_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.
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