8 NATURE IN DOWNLAND 



its lineaments on our minds. The Sussexian, who 

 cares to make the boast, may indeed claim that his 

 county has given as great names as any other to 

 poetic and dramatic literature — Shelley, Collins, 

 Otway, Fletcher. But Sussex was nothing to these 

 writers, and they are nothing to Sussex. Their con- 

 nection with their native place was slight ; its scenery 

 never entered into their souls to give a special colour 

 to their lives and life-work. How differently other 

 counties have fared in this respect ! Who does not know 

 a hundred, a thousand, places in England, as well as 

 he knows his own home, though he may never have 

 seen them ? One has but to let one's thoughts fly 

 hither and thither at random over the face of the 

 country. The whole rude coast of Cornwall, where 

 we must have lived long years in the roar of the sea, 

 is as well known to us as the cliff at Dover and the 

 enduring image of the suspended samphire gatherer. 

 What a strange significance there is in the names 

 of many places in the south-west and western counties 

 — Dorset, Devon, and Somerset ! How many rivers 

 we know, and how many hill-ranges all over the land, 

 from the Quantocks to the Cheviots ! But even the 

 glorious hills and lakes and forests have not painted 

 themselves more vividly on our minds than the 

 featureless flats, the low shores and saltings, the 

 wide moors; the Essex marches with the tragic 

 figures of Rebow and Gloria; the lonely heath by 

 Poole water, where we have listened by night and day 



