POETS ON THE SEA. 269 



orchards that no right-minded boy could resist robbing. 

 Jersey, indeed, is the very paradise of farmers. 



The Americans say that England looks like a large garden. 

 What England is to America, that is Jersey to England. 

 Even the high-roads have the aspect of diives through a 

 gentleman's grounds, rather than of noisy thoroughfares ; and 

 the by-roads and lanes are perfect pictures of embowered 

 quiet and green seclusion. There are few more delightful 

 places to ramble in. Every turn opens on some exquisite 

 valley or wooded hill, through the cool shades and glinting 

 lights of which the summer wanderer is tempted to stray, or 

 to recline in the long grass, and languorously listen to the mul- 

 titudinous music of the birds and insects above and around. 

 Observe, I say nothing of the sea, and the succession of bays 

 on the coast ; for what can be said at all commensurate with 

 that subject ? Even the poets, who not only contrive to say 

 the finest things about Nature, but also teach us how to feel 

 the finest tremors of delight when brought face to face with 

 her, have very imperfectly spoken of the sea. Homer is 

 lauded for having called it " wine-faced." He probably 

 meant some ivy-green potation, since " wine-faced" is the epi- 

 thet by which Sophocles characterises the ivy.* In any case 

 his epithet is only an epithet, and the sea is of all colours, 

 as it is of all forms and moods. Doubts also may be raised 

 respecting the " giggling " which ^schylus, in a terribly- 

 thumbed passage, attributes to the sea. The " innumerable 

 laughter of the waves of the sea," one is apt to interpret as 



* QHdipuS Colon, v. 674, «► oivi/T' inixonca xircit. 



