Page:Two Sussex archaeologists, William Durrant Cooper and Mark Antony Lower.djvu/34

 spending some eighteen months on this experiment in the tutor's art, he removed, in his nineteenth year, to Alfriston, and there ventured on a more ambitious effort at school-keeping. And it was during his tenure of this Alfriston school that he enlarged his qualifications for teaching. In his scanty leisure at this time he made himself master of the Latin tongue, having, as he informed one of his oldest friends, his 'Latin grammar for sauce, while discussing his dinner.'

His hands must, indeed, at this period have been the reverse of idle, for it was then that he managed to bring before the public the first of the long series of literary works that bear his name, the title of which, in all its comprehensive fulness, is here given:

": Being an Historical, Topographical, and General Description of every Rape, Hundred, River, Town, Borough, Parish, Village, Hamlet, Castle, Monastery, and Gentleman's Seat in that County. Alphabetically Arranged. With the Population of each Parish, according to the Census of 1821, and other useful and curious Information. With a correct Map of the County. By . Printed for the Author, and sold by R. W. Lower, High Street, Lewes; W. Leppard, East Street, Brighton; and all Booksellers in the County. ."

Long years after this really well-compiled volume had been before the Sussex public, its author, grown fastidious by reason of his much larger acquaintance with topographic lore, has been occasionally heard to express his regret that he had ever published it. But it was, and even now is, although thrown into the shade by his larger and much more recent work on the same subject, still a very serviceable compilation, and one that the writer, however popular in his later days, need not have blushed at being identified with. And that he must even then, by some proofs given of literary aptitude, have acquired, comparatively speaking, considerable local repute, is evidenced by the patent fact that the subscription list appended to his book, comprises the names of upwards of 250 patrons.

Before he finally gave up his school at Alfriston, he set