OF SELBOBNE. 
187 
in Ms Wisdom of God in the Works of tlie Creation*' with 
the utmost satisfaction, and thinks them equal to any thing 
he had seen in the finest parts of Europe. 
For my own part, I think there is somewhat peculiarly 
sweet and amusing in the shapely figured aspect of chalk 
hills, in preference to those of stone, which are rugged, 
broken, abrupt, and shapeless. 
Perhaps I may be singular in my opinion, and not so 
happy as to convey to you the same idea ; but I never con- 
template these mountains without thinking I perceive 
somewhat analogous to growth in their gentle swellings 
and smooth fungus-like protuberances, their fluted sides, 
and regular hollows and slopes, that carry at once the air of 
vegetative dilatation and expansion. Or was there ever a 
time when these immense masses of calcareous matter were 
thrown into fermentation by some adventitious moisture ; 
were raised and leavened into such shapes by some plastic 
power j and so made to swell and heave their broad backs 
into the sky so much above the less animated clay of the 
wild below ? 
By what I can guess from the admeasurements of the 
hills that have been taken round my house, I should sup- 
pose that these hills surmount the wild, at an average, at 
about the rate of five hundred feet. 
One thing is very remarkable as to the sheep : from the 
westward till you get to the river Adur all the flocks have 
horns, and smooth white faces, and white legs ; and a horn- 
less sheep is rarely to be seen : but as soon as you pass that 
river eastward, and mount Beeding Hill, all the flocks at once 
become hornless, or, as they call them, poll sheep ; and 
have moreover black faces, with a white tuft of wool on 
their foreheads, and speckled and spotted legs : so that you 
would think that the flocks of Laban were pasturing on 
one side of the stream, and the variegated breed of his son- 
in-law Jacob were cantoned along on the other. And this 
diversity holds good respectively on each side from the 
valley of Bramber and Beeding to the eastward, and west- 
ward all the whole length of the downs. If you talk with 
the shepherds on this subject, they tell you that the case 
