Highways and Byways in Sussex Part 17

WIT.

Nature must be the ground-work of Wit and Art; otherwise whatever is done will prove but Jack-pudding's work.

WIFE.

You shall see a Monkey sometime, that has been playing up and down the Garden, at length leap up to the top of the Wall, but his Clog hangs a great way below on this side: the Bishop's Wife is like that Monkey's Clog; himself is got up very high, takes place of the Temporal Barons, but his Wife comes a great way behind.

Selden's father was a small farmer who played the fiddle well. The boy is said at the age of ten to have carved over the door a Latin distich, which, being translated, runs:--

Walk in and welcome, honest friend; repose.

Thief, get thee gone! to thee I'll not unclose.

[Sidenote: SAINT THOMAS'S FIGS]

Between Salvington and Worthing lies Tarring, noted for its fig gardens.

It is a fond belief that Thomas a Becket planted the original trees from which the present Tarring figs are descended; and there is one tree still in existence which tradition a.s.serts was set in the earth by his own hand. Whether this is possible I am not sufficiently an arboriculturist to say; but Becket certainly sojourned often in the Archbishop of Canterbury's palace in the village. The larger part of the present fig garden dates from 1745. I have seen it stated that during the season a little band of _becca ficos_ fly over from Italy to taste the fruit, disappearing when it is gathered; but a Suss.e.x ornithologist tells me that this is only a pretty story.

The fig gardens are perhaps sufficient indication that the climate of this part of the country is very gentle. It is indeed unique in mildness. There is a little strip of land between the sea and the hills whose climatic conditions approximate to those of the Riviera: hence, in addition to the success of the Tarring fig gardens, Worthing's fame for tomatoes and other fruit. I cannot say when the tomato first came to the English table, but the first that I ever saw was at Worthing, and Worthing is now the centre of the tomato-growing industry. Miles of gla.s.s houses stretch on either side of the town.

Worthing (like Brighton and Bognor) owed its beginning as a health resort to the house of Guelph, the visit of the Princess Amelia in 1799 having added a _cachet_, previously lacking, to its invigorating character. But, unlike Brighton, neither Worthing nor Bognor has succeeded in becoming quite indispensable. Brighton has the advantage not only of being nearer London but also nearer the hills. One must walk for some distance from Worthing before the lonely highland district between Cissbury and Lancing Clump is gained, whereas Brighton is partly built upon the Downs and has her little d.y.k.e Railway to boot. But the visitor to Worthing who, surfeited of sea and parade, makes for the hill country, knows a solitude as profound as anything that Brighton's heights can give him.

[Sidenote: "HAWTHORN AND LAVENDER"]

Worthing has at least two literary a.s.sociations. It was there that that most agreeable comedy _The Importance of Being Earnest_ was written: the town even gave its name to the princ.i.p.al character--John Worthing; and it was there that Mr. Henley lived while the lyrics in _Hawthorn and Lavender_ were coming to him. The beautiful dedication to the book is dated "Worthing, July 31, 1901."

Ask me not how they came, These songs of love and death, These dreams of a futile stage, These thumb-nails seen in the street: Ask me not how nor why, But take them for your own, Dear Wife of twenty years, Knowing--O, who so well?-- You it was made the man That made these songs of love, Death, and the trivial rest: So that, your love elsewhere, These songs, or bad or good-- How should they ever have been?

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Sompting._]

[Sidenote: SOMPTING]

Of the villages to the west we have caught glimpses in an earlier chapter--Goring, Angmering, Ferring, and so forth; to the north and east are Broadwater, Sompting and Lancing. Broadwater is perhaps a shade too near Worthing to be interesting, but Sompting, lying under the Downs, is unspoiled, with its fascinating church among the elms and rocks. The church (of which Mr. Griggs has made an exquisite drawing) was built nearly eight hundred years ago. Within are some curious fragments of sculpture, and a tomb which Mr. Lower considered to belong to Richard Bury, Bishop of Chichester in the reign of Henry VIII. East of Sompting lie the two Lancings, North Lancing on the hill, South Lancing on the coast. East of North Lancing, the true village, stands Lancing College, high above the river, with its imposing chapel, a landmark in the valley of the Adur and far out to sea.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Lancing._]

