According to Camden, the first warden was appointed by William the Conqueror, who died in 1087, but their charter has been traced directly to the times of Edward the Saxon king, as before named. This port was considered as the key of the kingdom. After the establishment of Norman rule, it suffered the vengeance of William the Conqueror, to whom it made strong opposition. In 1213 King John performed at Dover the ceremony of submission to the Pope, giving up his authority to the papal nuncio.
In 1295 the French made a descent upon the place and committed great depredations; and so for centuries it was the theatre of attacks and defences, but we pass all, intimating, however, that no more interesting history exists than that relating to these invasions of the territory of England by the various people who had an eye to the possession of new territory,—for which practice England herself has for centuries been celebrated, and which found its last expression in obtaining possession of Cyprus.
In 1847 a mass from one of the chalk-cliffs scaled off and fell to the base. It was 254 feet in height, 15 feet thick, and was calculated to weigh 48,000 tons. Shortly after, another fell, of 10,000 cubic yards. The principal cliff is 350 feet high above the water, which is more than half as high again as our Bunker Hill Monument. Another, called Shakespeare's Cliff, is located just in the rear of, and is a background of, the town, and is perforated by the tunnel of the Southeastern Railway.
Nothing is or can be more picturesque and grand than these chalk-white, clean-faced, and very perpendicular walls, covered as they are on their top and rear slopes with a splendid grass verdure. The blue water of the bay; the old weather-beaten part of the city,—quite European, though not all antique; and the long line of fine beach; the grand avenue above it, so alive with gay teams and pleasure-seekers; the mile-range of hotels and mansions; and to the left, the lofty promontory land, with the castle on its top and the high lands extending well out into the sea, its waves beating at times grandly against these milk-white ramparts,—this group of things forms a scene of remarkable splendor and interest. Our stay here was exceedingly pleasant and was exhilarating in the extreme. We, the next a. m. at 9.30, took our steamer for Calais, which is the nearest port of France, 21 miles over the channel.
Before, however, closing our work, we will speak of one more place in England,—in a sense a counterpart of Dover. It is the famed watering-place, Brighton. Though we did not visit it for some months after this,—till on the 10th of August,—yet as it is the only place of England we visited not yet described, we take occasion to speak of it now, and so complete our record.
BRIGHTON.
We took cars at London for Brighton one Saturday night, and after a two hours' ride arrived at the famed watering-place. The first impression was that we were in a large and old place, and in anything but one to which people would resort for pleasure; for the place in the vicinity of the station, and especially for the entire length of a long street leading down from it, had a very commercial and business-like appearance; and, as we passed down its entire length and looked to the right and left, compactly built streets, houses, and shops, and even fine stores and warehouses, seemed to extend as far as the eye could reach; no tree nor garden, nor even front-yard anywhere, but one mass of solid buildings, and surely a great population.
Our only hope and tangible evidence that we had not mistaken this for the watering-place Brighton—as we had mistaken the little fishing-place Wells, for the cathedral town—was a very large lot of well-to-do, stylishly dressed people, all passing down this great main street. We of course followed, for just then we considered ourselves watering-place visitors, and so in a sense aristocratic. At length the end of the street gained, all fears were dispelled, for there in front lay the grand harbor, and for aught we could see to the contrary, thousands of miles of good ocean were stretching out from it.
Here, as at Dover, was a grand avenue, along for some two or three miles, with a most remarkable shore, and its fine beach extending for miles. A very good cut-stone wall is built the entire length of the city, dividing the beach from the grand avenue, and along these thousands were promenading. The style of hotels is quite in advance of those at Dover. They are many in number, and are of a quite similar appearance as compared to each other, none of them, however, being striking as works of art or architecture. They are of stone or brick, and of a cream-color; all are from three to five stories high, very plain, without porticos or much of any decoration; and while they had a neat and inviting look, yet none of them appeared to be very new or modern, but substantial, and, perhaps of most appropriate construction for their exposed situation. The land rises amphitheatre-like from the water, and, as before named, has a solid and very substantial look.
It has a population of 90,000, and extends for three miles along the coast, from Kemptown on the east to Hove on the west. It was not a place of especial resort till about a century ago, when Dr. Richard Russell published a work on the use of sea-water which attracted much attention; and its celebrity as a watering-place became established when George IV.—who at the time, 1784, was simply the Prince of Wales—made it his place of residence, and began the erection of a peculiar building, called the Pavilion, which was finished in 1787. The grounds were some five acres in extent, and finely laid out by the building of avenues, paths, lawns, flower-beds, and the setting out of good shrubbery and trees. The estate is very centrally located, and in the midst of a neighborhood of the best inhabitants. The town ultimately purchased it of the crown, for the sum of $265,000, and threw the premises open to the public as pleasure-grounds. In all our travels we saw no finer taste displayed in the arrangement of elegant colored-plant designs, nor on as large a scale, as we saw here. They were indeed marvels of genius and beauty. Our visit to these grounds was after tea Sunday night, when hundreds of people were enjoying the treat; and among the few very choice and pleasant hours in England, these are to be named.