na. And indeed Rye is in its
smaller, less complete and of course less exquisite way very like the
most beautiful city in Tuscany. Here, too, as in Siena, the red-roofed
houses climb up a hill, one upon another, a hill crowned at last by a
great church dedicated in honour of the Blessed Virgin. But here the
likeness, too fanciful for reality, ceases altogether. It is true that
Siena looks out beyond her own gardens and vineyards upon a desert,
but it is a very different desolation upon which Rye gazes all day
long, out of which she rises with all the confidence, grace, and
gaiety of a flower, and over which she rules like a queen.

From the Porta Romana of Siena or the outlook of the Servi, you gaze
southward across the barren, scorched valleys to the far-away
mountains, to Monte Amiata, the fairest mountain of Tuscany. From the
Ypres Tower of Rye or the Gun Garden below it, you look only across
the level and empty Marsh which sinks beyond Camber Castle
imperceptibly into the greyness and barrenness of the sea. To the
east, across the flat emptiness, the Rother crawls seaward; to the
west across the Marsh, as once across the sea, Winchelsea rises
against the woods, and beyond, far away, the darkness of Fairlight
hangs like a cloud twixt sea and sky.

Indeed, to liken Rye to any other place is to do her wrong, for both
in herself and in that landscape over which she broods, there is
enough beauty and enough character to give her a life and a meaning
altogether her own. From afar off, from Winchelsea, for instance, in
the sunlight, she seems like a town in a missal, crowned by that
church which seems so much bigger than it is, gay and warm and yet
with something of the greyness of the sea and the sea wind about her, a
place that, as so few English places do, altogether makes a picture in
the mind, and is at unity with itself.

And from within she seems not less complete, a thing wholly ancient,
delightful, with a picturesque and yet homely beauty that is the child
of ancientness. Yet how much has Rye lost! The walls of Coeur de Lion
have fallen, and only one of the gates remains; but so long as the
church and the beautiful strong tower of William de Ypres stand, and
the narrow cobbled streets full of old and humble houses climb up and
down the steep hill, the whole place is involved in their beauty and
sanctity, our hearts are satisfied and our eyes engaged on behalf of a
place at once so old and picturesque and yet so