Page:Two Sussex archaeologists, William Durrant Cooper and Mark Antony Lower.djvu/35

 about to establish a Mechanics' Institution there, a meritorious and successful work, in which he was largely aided by John Dudeney, a name never mentioned in East Sussex but in terms of esteem and admiration. It would be foreign to the purpose of this memoir to dwell here upon the character and career of this "hereditary Southdown shepherd;" but how, springing from humble parentage, taught merely to read by his careful mother, he ultimately lifted himself up from his pastoral occupation to become a successful schoolmaster, and the founder of a Philosophical Society in Lewes, a practical and accomplished naturalist, and an instructive and amusing lecturer on Astronomy, is told, not only in John Dudeney's simple English, in his own account of himself, in the Second volume of the Sussex Archæological Collections, but also by his attached friend, Mark Antony Lower, in the Gentleman's Magazine, for March, 1853. It is hardly needful to add that the friendship between these two, which began at Alfriston, was severed by death only, and that they were closely associated in continuous efforts towards the elevation and education of the working classes.

Somewhere about half way between Alfriston and Chiddingly there stood, and probably still stands, a pleasantly situated farmhouse, with the comfortably circumstanced occupants of which, in his weekly or more frequent walks to and from his home—for he had not cut himself entirely away from the parental roof—our handsome young dominie became acquainted; and there, on scorching July, or freezing January afternoons, a welcome rest of half-an-hour or more was often brought to a close by an acceptable cup of tea, with its appropriate accompaniments. Nor was the latter the sole or chief charm of his haltings at the domicile of this estimable family. A bonny, bright-eyed, flaxen-haired young maiden, who officiated as governess there, soon brought home to Mark Antony Lower the conviction that he possessed a susceptible heart. She who thus enmeshed that heart of his in golden and enduring fetters, was of a well-known and still flourishing Sussex family, the Holmans, and it may be well to anticipate chronological events, by noting