writer's mind a better plan is to make a
break from this established usage and get quarters in one of the quiet
old places about eight or ten miles inland, such as Ottery or
Axminster. But Sidmouth is an exceedingly pleasant spot, in which one
need never feel dull or bored, and in which the vulgarities one
associates with the "popular" watering place are entirely absent. The
bright and clean appearance of the stuccoed houses, nearly always
painted white, contrasting with the red of the cliffs and the green
foliage with which the town is embowered, is very effective and even
beautiful. The houses are grouped in a compact and cosy way between
the two hills, although of late years a number of new and, at close
quarters, staring red brick efforts at modernity have been made on the
hillsides. But these are decently covered, in any general view of the
town, in the wealth of trees that climb the lower slopes.

[Illustration: SIDMOUTH.]

Certain quarters of Sidmouth have an air of antique and solid
gentility that is a heritage from those days when it was a select and
fashionable resort before the terraces of Torquay were built on the
lines of its parent--Bath. After Lyme it was the first of the western
coast towns to bid for the custom of the habitues of such inland
resorts as Tunbridge Wells, Cheltenham and the like. The
Victorian-Gothic building known as Royal Glen, originally Woolbrook
Cottage, was for several years the home of the Duke and Duchess of
Kent and the infant Princess Victoria. The Duke died here in 1820 and
Queen Victoria caused a window to be placed to his memory in the
rebuilt parish church.

The town is mentioned in Thackeray's _Pendennis_, and was the home of
the immortal Mrs. Partington, an old acquaintance of Sidney Smith; she
is supposed to have lived in one of the cob cottages that used to be
on the front. Like the Lords with Reform, so was Mrs. Partington with
the Atlantic Ocean, which she tried to keep out of her front door with
a mop. "She was excellent at slop or puddle, but should never have
meddled with a tempest." If she was an actual character the good
dame's house probably stood where now the fine esplanade runs its
straight course between Peak Hill and the Alma Bridge over the Sid. At
the bridge the shingle bank baulks the stream from a clear course into
the sea and usually forces it into an ignominious and green scummed
pool that slowly filters through the stony wall. From the bridge a
pat