The church of Waterlooville is a building of so paltry and vulgar a design, and built of such poor materials, that a near sight of it would be sufficient to make the mildest architect swear loud and long. This plastered abomination is, of course, among the earliest buildings here; for no sooner are two or three houses gathered together than an unbeneficed clergyman--what we may on this sea-faring road most appropriately term a "sky-pilot"--comes along and solicits subscriptions towards the building of a church for the due satisfaction of the "spiritual needs" of a meagre flock. It would be ungenerous to assert that he always scents a living in this spiritual urgency, but the labourer is worthy of his hire, and if by dint of much canvassing for funds amongst pious old ladies and retired general officers (why is it that these men of war so frequently become pillars of the Church after their army days are done?) he succeeds in putting up some sort of a building called a church, who else so eligible as incumbent? [Sidenote: _PURBROOK_] Where Waterlooville ends, the road runs for half-a-mile in mitigated rusticity, to become again, at the sixth milestone from Portsmouth, lively with the thriving, business-like village of Purbrook. And at this point the traveller in coaching times came within sight of his destination. Painfully the old stages climbed up the steep ascent of Portsdown Hill before the road was lowered by cutting through the chalk at the summit, about 1820, and grumblingly the passengers obeyed the coachman and walked up the road to save the horses. But when they did reach the crest of the hill such a panorama met their gaze as nowhere else could be seen in England: Portsmouth, the Harbour, Gosport, the Isle of Wight, and the coast-line for miles on either hand lay spread out before their eyes as daintily as in a plan, and smiling like a Land of Promise. Unfortunately, however, our forebears were not yet educated to a proper appreciation and admiration of scenery. They, with that jovial bard of the Regency, Captain Morris, preferred the pavements of great cities to the pastorals of the country-side, and would with the greatest fervour have echoed him when he wrote-- "In town let me live, then, in town let me die; For, in truth, I can't relish the country, not I. If one must have a villa in summer to dwell, Oh! give me the sweet shady side of Pall Mall." Fortunately, however, the view remains unspoiled for a generation that takes its pleasures afield, and can find delight in country scenes which our great-grandfathers characterized as places of "horror and desolation." This is the point of view from which Rowlandson has sketched his "Extraordinary Scene," and although we miss in the picture the "George Inn," that stands so four-square and stalwart, perched up above the road, yet the likeness to the place remains after these many years have flown.