CHAPTER XVII

BRIGHTON

A decline in interest--The storied past of Brighton--Dr. Russell's discovery--The First Gentleman in Europe--The resources of the Steyne--Promenade Grove--A loyal journalist--The Brighton bathers--Smoaker and Martha Gunn--The Prince and cricket--The Nonpareil at work--Byron at Brighton--Hazlitt's observation--Horace Smith's verses--Sidney Smith on the M.C.--Captain Tattersall--Pitt and the heckler--Dr. Johnson in the sea--Mrs. Pipchin and Dr.

Blimber--The Brighton fishermen--Richard Jefferies on the town--The Cavalier--Mr. Booth's birds--Old Pottery.

Brighton is interesting only in its past. To-day it is a suburb, a lung, of London; the rapid recuperator of Londoners with whom the pace has been too severe; the Mecca of day-excursionists, the steady friend of invalids and half-pay officers. It is vast, glittering, gay; but it is not interesting.

To persons who care little for new towns the value of Brighton lies in its position as the key to good country. In a few minutes one can travel by train to the d.y.k.e, and leaving booths and swings behind, be free of miles of turfed Down or cultivated Weald; in a few minutes one can reach Ha.s.socks, the station for Wols...o...b..ry and Ditchling Beacon; in a few minutes one can gain Falmer and plunge into Stanmer Park; or, travelling to the next station, correct the effect of Brighton's hard brilliance amid the soothing sleepinesses of Lewes; in a few minutes on the western line one can be at Sh.o.r.eham, amid s.h.i.+p-builders and sail-makers, or on the ramparts of Bramber Castle, or among the distractions of Steyning cattle market, with Chanctonbury Ring rising solemnly beyond. Brighton, however, knows little of these homes of peace, for she looks only out to sea or towards London.

[Sidenote: BRIGHTON'S STORIED PAST]

Brighton was, however, interesting a hundred years ago; when the Pavilion was the favourite resort of the First Gentleman in Europe (whose opulent charms, preserved in the permanency of mosaic, may be seen in the Museum); when the Steyne was a centre of fas.h.i.+on and folly; coaches dashed out of Castle Square every morning and into Castle Square every evening; Munden and Mrs. Siddons were to be seen at one or other of the theatres; Martha Gunn dipped ladies in the sea; Lord Frederick Beauclerck played long innings on the Level; and Mr. Barrymore took a pair of horses up Mrs. Fitzherbert's staircase and could not get them down again without the a.s.sistance of a posse of blacksmiths.

Brighton was interesting then, reposing in the smiles of the Prince of Wales and his friends. But it is interesting no more,--with the Pavilion a show place, the Dome a concert hall, the Steyne an enclosure, Martha Gunn in her grave, the Chain Pier a memory, Mrs. Fitzherbert's house the headquarters of the Young Men's Christian a.s.sociation, and the Brighton road a racing track for cyclists, motor cars and walking stockbrokers.

Brighton is entertaining, salubrious, fas.h.i.+onable, what you will. Its interest has gone.

The town's rise from Brighthelmstone (p.r.o.nounced Brighton) a fis.h.i.+ng village, to Brighton, the marine resort of all that was most das.h.i.+ng in English society, was brought about by a Lewes doctor in the days when Lewes was to Brighton what Brighton now is to Lewes. This doctor was Richard Russell, born in 1687, who, having published in 1750 a book on the remedial effects of sea water, in 1754 removed to Brighton to be able to attend to the many patients that were flocking thither. That book was the beginning of Brighton's greatness. The seal was set upon it in 1783, when the Prince of Wales, then a young man just one and twenty, first visited the town.

