ording good ground both for
tillage and pasture. Corn grew and cattle browsed over the space now
covered by that long succession of streets and villas. [98] Brighton was
described as a place which had once been thriving, which had possessed
many small fishing barks, and which had, when at the height of
prosperity, contained above two thousand inhabitants, but which was
sinking fast into decay. The sea was gradually gaining on the buildings,
which at length almost entirely disappeared. Ninety years ago the ruins
of an old fort were to be seen lying among the pebbles and seaweed
on the beach; and ancient men could still point out the traces of
foundations on a spot where a street of more than a hundred huts had
been swallowed up by the waves. So desolate was the place after this
calamity, that the vicarage was thought scarcely worth having. A few
poor fishermen, however, still continued to dry their nets on those
cliffs, on which now a town, more than twice as large and populous
as the Bristol of the Stuarts, presents, mile after mile, its gay and
fantastic front to the sea. [99]

England, however, was not, in the seventeenth century, destitute of
watering places. The gentry of Derbyshire and of the neighbouring
counties repaired to Buxton, where they were lodged in low rooms under
bare rafters, and regaled with oatcake, and with a viand which the hosts
called mutton, but which the guests suspected to be dog. A single good
house stood near the spring. [100] Tunbridge Wells, lying within a
day's journey of the capital, and in one of the richest and most highly
civilised parts of the kingdom, had much greater attractions. At present
we see there a town which would, a hundred and sixty years ago, have
ranked, in population, fourth or fifth among the towns of England. The
brilliancy of the shops and the luxury of the private dwellings far
surpasses anything that England could then show. When the court, soon
after the Restoration, visited Tunbridge Wells, there was no town:
but, within a mile of the spring, rustic cottages, somewhat cleaner and
neater than the ordinary cottages of that time, were scattered over the
heath. Some of these cabins were movable and were carried on sledges
from one part of the common to another. To these huts men of fashion,
wearied with the din and smoke of London, sometimes came in the summer
to breathe fresh air, and to catch a glimpse of rural life. During the
season a kind of fair was daily held