SHAKSPEARE'S CLIFF. 31 
an immense landslip from this cliff, by which Dover was shaken 
as if by an earthquake, and a still greater one in 1772. 
Thus the fame of the poet is likely to outlive for many 
centuries the proud rock, the memory of which will always 
be entwined with his immortal verse :— 
“ How fearful, 
And dizzy ’tis to cast one’s eyes so low! 
The crows, and choughs, that wing the midway air, 
Show searce so gross as beetles: half way down 
Hangs one that gathers samphire ; dreadful trade! 
Methinks, he seems no bigger than his head. 
The fishermen, that walk upon the beach, 
Appear like mice; and yon tall anchoring bark, 
Diminish’d to her cock; her cock, a buoy 
Almost too small for sight. The murmuring surge, 
That on th’ unnumber'd idle pebbles chafes, 
Cannot be heard so high.” 
The peninsulas of Purbeck and Portland, the cliffs of Devon- 
shire and Cornwall, the coasts of Pembroke and Cardigan, the 
stormy Hebrides, Shetland and Orcadia, all tell similar tales of 
destruction, a mere summary of which would swell into a 
volume. 
During the most violent gales the bottom of the sea is said 
by different authors to be disturbed to a depth of 300, 350, or 
even 500 feet, and Sir Henry de la Béche remarks that when 
the depth is fifteen fathoms, the water is very evidently dis- 
coloured by the action of the waves on the mud and sand of 
the bottom. But in the deep caves of ocean all is tranquil, all 
is still, and the most dreadful hurricanes that rage over the 
surface leave those mysterious recesses undisturbed. 
