FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   10   11   12   13   14   15   16   17   18   19   20   21   22   23   24   25   26   27   28   29   30   31   32   33   34  
35   36   37   38   39   40   >>  
tial appearance. These gardens, and the look of the cottages, the little flower-gardens, which you every where see, and the beautiful hedges of thorn and of privet; these are the objects to delight the eyes, to gladden the heart, and to fill it with gratitude to God, and with love for the people; and, as far as my observation has gone, they are objects to be seen in no other country in the world. The cattle in Sussex are of a pale red colour, and very fine. I used to think that the Devonshire were the handsomest cows and oxen, but I have changed my mind; those of Sussex, of which I never took so much notice before, are handsomer as well as larger; and the oxen are almost universally used as working cattle. "Throughout this county I did not observe, in my late ride, one single instance of want of neatness about a poor man's house. It is the same with regard to the middle ranks: all is neat and beautiful, and particularly the hedges, of which I saw the handsomest white thorn hedge at Seddlescomb, that ever I saw in my life. It formed the inclosure of a garden in front of a pretty good house. It was about five feet high, about fifteen inches through; it came close to the ground, and it was sloped a little towards the top on each side, leaving a flat about four inches wide on the top of all. It had just been clipped; and it was as perpendicular and as smooth as a wall: I put my eye and looked along the sides of the several lines near the top, and if it had been built of stone, it could not have been truer. I lament that I did not ask the name of the owner, for it does him infinite credit. Those who see nothing but the nasty slovenly places in which labourers live, round London, know nothing of England. The fruit-trees are all kept in the nicest order; every bit of paling or wall is made use of, for the training of some sort or other. At _Lamberhurst_, which is one of the most beautiful villages that man ever sat his eyes on, I saw what I never saw before; namely, a _gooseberry tree trained against a house_. The house was one of those ancient buildings, consisting of a frame of oak wood, the internal filled up with brick, plastered over. The tree had been planted at the foot of one of the perpendicular pieces of wood; from the stem which, mounted up this piece of wood, were taken side limbs to run along the horizontal pieces. There were two windows, round the frame of each of which the limbs had been trained. The height of
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   10   11   12   13   14   15   16   17   18   19   20   21   22   23   24   25   26   27   28   29   30   31   32   33   34  
35   36   37   38   39   40   >>  



Top keywords:

beautiful

 

pieces

 

handsomest

 

perpendicular

 

inches

 

trained

 
objects
 

hedges

 
gardens
 
cattle

Sussex

 
London
 
England
 

labourers

 
slovenly
 

places

 
flower
 

paling

 
nicest
 

colour


lament

 
infinite
 

credit

 

training

 

appearance

 

planted

 

plastered

 

mounted

 

windows

 

height


horizontal

 

filled

 

internal

 
villages
 
looked
 

Lamberhurst

 

gooseberry

 

consisting

 

buildings

 

cottages


ancient

 

neatness

 
observation
 

instance

 
single
 
middle
 

regard

 
people
 
observe
 

notice