HAPPY UNION.
Quin used to say, that of all the bans of marriage he ever heard, none gave him such pleasure as the union of delicate Ann Chovy with good John Dory. This sentiment was worthy of such a disciple of Apicius.
S. S. S.
Fine View.
LEITH HILL, NEAR DORKING.
Extracted from a letter from Mr. Dennis to Mr. Serjeant, near seventy years ago.
In a late journey which I took into the wild of Sussex, I passed over a hill, which showed me more transporting sights than ever I had seen before, either in England or Italy. The prospects which in Italy pleased me most were the Valdarno from the Apennines of Rome, and the Mediterranean from the mountain of Viterbo; of Rome at forty, and the Mediterranean at fifty miles distant from it; and that of the famous Campagna of Rome from Tivoli and Frescati, to the very foot of the mountain Viterbo, without any thing to intercept your sight.
But from an hill which I passed in my late journey into Sussex, I had a prospect more extensive than any of these, and which surpassed them at once in rural charms, in pomp, and magnificence. The hill which I speak of is called Leith-hill, and is about five miles southward from Dorking, about six miles from Box-hill, and near twelve from Epsom. It juts itself out about two miles beyond that range of hills, which terminate the north downs to the south. After conquering the hill itself the sight is enchantingly beautiful. Beneath lie open to our view all the wilds of Surrey and Sussex, and a great part of that of Kent, admirably diversified in every part of them with woods, and fields of corn and pasture, and everywhere adorned with stately rows of trees. This beautiful vale is thirty miles in breadth, and sixty in length, terminating on the south by the majestic range of hills and the sea. About noon on a serene day you may, at thirty miles distance, see the waters of the sea through a chasm of the mountains. And that which, above all, makes it a noble and wonderful prospect is, that at the same time you behold this noble sight, by a little turn of your head towards the north, you look full over Box-hill, and see the country beyond it, between that and London, and St. Paul’s, at twenty-five miles distance, with Highgate and Hampstead beyond it all. It may perhaps appear incredible to some, that a place which affords so great and so surprising a prospect should have remained so long in obscurity, and that it is unknown to the very visitors of Epsom and Box-hill. But, alas! we live in a country more fertile of great things, than of men to admire them.
Whoever talked of Cooper’s-hill, till sir John Denham made it illustrious?—How long did Milton remain in obscurity, while twenty paltry authors, little and vile compared to him, were talked of and admired? But in England, nineteen in twenty like by other people’s opinions, and not by their own.