Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from A Handbook for Travellers in Kent and Sussex: With Map
Notwithstanding, however, the great beauty of its scenery, it may be said of Kent, as Of Italy, that it is a country in which the memory and the imagination see far more than the eye. It has been the scene of some of the most important events in English history; and if it be true that to have seen the place where a great event happened - to have seen the picture, the statue, the tomb of an illustrious man, is the next thing to being present at the event in person - to seeing the scene with our own eyes (stanley) - there is no part of Eng land which will more richly I'epay the attention of the historian or the tourist. The position of Kent, at the narrowest part of the Channel, brought its inhabitants, from the earliest times, into closer connection with those on the opposite mainland, and made it the scene of three important landings, each of them a landmark in the history of Eng land: that of Caesar which united the remote Britain with the great world of Rome and prepared it for the changes which were to fol low; that of the first Saxons (generally dated a.d. Which introduced the Teutonic element, and laid the foundations of this happy breed of men, this earth, this England and that of Augustine (a.d. Who brought with him Christianity, and from the results of whose mission has, by degrees, arisen the whole constitution of Church and State in England which now binds together the whole British empire. The land ing of Caesar has usually been fixed at Deal (rte. And notwithstanding the interesting paper of Professor Airey (archwologia, xxxvi), who has endeavoured to support the claims of Pevensey in Sussex, it is probable that the Kentish coast between vvalmer and Thanet will still be re garded as the actual scene of the invasion. The historical character of the second landing - that of Hengist and Horsa, which, according to the Saxon Chronicle, took place in the year 449 at pine's ?eot (no doubt Ebbs?eet, in Thanet) - is considered as more than doubtful by Lappenberg (anglo-sax. Hist), by Kemble (saxons in England), and by Mr. Wright (celt, Roman, and Saxon), but has found a champion of no ordinary ability in Dr. Guest, whose essay on the Early English Settlements in South Britain, published in the Proceedings of the Archaeological Institute (salisbury volume), is entitled to the fullest consideration. It is at least certain that some of the earliest settlements of the Saxons in Britain were made in the Isle of Thanet and on the adjacent mainland, although the exact period at which they occurred, and the manner in which they were effected, must possibly be allowed to remain undecided.
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