POETS ON THE SEA. 285 



washes the hedge which limits orchards that no right- 

 minded boy could resist robbing. Jersey, indeed, is the 

 very paradise of farmers. 



The Americans say that England looks like a large 

 garden. What England is to America, that is Jersey 

 to England. Even the high-roads have the aspect of 

 drives through a gentleman's grounds, rather than of 

 noisy thoroughfares ; and the by-roads and lanes are 

 perfect pictures of embowered quiet and green seclu- 

 sion. There are few more delightful places to ramble 

 in. Every turn opens on some exquisite valley or 

 wooded hill, through the cool shades and glinting 

 lights of which the summer wanderer is tempted to 

 stray, or to recline in the long grass, and languorously 

 listen to the multitudinous music of the birds and in- 

 sects above and around. Observe, I say nothing of the 

 sea, and the succession of bays on the coast ; for what 

 can be said at all commensurate with that subject. 

 Even the poets, who not only contrive to say the finest 

 things about Nature, but also teach us how to feel the 

 finest tremors of delidit when brouoht face to face with 

 her, have very imperfectly spoken of the sea. Homer 

 is lauded for having called it " wine-faced." He proba- 

 bly meant some ivy-green potation, since "wine-faced" 

 is the epithet by which Sophocles characterises the ivy.* 

 In any case his epithet is only an epithet, and the sea 

 is of all colours, as it is of all forms and moods. Doubts 

 also may be raised respecting the " giggling " which 

 ^schylus, in a terribly-thumbed passage, attributes to 



* CEdijms Colon, v. 674, tou oluun avexovcra Kiaahv. 



