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BYGONE SUSSEX. |
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Then after you've din'd, take a view of our ground, Observe the grand mountains that compass us round; And if you could walk a mile after eating, Some comical rocks are worth contemplating; You may if you please for their oddness and make, Compare them—let's see—to the Derbyshire Peak. They're one like the other, except that the wonder Is seen here above ground, and there is seen under.*
To the walks about seven you trace back your way, Where the Sun marches off, and the ladies make day; What crowding of charms ! what Gods ! rather Goddesses ! What beauties are there ! what bright looks, airs, and dresses ! In the room of waters had Helicon sprung, Had the nymphs of the place by old poets been sung, To invite the Gods hither they would have had reason, And Jove had descended each night in the season.
peculiar :—The shepherds make small holes in the Downs, covered with a turf about a foot long, and half a foot broad, in which they place snares of horse-hair, and the birds, being very fearful of rain, run into these holes for shelter at the approach of every cloud, and thus are caught in prodigious numbers. They are brought to the Wells in their utmost perfection ; but, as they are in season only in the midst of summer, the heat of the weather, and their own fatness, make them so apt to corrupt, that the London poulterers dare not meddle with them ; for which reason it is necessary for the epicure to go into the country, if he would indulge his appetite with one of the greatest dainties in its kind. (Clifford's Tunbridge Wells Guide, 1817, p. 95). There is a characteristic passage to the same purport in Fuller's Worthies.
* What visitor to Tunbridge Wells fails tc see these ? The Toad Rock is on Rusthall Common, and has received its name from a supposed resemblance to that amphibian. Other stones in its vicinity also had appellations bestowed on them, which are at least creditable to the imaginative powers of the sponsers. The " High Rocks" are further from the town. Evelyn, in 1661, styles them "solitudes," and was especially impressed by "the extravagant turnings, insinuations, and growth of certain birch-trees amongst the rocks." Mrs. Elizabeth Carter was "not without a kind of terror" on beholding these " Salvator-like scenes." Time has brought its changes, and the solitudes are now enclosed, decorated with swings, and made into a picnic resort. They are, |
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