with the exception of a very few of necessary
trades, as a water-miller, a baker, a
shop-keeper, a rope-spinner, and two or three
publicans. The youngsters take to the waves
as naturally as the cow to the meadow, or
the sheep to the down. At ebb tide, the
Sheringham children throw their little
toy-boats as far as they can into the surf, and then
wade after them, mid-person deep. Here, if they
did not indulge in such freaks, they would be
suspected to be changelings, and not to belong
to the true water-dog breed. But the roaring
tyrant wants to shift their play-ground. In
front of the Crown Inn at Lower Sheringham
there once was a bowling-green to recreate
the seniors;—the weather-beaten crab and
lobster-catchers, when they took a holiday.
But the sea has long since rolled and bowled
"the green" out, and played pitch-and-toss
with it likewise. The very narrow strip of grey
shingle between the house and the beach, is
nevertheless still called "The Green." They
say that the original Lower Sheringham is
now at the bottom of the sea. If this be
really true, as it doubtless is, then there are
three, not two Sheringhams, to be
distinguished, according to the three degrees of
comparison, as Upper Sheringham, Lower
Sheringham, and Lowest Sheringham.
Unhappy trio! What is to become of you?

    "Which way I fly is Sea; myself am Sea;
      And in the lowest deep, a lower deep
      Still threatening to devour me opens wide."

Cottages and buildings hereabouts are to
be seen half-pulled down—on the fireman's
principle—to save the remaining half from
"the devouring element," the other "good
servant, but bad master." The tenure of the
Crown Inn is considered so precarious, that
its owner hesitates to put out a second bow-
window, to add to the attractions of that
fashionable resort; but the Lower
Sheringhamites ought not to have their "pleasaunce"
thus whisked away from them, for they are
plucky fellows. One afternoon, when the
weather was too "coarse" to fish, they got
up a little sailing-match between themselves—
though it was blowing what landsmen would
call a gale, but what was to them simply a nice
breeze—all for love and good-will, and a drop of
beer. They went off like race-horses let loose,
galloping over the waves; tough work,
however, to get back, with the wind all but due
east. The whole town, including women and
children, came to the edge of the cliff to see
them in, like one large family party. The
sea looked very savage soon after: shewing its
white teeth most furiously, sharklike, in
thrice-triple row.

Along the whole line of coast from Happisburgh
to Lower Sheringham, and beyond it,
the walks of my boyhood are not. The cliif-
skirting path that I once trod has been
swallowed up, and a new track is successively
beaten, to be soon engulphed in its turn.

Every year, every half-year, every month,
makes changes at certain points with the
most impressive relentlessness. Leave the
cliff but for a week; return to some familiar
point. "Hah! what's this? Something fresh
carried away?"—"Yes, sir;" in an of-course
tone of voice, "the high tide the other day,
and the land-springs after a fortnight's rain."
In the interval between the writing and the
printing of these sentences, acres may be
swept away; and acres more may follow
before they are offered to the perusal of those
who dwell contiguous to the scene of destruction.
At Trimingham, a plantation of trees,
about six feet high, has a large corner cut
away and gone. What could the planter be
thinking about? Timber, or flotsom and
jetsom? "Papa!" said a little girl, wondering
at these things, "if all the world were
washed away, except one island, how the
people would throng to it, and what pushing,
and crowding, and quarrelling there would
be!"

It is well for the human race that all
the dry land, which was made to appear
on the earth, is not like the portion of it
which I am now describing; else we should
soon have to live in boats (if at all), like
certain Chinamen, when house-rent is dear.
This part of the world is certainly being
fast washed away. At Hasbro', as it is
pronounced, the tradition is that Happisburgh,
as it is spelt on the maps, is far out at
sea, and moreover, at the bottom of it. And
one or two churches, for instance, Sidestrand,
Mundesley, and, perhaps, Beeston Regis, may
coolly defy all sorts of Papal attempts at
appropriation: for a greater than the Pope
seems to have fixed the day when the last
sermon, tractarian or anti-, shall be preached
within their walls. Till that time arrives,
the respective and respected officiating ministers
doubtless frequently remind their flocks,
both literally and figuratively, of what they
must be only too well aware; namely, the
folly of the man who, without a foundation,
built his house upon the earth, within reach
of the raging waves. The sea will have these
churches, dead bodies and all, unless a
tolerably bold effort is made to save them. To
Sidestrand church the danger is quite definite
and imminent. It is not a stone's throw from
the edge of the cliff. And yet the foolish
parish has dressed up its expiring existence
with a smartly renovated steeple, instead of
making, like a sensible parish, a breakwater
or two on the beach below. I should be sorry
to be bedridden, or kept close prisoner in a
house built on the ground occupied by this
natty steeple. Indeed, I do not give the
fabric, the chancel especially, ten years to
stand, if the ravages of the ocean be
permitted to go on unchecked, as they are at
present. In Mundesley churchyard, an
epitaph on an unknown body washed ashore,
otherwise appropriate, is somewhat mal-à-propos,
from its assuming the impossibility of