16 NATURE IN ENGLAND. 



the reaper come to the very brink of the chalky cliffs. 

 As you sit down on Shakespeare's Cliff, with your 

 feet dangling in the air at a height of three hundred 

 and fifty feet, you can reach back and pluck the grain 

 heads and the scarlet poppies. Never have I seen 

 such quiet pastoral beauty take such a sudden leap 

 into space. Yet the scene is tame, in one sense : 

 there is no hint of the wild and the savage ; the rock 

 is soft and friable, a kind of chalky bread, which the 

 sea devours readily ; the hills are like freshly cut 

 loaves ; slice after slice has been eaten away by the 

 hungry elements. Sitting here, I saw no "crows 

 and choughs " winging " the mid-way air," but a spe- 

 cies of hawk, " haggards of the rocks," were disturbed 

 in the niches beneath me, and flew along from point 

 to point. 



" The murmuring surge, 



That on the unnumber'd idle pebbles chafes, 

 Cannot be heard so high." 



I had wondered why Shakespeare had made his sea- 

 shores pebbly instead of sandy, and now I saw why : 

 they are pebbly, with not a grain of sand to be found. 

 This chalk formation, as I have already said, is full 

 of flint nodules ; and as the shore is eaten away by 

 the sea, these rounded masses remain. They soon 

 become worn into smooth pebbles, that beneath the 

 pounding of the surf give out a strange clinking, 

 rattling sound. Across the Channel, on the French 

 side, there is more sand, but it is of the hue of mud 

 and not pleasing to look upon. 



