditions from the besiegers by appearing on the walls with a lighted match and threatening to fire the first cannon unless the conditions were granted. King Charles I. took refuge here in November, 1647, but soon found he was practically a prisoner. He remained ten months, twice attempting to escape. On the first occasion he tried to squeeze himself between the bars of his window, but stuck fast; on the second his plan was divulged, and on looking out the window he found a guard ready to entrap him below. He was taken to Newport and surrendered himself to the Parliamentary commissioners, but was ultimately returned to Carisbrooke. Then some army officers removed him suddenly to Hurst Castle on the mainland, and thence he was taken to Windsor and London for the trial that ended on the block at Whitehall. Two of his children were imprisoned in Carisbrooke with him the young Duke of Gloucester, afterwards sent to the Continent, and the princess Elizabeth, who died here in childhood from a fever. She was found dead with her hands clasped in the attitude of prayer and her face resting on an open Bible, her father’s last gift. She was buried in an unmarked grave in Newport Church, but the coffin was discovered in 1793, and when the church was rebuilt in 1856 Queen Victoria erected a handsome monument over the little princess, the sculptor representing her lying on a mattrass with her cheek resting on the open Bible, the attitude in which she had been found. Newport has some ten thousand population.

TENNYSON’S HOME.

Tennyson’s pretty home is at Farringford, near Freshwater, on the western slope of the Isle of Wight, just where it begins to contract into the long point of the chalk-cliffs that terminate with the Needles. At Brixton, on the south-western coast, is Bishop Ken’s parsonage, where William Wilberforce spent the closing years of his life. The little rectory here is honorably distinguished as having given to the Church of England three of its famous prelates: Bishop Ken, one of the martyrs whom James II. imprisoned in the Tower, and whose favorite walk is still pointed out in the pretty garden; Bishop Samuel Wilberforce of Winchester, whose unfortunate death occurred not long ago at Evershed Rough; and the present Bishop Moberly of Salisbury. The western extremity of the Isle of Wight is a peninsula, almost cut off from the main island by the little river Yar, which flows into the Solent at Yarmouth. This is known as the Freshwater Peninsula, and presents almost unrivalled attractions for the tourist and the geologist. The coast-walk around the peninsula from Freshwater Gate to Alum Bay extends about twelve miles. The bold and picturesque chalk-cliffs tower far above the sea, their dazzling whiteness relieved by the rich green foliage. Some of these hills rise four hundred feet, forming the chalk-downs that are the backbone of this most attractive island. Among these hills are bewitching little vales and glens, and almost every favored spot is availed of as a villa site. No part of England is more sought as a place of rural residence than this richly-gifted isle, thus set as a gem upon the southern shore of the kingdom.

THE NEEDLES.

With the terminating western cliffs of the chalk-hills of the Isle of Wight beyond High Down we will close this pleasant journey. The far-famed Needles are a row of wedge-like masses of hard chalk running out to sea in the direction of the axis of the range of hills. They do not now much resemble their name, but in earlier years there was among them a conspicuous pinnacle, a veritable needle, one hundred and twenty feet in height, that fell in 1764. At present the new lighthouse, built at the seaward end of the outermost cliff, is the nearest approach to a needle. The headland behind them is crowned by a fort several hundred feet above the sea. There were originally five of these pyramidal rocks, but the waves are continually producing changes in their form, and now but three of them stand prominently out of the water.

And now our task is done. The American visitor landing at Liverpool has been conducted through England, and has been shown many of its more prominent attractions, but not by any means all of them, for that would be an impossible task. But he has been shown enough to demonstrate the claim of the mother-country to the continued interest of the Anglo-Saxon race from beyond the sea; and to this pleasant panorama and description there cannot be given a better termination than at the lovely Isle of Wight, the perfection of English scenery and climate, whereof Drayton has written,

“Of all the southern isles, she holds the highest place, And evermore hath been the great’st in Britain’s grace; Not one of all her nymphs her sovereign favoreth thus, Embraced in the arms of old Oceanus.”