wer Beeding, then strike
north over Plummer's Plain. This route leads by Coolhurst and through
Manning Heath, just beyond which, by following the south, that runs for
a mile, one could see Nuthurst. Lower Beeding is not in itself
interesting; but close at hand is Leonardslee, the seat of Sir Edmund
Loder, which is one of the most satisfying estates in the county. North
and south runs a deep ravine, on the one side richly wooded, and on the
other, the west, planted with all acclimatisable varieties of Alpine
plants and flowering shrubs. The chain of ponds at the bottom of the
ravine forms one of the principal sources of the Adur. In an enclosure
among the woods the kangaroo has been acclimatised; and beavers are
given all law.

North of Plummer's Plain, in a hollow, are two immense ponds, Hammer
Pond and Hawkin's Pond, our first reminder that we are in the old iron
country. St. Leonard's Forest, and all the forests on this the forest
ridge of Sussex, were of course maintained to supply wood with which to
feed the furnaces of the iron masters--just as the overflow of these
ponds was trained to move the machinery of the hammers for the breaking
of the iron stone. The enormous consumption of wood in the iron
foundries was a calamity seriously viewed by many observers, among them
Michael Drayton, of the _Poly Olbion_, who was, however, distressed less
as a political economist than as the friend of the wood nymphs driven by
the encroaching and devastating foundrymen from their native sanctuaries
to the inhospitable Downs. Thus he writes, illustrating Lamb's criticism
of him that in this work he "has animated hills and streams with life
and passion above the dreams of old mythology":--

The daughters of the Weald
(That in their heavy breasts had long their griefs concealed),
Foreseeing their decay each hour so fast come on,
Under the axe's stroke, fetched many a grievous groan.
When as the anvil's weight, and hammer's dreadful sound,
Even rent the hollow woods and shook the queachy ground;
So that the trembling nymphs, oppressed through ghastly fear,
Ran madding to the downs, with loose dishevelled hair.
The Sylvans that about the neighbouring woods did dwell,
Both in the tufty frith and in the mossy fell,
Forsook their gloomy bowers, and wandered far abroad,
Expelled their quiet seats, and place of their abode,
When labouring carts