THE FARM|iIv'S MAGAZliNE. 



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liain. U'c jiass the cclcbralL'd Clialliam Lines, be- 

 LinJ wliicli we were to liave made our stand against 

 the First Xapoleon, but as is now well known 

 lie would have turned, by landing in Tor Bay, if he 

 had landed at all. |Iere we see in juxta-positioii the 

 ancient and the modern methods of fortification, and 

 the change which gunpowder has wrought in that 

 dc])artinent of the art of war. There rise the high 

 walls, the higher turrets, and the still higher keep 

 of the Norman castle, strong against the bow and 

 arrow and the battering-ram, but which must 

 speedily have surrendered to one or two rifled guns 

 upon the hill which commands it. There, too, we 

 sec the long and scarcely-perceptible slope of the 

 modern glacis. 



Where the Mcdway joins the Thames lies Sheer- 

 ness, the most recent and most important of the 

 dockyards of the Thames. But a few years have 

 passed since we there saw the leviathans of our war- 

 ships, "reposing," as Canning said, "on their 

 shadows, and slumbering in their strength." An- 

 other war arose— our former foe our ally, and our 

 former ally our foe : the hulls of our war-ships 

 awoke again from their slumber, and bristled again 

 with guns and masts and spars. Another peace has 

 been won, and another war has closed, with a naval 

 review by a British Queen, which will be as memor- 

 able in history as that by Elizabeth of her troops 

 at Tilbury. 13ut what a contrast was presented by 

 that magnificent fleet later reviewed at Spithead, 

 witli the most celebrated of its predecessors ! What 

 a contrast between our present first-class, in their 

 size and armament, and those which Nelson led to 

 victory at the Nile and Trafalgar ! What a difference, 

 again, did the fleet of Nelson present, to the light 

 pinnaces with which Drake and Forbisher defeated 

 the unwieldy vessels of the " Invincible Armada" ! 

 Again, what a contrast between our men-of-war of 

 the Elizabethan age, and those flotillas of boats — for 

 they were little better— in which our Edwards and 

 Henries transported their armies to Cressy and 

 Agincourt— those hundreds of vessels, which look 

 so formidable on paper, till we reflect what they 

 really were ! Our most splendid fleet, which was 

 laid up in ordinary almost before its powers had 

 been tried, may be said to combine the naval arma- 

 ments of the two periods. There are huge ships of 

 the line, larger and more heavily armed than at any 

 former period ; while the pinnaces of former navies 

 are represented by the gun-boats and the mortar- 

 boats, now brought so prominently before Parlia- 

 ment, for ascending rivers and for entering shallow 

 harbours, and for grappling with fortifications which 

 were too strong for Nelson at Copenhagen, weak as 

 the fortifications of those times were, compared with 

 those with which we should now have to contend. 

 Then, again, what a contrast with the powers of 

 locomotion conferred on our modern screw-steamers, 

 which render them in a great measure independent 

 of the winds and waves that have robbed many a 

 hard-fought naval battle of its results ! AVhat an 

 advance, too, in the science and practice of rifled 

 gunnery, with its bombardments at the distance 

 of three miles, as compared with the tactics of 

 Nelson, whose principle was to close with his op- 

 ponent, while the sole art of gunnery consisted in 

 loading and firing as quickly as possible ! What a 



change, since the liculcuauts of one British ship, at 

 Trafalgar, depressed their gun', lest the shot should 

 pass through their opponent, an4 damage one of our 

 own ships on the opposite side, while a man stood 

 by to dash a bucket of water on the shot-hole, lest 

 the enemy's ship should be set on fire by the dis- 

 charge, and communicate the flames to our own ! 

 The application of steam to navigation has effected 

 as great a revolution in naval warfare, as the inven- 

 tion of gunpowder did in the hand-to-hand conflicts 

 of the men-at-arms and yeomen of the days of 

 chivalry. 



But, lest the glories of the above naval review 

 should render us too proud, there are humiliating 

 and salutary recollections connected with Sheerness. 

 There began the Mutiny of the Nore ; and there was 

 Van Trorap seen sailing up the Thames, with a 

 broom at his mast-head, in token that he had swept 

 the English from the sea. 



We are trudging it as pilgrims to Canterbury To 

 our left lies Eaversham, whence James the Second 

 fled the realm, having thrown the Great Seal into 

 the river. 



We pass the wooded table land of the Blean, the 

 scene of the fanatical outbreak of Courtenay. We 

 pass it with many a mortifying reflection on the state 

 of education among the peasantry of our rural dis- 

 tricts, which could have enabled a mad impostor to 

 acquire an ascendency over them, in the 19th cen- 

 tury, which would not have surprised us in the days 

 of Wat Tyler or Jack Cade. The turrets of Canter- 

 bury Cathedral are rising before us. We enter the 

 city by its barbican, and wend our way through its 

 streets, agricultural pilgrims to the monastery of St. 

 Augustin, the shrine of j\-Bcckett, the tomb of the 

 Black Prince, and the throne of the kings of Kent. 

 Let us not forget the little church of St. Martin's, 

 one of the oldest in Britain. Dover, however, is our 

 destination, and we may not now linger in Canterbury. 

 We must traverse the narrow ridge of Barham 

 Downs, and, as they possess little of interest, we 

 will diverge for a time to the left, to visit Bourne, 

 where Hooker literally as well as metaphorically fed 

 his flock, and was found, book ia hand, tending his 

 sheep on the common, at the bidding of a scolding 

 wife. We will visit too the beautiful little Norman 

 church of Barfrestou. 



As there is so little else of interest between this 

 and Dover, we may be permitted to dwell a while 

 on the history of its little church, as narrated by the 

 sexton and corroborated by the quaint sculpture on 

 its doorway. It appears, from the joint authority of 

 these two witnesses, that there was a certain squire 

 of old, who owned the neighbouring lands, and was 

 as much addicted to the chase, as many squires have 

 been before and since. It chanced, however, that 

 on one occasion his horse, setting foot on a rolling 

 stone, fell with tlie squire and injured his shoulder 

 so severely that he was obliged to give up hunting; 

 and, for the good of his soul, built this beautiful 

 little church. On the sculptured doorway the acci- 

 dent is represented, not forgetting the rolling stone, 

 as well as the rejoicings which it occasioned among 

 the foxes, hares, and other animals, to whom the 

 squire had been such an enemy. 



And now wc will return into the high road, and 

 make the best of our way to Dover. Forming the 



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