COUNTY CHA RA CTERIS TICS 
205 
restricted to those areas which originally formed part of Wessex, 
Mercia and Northumbria, and in these cases the county name 
usually follows that of the county town. 
Some counties are familiar to us on account of the nick- 
names applied to the natives. The Yorkshire Tyke, the Sussex 
Calf, the Nottingham Lamb, the Norfolk Dumpling and the 
Kentish Nut, are well known. “ Silly Suffolk ” has been claimed 
as an honourable title, on the ground that the word has its 
primitive meaning of “holy” or “innocent,” and has refer- 
ence to the abundance of churches, monasteries and shrines. 
“ Hampshire Moonrakers ” are slanderously said to have tried to 
rake the moon out of a pond. “ Lincolnshire Yellow-bellies ” 
got their name either from the jaundiced appearance of ague- 
stricken fen men, or from their reputed similarity to the frogs 
of their marshes. Commodities, too, help to keep counties in 
memory. The hops of Kent, the cheeses of Cheshire, the cider 
and cows of Hereford and Devon, the sheep of Lincolnshire and 
Leicestershire, the potatoes of Yorkshire — “ Yorkshire Reds ” 
— are common examples. Northampton has been called “ the 
county of springs, spires and squires.” The springs are due to 
the fact that in Northants the porous oolite lies on clay ; the 
multitude of churches and the roll of rich landowners attest 
the fertility of the soil. The name of Rutland bears witness 
to the red iron ore of its Middle Lias. Kent, like Caesar’s 
Gallia, has been divided into three parts. The first is described 
as containing wealth without health ; the allusion is of course 
to the marshy flats by the Thames. The chalk downs, being 
barren, represent health without wealth, whilst the outcrop of 
the Lower Greensand, in the south of the county, produces 
both health and wealth. A rapturous recital of the productions 
of Kent has been inscribed on the edges of a table of a summer- 
house at Davington, near Faversham. The table was formerly 
a sounding board over the church pulpit. The lines, in old 
English letters, run thus : — 
“ O famous Kent, what country hath ihe soil 
That can compare with thee, which hast within thyself 
As much as thou canst wish ? Thy conies, venison, fruit, 
Thy sorts of fowl and fish ; as what with strength compares 
Thy hops, thy corn, thy wood ; 
Nor anything doth want that anywhere is good.” 
Contrast this account with that contained in Dr. Johnson’s 
lines, written in a Cornish inn : — 
“ O Cornwall, barren, wretched spot of ground, 
Where naught but rocks and stones are to be found, 
Thy barren hills won’t find thy sons with bread, 
Or wood to make ’em coffins when they’re dead.” 
The verse reminds one of Sydney Smith’s description of 
Scotland as the “ knuckle-bone of the earth.” The Isles of 
Scilly have fared little better than the parent country : — 
