i86 NATURE NEAR LONDON 



which emanates from the ocean. For the loneliest of 

 places are on the borders of a gay crowd, and thus in 

 Brighton the by-name for all that is crowded and 

 London -like it is possible to dream on the sward and 

 on the shore. 



In the midst, too, of this most modern of cities, with 

 its swift, luxurious service of Pullman cars, its piers, and 

 social pleasures, there exists a collection which, in a few 

 strokes, as it were, sketches the ways and habits and 

 thoughts of old rural England. It is not easy to realise 

 in these days of quick transit and still quicker communi- 

 cation that old England was mostly rural. 



There were towns, of course, seventy years ago, but 

 even the towns were penetrated with what, for want of a 

 better word, may be called country sentiment. Just the 

 reverse is now the case ; the most distant hamlet which 

 the wanderer in his autumn ramblings may visit, is now 

 more or less permeated with the feelings and sentiment of 

 the city. No written history has preserved the daily life of 

 the men who ploughed the Weald behind the hills there, 

 or tended the sheep on the Downs, before our beautiful 

 land was crossed with iron roads ; while news, even from 

 the field of Waterloo, had to travel slowly. And, after all, 

 written history is but words, and words are not tangible. 



But in this collection of old English jugs, and mugs, 

 and bowls, and cups, and so forth, exhibited in the 

 Museum, there is the real presentment of old rural 

 England. Feeble pottery has ever borne the impress 

 of man more vividly than marble. From these they 

 quenched their thirst, over these they laughed and joked, 

 and gossiped, and sang old hunting songs till the rafters 

 rang, and the dogs under the table got up and barked. 

 Cannot you see them? The stubbles are ready now 

 once more for the sportsmen. 



