several ancient churches
are within hailing distance of each other; the field of her battle,
where Simon de Montfort defeated Henry III., is in view from her
north-west slopes; while the new martyrs' memorial on the turf above the
precipitous escarpment of the Cliffe (once the scene of a fatal
avalanche) reminds one of what horrors were possible in the name of
religion in these streets less than four hundred years ago.

[Sidenote: THE RICHES OF LEWES]

Here are riches enough; yet Lewes adds to such mementoes of an historic
past two gaols--one civil and one naval--a racecourse, and a river, and
she is an assize town to boot. Once, indeed, Lewes was still better off,
for she had a theatre, which for some years was under the management of
Jack Palmer, of whom Charles Lamb wrote with such gusto. Added to these
possessions, she has, in Keere Street, the narrowest and steepest
thoroughfare down which a king (George IV.) ever drove a coach and four,
and a row of comfortable and serene residences (on the way to St. Ann's)
more luxuriantly and beautifully covered with leaves than any I ever
saw. (Much of Lewes in September is scarlet with Virginia creeper.)

[Illustration: _High Street, Southover._]

[Sidenote: "BRIGHTHELMSTONE, NEAR LEWES"]

[Sidenote: JOHN HALSHAM'S DREAM]

Although less than half an hour from Brighton by train, and an hour by
road, Lewes is yet a full quarter of a century behind it. She would do
well jealously to maintain this interval. Lewes was old and grey before
Brighton was thought of (indeed, it was, as we have seen, a Lewes man
that discovered Brighton--Dr. Russell, who lies in his grave in South
Malling church); let her cling to her seniority. As a town "in the
movement," as a contemporary of the "Queen of Watering Places," she
would cut a poor figure. But it is amusing to think of the old address
of a visitor to Brighton, "at Brighthelmstone, near Lewes," and to read
the county paper, _The Sussex Weekly Advertiser; or, Lewes Journal_, of
a century ago, with its columns of Lewes news and paragraphs of Brighton
correspondence. Lewes will cease to have charm the moment she
modernises. In the words of the author of _Idlehurst_, as he looked down
on the huddling little settlement from the Cliffe Hill: "Let us keep a
country town or two as preserves for clean atmospheres of body and soul,
for the almost lost secret of sitting still.... I find myself tangled
in half-dreams of a devolution by which, w