152 THE NATURAL HISTORY [LETT. 



only round Lewes. As you pass along, it commands a noble 

 view of the wild, or weald, on one hand, and the broad downs 

 and sea on the other. Mr. Eay used to visit a family at Danny, 

 j ust at the foot of these hills ; he was so ravished with the 

 prospect from Plumpton-plain near Lewes, that he mentions 

 those landscapes in his " Wisdom of God in the Works of the 

 Creation " with the utmost satisfaction, and thinks them equal 

 to anything he had seen in the finest parts of Europe. 



For my own part, I think there is something peculiarly sweet 

 and pleasing in the shapely figured aspect of chalk-hills in 

 preference to those of stone, which are nigged, broken, abrupt, 

 and shapeless. 



Perhaps I may be singular in my opinion, and not so happy 

 as to convey to you the same idea; but I never contemplate 

 these mountains without thinking I perceive somewhat analogous 

 to growth in their gentle swellings and smooth fungus-like pro- 

 tuberances, their fluted sides, and regular hollows and slopes, 

 that carry at once the air of vegetative dilatation and expan- 

 sion. Or was there ever a time when these immense masses 

 of calcareous matter were thrown into fermentation by some 

 adventitious moisture; were raised and leavened into such 

 shapes by some plastic power ; and so made to swell and heave 

 their broad backs into the sky so much above the. less animated 

 clay of the wild below ? 



By what I can guess of the admeasurements of the hills that 

 have been taken round my house, I should suppose that these 

 hills surmount the wild at an average of about the rate of five 

 hundred feet. 



One thing is very remarkable as to the sheep ; from the west- 

 ward until you get to the river Adur all the flocks have horns, 

 and smooth white faces, and white legs ; and a hornless sheep is 

 rarely to be seen : but as soon as you pass that river eastward, 

 and mount Beeding Hill, all the flocks at once become hornless, 

 or, as they call them, poll-sheep ; and have moreover black 

 faces with a white tuft of wool on their foreheads, and speckled 

 and spotted legs : so that you would think that the flocks of 

 Laban were pasturing on one side of the stream, and the varie- 

 gated breed of his son-in-law Jacob were cantoned along on the 



