"A sailor's life's a pleasant life, He freely roams from shore to shore; In every port he finds a wife-- What can a sailor wish for more?" Some enamoured potter having produced a masterpiece as a present to his lady destroyed the design, so that the service he gave her might be unique. After gazing at these curious old pieces, with dates of 1754, 1728, and so forth, the mind becomes attuned to such times, and the jug with the inscription, "Claret, 1652," seems quite an easy and natural transition. From the Brighton of to-day it is centuries back to 1754; but from 1754 to 1652 is but a year or two. And after studying these shelves, and getting, as it were, so deep down in the past, it is with a kind of Rip Van Winkle feeling that you enter again into the sunshine of the day. The fair upon the beach does not seem quite real for a few minutes. Before the autumn is too far advanced and the skies are uncertain, a few hours should be given to that massive Down which fronts the traveller from London, Ditchling Beacon, the highest above the sea-level. It is easy of access, the train carries you to Hassock's Gate--the station is almost in a copse--and an omnibus runs from it to a comfortable inn in the centre of Ditchling village. Thence to the Down itself the road is straight and the walk no longer than is always welcome after riding. After leaving the cottages and gardens, the road soon becomes enclosed with hedges and trees, a mere country lane; and how pleasant are the trees after the bare shore and barren sea! The hand of autumn has browned the oaks, and has passed over the hedge, reddening the haws. The north wind rustles the dry hollow stalks of plants upon the mound, and there is a sense of hardihood in the touch of its breath. The light is brown, for a vapour conceals the sun--it is not like a cloud, for it has no end or outline, and it is high above where the summer blue was lately. Or is it the buff leaves, the grey stalks, the dun grasses, the ripe fruit, the mist which hides the distance that makes the day so brown? But the ditches below are yet green with brooklime and rushes. By a gateway stands a tall campanula or bell-flower, two feet high or nearly, with great bells of blue. A passing shepherd, without his sheep, but walking with his crook as a staff, stays and turns a brown face towards me when I ask him the way. He points with his iron crook at a narrow line which winds up the Down by some chalk-pits; it is a footpath from the corner of the road. Just by the corner the hedge is grey with silky flocks of clematis; the hawthorn is hidden by it. Near by there is a bush, made up of branches from five different shrubs and plants.