The Sussex Coast - online book

A Literary & Historical travel guide to the Sussex Coast

	IN the Church of St. Michael at Lewes is a well-known monument to Sir Nicholas Pelham, Knight, and to Dame Anne, his wife, who was one of the Sackville family. He died in 1559, and the epitaph declares— "His val" proofe Her Manie vertues prayse Cannot be marshalld in this narrow roome His brave exploit in great King Henrys Day's Among the worthyes hath a worthier Toombe ; What time ye French sought to have sackt Sea-Foord This Pelham did repell them back aboord." This little poem has been very frequently, though often not very accurately, quoted, but it is not so well known as it should be. Otherwise the world would know how to pronounce Seaford, instead of allowing a slovenly, inaccurate, and wholly inadmissible rendering to become exceed­ingly common, and to threaten to oust altogether the correct and very much more euphonious form. A Sussex countryman, however, questioned about the way to Seaford, declared he had never heard 961