I leave my neighbours to their thought;`
My choice it is, and pride,

On my own lands to find my sport,
In my own fields to ride.

The hare herself no better loves

The field where she was bred,
Than I the habit of these groves,
My own inherited.

I know my quarries every one,

The meuse where she sits low;
The road she chose to-day was run
A hundred years ago.

The lags, the gills, the forest ways;
The hedgerows one and all,
These are the kingdoms of my chase,
And bounded by my wall.

Nor has the world a better thing,

Though one should search it round,
Than thus to live one's own sole king,
Upon one's own sole ground.

I like the hunting of the hare;
It brings me day by day,
The memory of old days as fair,
With dead men past away.

To these, as homeward still I ply,
And pass the churchyard gate,
Where all are laid as I must lie,
I stop and raise my hat.

I like the hunting of the hare;
New sports I hold in scorn.

I like to be as my fathers were,

In the days e'er I was born.

CHAP.

We are indeed just now in a bookish and poetical district, for a little more than a mile to the east of Crabbet, in a beautiful Tudor house in a hollow close to the station, lived Frederick Locker-Lampson, the London lyricist ; and here are treasured the famous Rowfant books and manuscripts which

XXIII

THE ROWFANT BOOKS

225

he brought together-the subject of graceful verses by many of his friends. Not the least charming of these tributes (printed in the Rowfant Catalogue in 1886) are Mr. Andrew Lang's lines:

TO F. L.

I mind that Forest Shepherd's saw,

For, when men preached of Heaven, quoth he;
"It's a' that's bricht, and a' that's braw,
But Bourhope's guid eneuch for me!"

Beneath the green deep-bosomed hills
That guard Saint Mary's Loch it lies,
The silence of the pasture fills

That shepherd's homely paradise.

Enough for him his mountain lake,

His glen the hern went singing through,
And Rowfant, when the thrushes wake,
May well seem good enough for YOU.

For all is old, and tried, and dear,
And all is fair, and round about
The brook that murmurs from the mere
Is dimpled with the rising trout.

But when the skies of shorter days
Are dark and all the " ways are mire,"
How bright upon your books the blaze
Gleams from the cheerful study fire.

On quartos where our fathers read,

Enthralled, the Book of Shakespeare's play,

On all that Poe could dream of dread,

And all that Herrick sang of gay!

Fair first editions, duly prized,

Above them all, methinks, I rate
The tome where Walton's hand revised
His wonderful receipts for bait !

Happy, who rich in toys like these
Forgets a weary nation's ills,
Who from his study window sees

The circle of the Sussex hills

226

THE RESOLUTE TITMICE

struggles in history.

and the G.P.O., and

the Natural History

CH. XXIII

Rowfant was once the scene of one of the most determined The contestants were a series of Titmice the account of the war may be read in Museum at South Kensington :—“In 1888, a pair of the Great Titmouse (Parus major) began to build their nest in the post-box which stood in the road at Rowfant, and into which letters, &c., were posted and taken out by the door daily. One of the birds was killed by a boy, and the nest was not finished. In 1889, a pair completed the nest, laid seven eggs, and began to sit; but one day, when an unusual number of post-cards were dropped into, and nearly filled, the box, the birds deserted the nest, which was afterwards removed with the eggs. In 1890, a pair built a new nest and laid seven eggs, and reared a brood of five young, although the letters posted were often found lying on the back of the sitting bird, which never left the nest when the door of the box was opened to take out the letters. The birds went in and out by the slit."

CHAPTER XXIV

EAST GRINSTEAD

Sackville College-"The Harbour of Refuge "-Theodosius; or, The Force of Love, at the East Grinsted Theatre-Three martyrs-Brambletye House-Forest Row-The garden of the author of The English Flower Garden-Diamond Jubilee clock-faces—“ Big-on-Little" and the reverend and irreverend commentator.

EAST GRINSTEAD, the capital of north-east Sussex, is interesting chiefly for Sackville College, that haunt of ancient peace which thousands of persons who have never been in Sussex know from its representation, somewhat modified, in Fred. Walker's picture, "The Harbour of Refuge." Nothing can exceed the quiet restfulness of the quadrangle. The college gives shelter to five brethren and six sisters (one of whom shows the visitor over the building), and to a warden and two assistants. Happy collegians, to have so fair a haven in which to pass the evening of life. East Grinstead otherwise has not much beauty, its commanding pinnacled church tower being more impressive from a distance, and its chief street mingling too much that is new with its few old timbered façades, charming though these are.

The town, when it would be frivolous, to-day depends upon the occasional visits of travelling entertainers; but in the eighteenth century East Grinstead had a theatre of its own, in the mair street, a play-bill of which, for May, 1758, is given in Boaden's Life of Mrs. Siddons. It states that "Theodosius; or, the