ouse of Guelph, the visit of the Princess Amelia in 1799
having added a _cachet_, previously lacking, to its invigorating
character. But, unlike Brighton, neither Worthing nor Bognor has
succeeded in becoming quite indispensable. Brighton has the advantage
not only of being nearer London but also nearer the hills. One must walk
for some distance from Worthing before the lonely highland district
between Cissbury and Lancing Clump is gained, whereas Brighton is partly
built upon the Downs and has her little Dyke Railway to boot. But the
visitor to Worthing who, surfeited of sea and parade, makes for the hill
country, knows a solitude as profound as anything that Brighton's
heights can give him.

[Sidenote: "HAWTHORN AND LAVENDER"]

Worthing has at least two literary associations. It was there that that
most agreeable comedy _The Importance of Being Earnest_ was written: the
town even gave its name to the principal character--John Worthing; and
it was there that Mr. Henley lived while the lyrics in _Hawthorn and
Lavender_ were coming to him. The beautiful dedication to the book is
dated "Worthing, July 31, 1901."

Ask me not how they came,
These songs of love and death,
These dreams of a futile stage,
These thumb-nails seen in the street:
Ask me not how nor why,
But take them for your own,
Dear Wife of twenty years,
Knowing--O, who so well?--
You it was made the man
That made these songs of love,
Death, and the trivial rest:
So that, your love elsewhere,
These songs, or bad or good--
How should they ever have been?

[Illustration: _Sompting._]

[Sidenote: SOMPTING]

Of the villages to the west we have caught glimpses in an earlier
chapter--Goring, Angmering, Ferring, and so forth; to the north and east
are Broadwater, Sompting and Lancing. Broadwater is perhaps a shade too
near Worthing to be interesting, but Sompting, lying under the Downs, is
unspoiled, with its fascinating church among the elms and rocks. The
church (of which Mr. Griggs has made an exquisite drawing) was built
nearly eight hundred years ago. Within are some curious fragments of
sculpture, and a tomb which Mr. Lower considered to belong to Richard
Bury, Bishop of Chichester in the reign of Henry VIII. East of Sompting
lie the two Lancings, North Lancing on the hill, South Lancing on the
coast. East of North Lancing, the true village, stands Lancing College,
high above