[Sidenote: LE PRINCE S'AMUSE]

The Prince's second visit to Brighton was in July 1784. He then stayed at the house engaged for him by his cook, Louis Weltje, which, when he decided to build, became the nucleus of the Pavilion. The Prince at this time (he was now twenty-two) was full of spirit and enterprise, and in the company of Colonel Hanger, Sir John Lade of Etchingham, and other bloods, was ready for anything: even hard work, for in July 1784 he rode from Brighton to London and back again, on horse-back, in ten hours. One of his diversions in 1785 is thus described in the Press: "On Monday, June 27, His Royal Highness amused himself on the Steyne for some time in attempting to _shoot doves with single b.a.l.l.s_; but with what result we have not heard, though the Prince is esteemed a most excellent shot, and seldom presents his piece without doing some execution. The Prince, in the course of his diversion, either by design or accident, _lowered the tops of several of the chimneys of the Hon. Mr. Windham's house_."

The Prince seemed to live for the Steyne. When the first scheme of the Pavilion was completed, in 1787, his bedroom in it was so designed that he could recline at his ease and by means of mirrors watch everything that was happening on his favourite promenade.

The Prince was probably as bad as history states, but he had the quality of his defects, and Brighton was the livelier for the presence of his friends. Lyme Regis, Margate, Worthing, Lymington, Bognor--these had nothing to offer beyond the sea. Brighton could lay before her guests a thousand odd diversions, in addition to concerts, b.a.l.l.s, masquerades, theatres, races. The Steyne, under the ingenious direction of Colonel Hanger, the Earl of Barrymore, and their a.s.sociates, became an arena for curious contests. Officers and gentlemen, ridden by other officers and gentlemen, competed in races with octogenarians. Strapping young women were induced to run against each other for a new smock or hat. Every kind of race was devised, even to walking backwards; while a tame stag was occasionally liberated and hunted to refuge.

[Sidenote: AN EARTHLY PARADISE]

To the theatre came in turn all the London players; and once the mysterious Chevalier D'Eon was exhibited on its stage in a fencing bout with a military swordsman. The Promenade Grove, which covered part of the ground between New Road, the Pavilion, North Street and Church Street, was also an evening resort in fine weather (and to read about Brighton in its heyday is to receive an impression of continual fine weather, tempered only by storms of wind, such as never failed to blow when Rowlandson and his pencil were in the town, to supply that robust humorist with the contours on which his reputation was based). The Grove was a marine Ranelagh. Masquers moved among the trees, orchestras discoursed the latest airs, rockets soared into the sky. In the county paper for October 1st, 1798, I find the following florid reference to a coming event in the Grove:--"The glittering Azure and the n.o.ble Or of the peac.o.c.k's wings, under the meridian sun, cannot afford greater exultation to that bird, than some of our beautiful belles of fas.h.i.+on promise themselves, from a display of their captivating charms at the intended masquerade at Brighton to-morrow se'nnight."

In another issue of the paper for the same year are some extempore lines on Brighton, dated from East Street, which end thus ecstatically:--

Nature's ever bounteous hand Sure has bless'd this happy land.

'Tis here no brow appears with care, What would we be, but what we are?

Before leaving this genial county organ I must quote from a paragraph in 1796 on the Prince himself:--"The following couplet of Pope may be fitly applied to his Royal Highness:--

If to his share some manly errors fall, Look on his face and you'll forget them all."

What could be kinder? A little earlier, in a description of these anodyne features, the journalist had said of his Royal Highness's "arch eyes," that they "seem to look more ways than one at a time, and especially when they are directed towards the fair s.e.x."

Quieter and more normal pastimes were gossip at the libraries, riding and driving, and bathing in the sea. Bathing seems to have been taken very seriously, with none of the present matter-of-course haphazardness.

In an old Guide to Brighton, dated 1794, I find the following description of the intrepid dippers of that day:--"It may not be improper here to introduce a short account of the manner of bathing in the sea at Brighthelmston. By means of a hook-ladder the bather ascends the machine, which is formed of wood, and raised on high wheels; he is drawn to a proper distance from the sh.o.r.e, and then plunges into the sea, the guides attending on each side to a.s.sist him in recovering the machine, which being accomplished, he is drawn back to sh.o.r.e. The guides are strong, active, and careful; and, in every respect, adapted to their employments."

[Sidenote: "SMOAKER"]

[Sidenote: MARTHA GUNN]