y, is in the churchyard. Here, in 1850, Henry Edward
Manning, afterwards Cardinal, preached his last sermon for the Church of
England. It is, indeed, Manning country, for besides being curate and
rector of Woollavington with Graffham (four or five miles to the
south-east) from 1833 until his secession, he was for nine years
Archdeacon of Chichester; he married Miss Sargent, daughter of the late
rector and sister of Mrs. Samuel Wilberforce of Woollavington; and while
rector, he rebuilt both churches. Graffham is interesting also as being
the present home of one of the most truthful of living painters, Mr.
Henry La Thangue, whose scenes of peasants at work (in the manner of
Barbizon) and studies of sunlight spattering through the trees are among
the triumphs of modern English art.

[Sidenote: CIDER'S DISAPPEARANCE]

One more village and we will make for the hills. A mile beyond the
eastern gate of Cowdray Park is Lodsworth, still a paradise of apple
orchards, but no longer famous for its cider as once it was. Arthur
Young had the pleasure of tasting some Lodsworth cider of a superior
quality at Lord Egremont's table at the beginning of the last century,
but I doubt if Petworth House honours the beverage to-day. Cider, except
in the cider country, becomes less and less common.

[Illustration: _Cowdray._]

CHAPTER III

FIRST SIGHT OF THE DOWNS

The Sussex hills--Gilbert White's praise--Britons, Romans,
Saxons--Charles the Second's ride through Sussex.

Between Midhurst and Chichester, our next centre, rise the Downs, to a
height of between seven hundred and eight hundred feet. Although we
shall often be crossing them again before we leave the county, I should
like to speak of them a little in this place.

The Downs are the symbol of Sussex. The sea, the Weald, the heather
hills of her great forest district, she shares with other counties, but
the Downs are her own. Wiltshire, Berkshire, Kent and Hampshire, it is
true, have also their turf-covered chalk hills, but the Sussex Downs are
vaster, more remarkable, and more beautiful than these, with more
individuality and charm. At first they have been known to disappoint the
traveller, but one has only to live among them or near them, within the
influence of their varying moods, and they surely conquer. They are the
smoothest things in England, gigantic, rotund, easy; the eye rests upon
their gentle contours and is at peace. They have no sublimity, no