'The great name of England,' made and sturdily maintained by our fearless forefathers, whose contempt for their foes, though perhaps not a great quality, is still a greater one than the craven fear that would have peace at any price: this 'great name' has been handed down to us, a precious heritage, a glorious record of valiant deeds in many a stubborn sea-battle and on many a hard-fought field. May we, their descendants, prove worthy of our brave sires, worthy of the noble past; and when the hour of England's need comes, as come it may, God grant that we may rise to the occasion, and hand down to our children unimpaired their magnificent birthright! For though Tennyson, almost despairing of the present degenerate, money-making, talk-anddo-nothing age, writes—

Babble, babble; our old England may go down in babble at last,

has not even a greater than he-our own truehearted poet and noble patriot Shakespeare-also written :

This England never did, nor never shall,
Lie at the proud foot of a conqueror,

But when it first did help to wound itself.
Come the corners of the world in arms,

And we shall shock them: nought shall make us rue
If England to itself do rest but true?

An Old Home-Life at a Farm-A Picturesque Colony of Buildings -A Curious Well-A Startling Discovery-Ghastly RelicsMurder, or What?-Birling Gap-A Seascape-Chat with a Coastguard A Grand Piano at Sea-A Wasting Shore-A Lighthouse in the Clouds-On Beachy Head-Jottings from my NoteBook--Down Turf-Walking a Pleasure A Grand Playground for Londoners.

As we wandered along that pleasant road, seaward bound, we came upon an old rambling farmhouse, surrounded by quite a colony of outbuildings. Right through the farmyard our way led us (a curious intrusion of a public road), and even our longings for a sight at and a sniff of the 'briny' were not strong enough to let us pass by without making a sketch of that picturesque old English home; for picturesque it was, in the fullest meaning of the word, with its time-toned rambling barns, great stables, lean to sheds, bent-roofed cowhouses, pigeon-cotes, and I know not what else their roofs orange with lichen and green and grey with mosses, their walls painted by time a profusion of tints. All

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of which weatherbeaten structures were grouped about in a picturesque undesigned irregularity, charming in their practical disregard of uniformity.

A farmstead is generally the scene of life and quiet activity-by which I mean that, though the operations are performed in a manner the reverse of slothful, they do not beget a feeling of restlessness, for there is no apparent bustle and hurrying, no discordant noises, and the sounds are rather peace-giving than nerve-irritating. One can never feel dull in such a spot, the mind is always kept pleasantly occupied, for there is ever something going on to interest the observer-teams starting out or returning, horses watering, cattle lazily drinking, haycarts or corn-laden waggons coming in from the field, cows milking, poultry feeding, and so forth-an endless succession of small events. Something is ever taking place from early morning till the shadows of evening bring the labours of the day to a close. Labours, I have said; but to me the varying occupations of a farm appear more to take the form of a holiday recreation than the monotonous drudgery of toil.

So we found in the ample yard plenty to amuse us for the time-a yard as large as many a village green, for as the down land is cheap, these farmsteads are spread out in a manner unknown in the country where land rents (or used to do) for nearly as many pounds an acre as these wild tracts of prairie ground bring shillings. A large pond in the centre of the yard was the scene of the chief activity. Horses and cows were led down to this to drink, somebody was always fetching water therefrom for one purpose

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or another, and ducks and geese made it lively with their constant movement and endless cackling. Here in this open space the incoming teams rested before going to their stables, and the labourers kept crossing and recrossing it upon their different errands. Our sketch-book was out, and several charming and natural bits of farm life were added to its already well-stocked pages.

Truly that old great gabled farm, with its manypaned windows, its tall stacks of chimneys, its weathered and flint-built outbuildings, with the sparkle of water in the foreground, its backing of dark green trees, with the looming rounded downs beyond again, formed a picture delightful to look upon.

Nowadays we build not such farmsteads, with their massive walls, wealth of gables, high-pitched tiled roofs that defy both snow and rain, great beams, general solid and substantial construction, roomy interiors, grand barns, and generous allowance of outbuildings.

A modern farmstead, brick built almost of a certainty, with its thin walls, low-pitched roofs (of chilly slate most probably), small chimneys, scant allowance of barns and other detached structures, with its unmistakable appearance of having been erected by contract upon the principle of getting the most for the least money-how mean and paltry, compared to its old English predecessor, it looks!

A farmhouse and its belongings is not to be built in a day, it is the collected work of generations, of countless alterations, improvements, adaptationssuggested, it may be, even by the fancies of different

farmers, as well as the outcome of practical requirements arising from the varying necessities of long years. Such a happily picturesque collection of buildings is not to be planned all at once--it comes of a natural growth, a growth that takes time to arrive at its picturesque perfection. This growth, too, forms its little history, none the less interesting because unwritten and unknown to the outer world.

I do love these genuine old English farmsteads; they are to me (unambitious as I am) the ideal perfection of a country home, where one may really feel at thorough ease-not too well furnished, that you feel conscious of doing wrong should you come in with muddy boots, as you often do in the country, spacious enough for a moderate mansion, with ample accommodation, in the way of roomy cupboardswhich the modern builder seems to deem needless, but which the housewife delights in; but then thin walls will not allow of these convenient contrivances. Then, again, the many odd nooks and corners, how useful for the reception of various odds and ends! The gardens, too, of these old homes, how pleasant they are-large and tranquil, old-fashioned certainly (with perchance a moss-encrusted sundial in the centre), full of old-fashioned flowers, sweet-smelling and colourful; and after all are they not the best?

Yes, a really old English farmhouse, unaltered, unimproved (it may have been an ancient manor house-many of the Sussex ones have-if so, all the better), has a hold upon my affections that no other structure raised as a home for man ever has, unless it be one of the rambling coaching inns of the past;