THE DOWNS 115 



much to the imagination, would have flung his 

 brush at his canvas in sheer despair of reproducing 

 them. 



Perhaps it is because our artists " fear their fates 

 too much," or modestly recognise their deserts to be 

 so small, that they do not oftener stake their chances 

 of fame against scenes like these ; when a grand 

 morsel of the sublime subordinates itself to a vague 

 expanse of distance growing out of the very foreground 

 a distance to which nothing but genius can give the 

 semblance of reality. But the downs abound in more 

 homely studies, enchanting landscapes set in natural 

 frames, fascinating nooks and " bits." Village churches, 

 farms, and cottages nestle themselves shrinkingly out 

 of sight, hidden so well away that few painters seem 

 to find them. Standing upon some grassy bluff, some 

 bastion of these uplands, glancing from yon Pisgah 

 over the monotonous ranges stretching away before 

 you, you get but slight glimpses at the promise they 

 conceal. All you see are so many ridges bare or 

 furze-crested, here a lighthouse, perhaps there a wind- 

 mill. Dip into the first valley, and, agreeably dis- 

 appointed, you brighten up to the fascinating surprises 

 awaiting you : copses and thick-leaved woods hang 

 lovingly over the brooklet that murmurs at the bottom. 

 You passed cornfields before, and ought to have augured 

 there must be farmhouses ; but where all seemed so 

 deserted that thought scarcely struck you at the time. 

 Now the farmhouses are before you, and the patriarchs 

 who own them with the flocks and herds that cover 



