The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1893-04-23
THE MORNING NEWS: SUNDAY, APRIL %, 1893.

pecplug out between ledIy mis- upon inc
glorious sea; Lyminge, messy and still be-
side the most ancient church of Southern
Kent, so ancient that in its walls are
actually seen every specimen Of eccleslas-
tic architecture from Saxon to perpen-
dlcular, so ancient still that st. EdIlberga,
one gifts patron saints and daughterOf the
Saxon King Ethelbert, who reigned more
than LOCO years ago, lies buried within;
Firth with its unique old houses, its wind
ing lanes Of green. banks of chalk,
ShadOwy combeS and tender uplands;
Gotham, leafiest, suggest and prettiest
OF all hentish villages, with its lOrdly
park, its stately-tOwered church and
Orasses of 600 years in memory OF the
noble Cobhams and its Leather Bottle
Inn made famous in the immortal pages OF
P1ckwlck; beautiful old ShOrne, girdled
with massive elms and richest orchard
bloom; and an hundred more, set along
linn the lane-grit downs, clustering
in the woody weld, or nesting among the
kentish orchard and hop-gardens, with
their rows of cottages with white-washed
walls, dormer windows, matched roofs
and garden-fronts each a maze of fuchias,
pinks, carnations and roses; and all of
them from a hundred to a thousand years
old.
Who is there to fifty describe or paint
the drOning old villages of that curious
Norfolk Breads, - The Broad district"
and the ENOrfolk and Suffolk Fens,n
where, as at Dilham and Ruston, many an
old daub-and-wattle cottage may still be
seen? 1t is a land of lagoons; of grassy
dlkes; of ghOStly windmills as huge and
as numerous as in Holland; of rich ard
low lying farm steadings interspersed by
"broads' of sedgy, shallow lakes; of
mighty herds of cattle and sheep; of duck,
widgeOn, Inallard and coot of picturesque
inns-of-call half hidden among copses
OF willows; of ruined castles, abbeys and
prlorleS whose ancient meats are now
serving as market gardeners canals of
gray old hamlets set about with clumps of
pollard oaks; and of a peasantry as sim
pie, brave and true as in good old Sir
John FastoIf's days-not Shakespeare's
unctuouS knayc of the Merry Wives
but of the real Fastolf who valorously
fought the battle of Herrings and soundly
drubbed the French.
The eVentide pictures from some of these
old waterside hamlet porches are worthy
the brush of a Turner or a Millet As the
sun goes down in forests of waving reeds.
1T flames the matches of hamlets ON OPP
pOsite shore, weirdly lights the arms of
the spectral WindmillS bringing to a
looming nearness the grim Norman
towers of far olden churches, or gilds the
lvied top of some medieval ruins as with
gold. AS it sinks from sight the waters
of the breads are for a moment purple
then pitchy black, when instantly the
stars are shining in the depths above and
from the waters beneath with simmer
ing luster envelOping all Then the songs
and Chirps of myriad insects; the whir
and splash of late-homing Waterfowl; and
the witching, whispered soughing OF the
breeze in the rushes and the reeds.
Up in Cumberland and Westmoreland,
what loving wraiths of memory are CON
jured when basking in the glowing beauty
of slumberOuS, verdure-clad blossom
powered Keswick, Grasmere, Rvdal, Am
bleside and BOwness. Here in old Kes-
wick town dwelt and sang, and lies buried
in CrOsstwaite church yard, near the
murmUrings of the Greta he so loved,
that high-souled poet of pensive remem-
brance and meditative calm, Robert
Southey. Here, too the unhappy Coleridge
passed the most fruitful, though still the
most miserable, years of his baleful slav-
cry to a deadly drug land with his girl
wife, Harriet, Shelley here knew the only
happy hours of his unfortunate life. In
ancient Grasmere-GraSmere of ancient
''rush-bearing" fame; Grasmere with per-
haps the oldest and certainly the QUAINT
est churehin England; Grasmere where
the brave old dame soundly walloped the
Prince of Wales for clarifying her
sheep Thomas De Quincy lived in his
dream-life madness; and, in st. Oswald's
churchyard sleep Hartley Coleridge and
William Wordsworth, beside the beaute-
GUS Rothey, which, leaping from seques-
tering meadows, gives back along the old
church-wal the deathlesS songs they
sung.
That one whose memory gives to the Or
gan tones of the two cascades of Rydal
their wondrous heart-thrilling power,
who is first and last when your eyes of
fancy penetrate the past, is Wordsworth,
who lived on Rydal Mount, above the
hamlet, for forty sunlit years. Sturdy,
1conOclaStic, vet true and practically
Christian if still hereto, Harriet Marti-
neau, stands bright and clear in the pict-
ure among the blossoms of songful Am
bleside. Christopher North with his
huge frame and benign face as if the very
spirit of the lovely region shOne from his
kindly eyes, makes these village ways
SUMMER Tor his strong, sure tread. With
him, though later, you will see another
one, firm, calm, tender. noble, one who
through his labor at Rugby swept forever
from the British educational system the
rule of brutality and dread, lofty-souled,
noble DR.. Arnold while old BOwness hud-
ding between the highway and the fell
side is sweeter still because you see
through its tiny cottage panes the wrath
OF good Felicia HemanS, with a tinge of
sadness in her pallid, patient face
Pleasant indeed is a weeks idle lOiter-
ing among the villages of Surrey. Some
of the most picturesque timbered cottages
of England can be found among these an
Gent hamlets Sleepy old Godalming
was once nest of fullers' homes, and
numbers of these habitations are still in
good preservation. At Shere, the former
home of the earls of Ormond and the
noble house of Audley, and roundabout
are wondrouSly interesting lanes of cot
tagcs. Besides there are Wonersh, with
its fine gables and chimneyS and charm
ingly picturesque old mill house, Hasle-
mere with its high and graceful chimneys;
Chiddingford, where glass was first made
In England, with its fine fourteenth cent
ury cottages and famous old Crown inn;
Whitley, with its church tower sur
mounted by a spire as quaint as that Of
Stoke Poges, and its cottages which are
in every artist 5 sketch book Afford, most
primitive of Surrey villages, with its curl
Gus ironwork and meats; and with scores
more, winsome old Cranleigh, where, at
Baynards, Jane Roper, wife of the younger
Sir Edward Bray, so long kept the head
of her father, Inflated Sir Thomas More,
which was finally deposited in St. Dun
STAINS, Canterbury.
You will never heed the passing hours
if, afoat upon the Avon, you set out in
quest of English villages within the