It used to be a place of size and valor, furnishing ships, and finding money for patriotic purposes.
And great people both embarked and landed, one doing this and the other that, though nobody seems to have ever done both, if history is to be relied upon.

The glory of the place is still preserved in a seal and an immemorial stick, each of which is blessed with marks as incomprehensible as could be wished, though both are to be seen for sixpence.

The name of the place is written in more than forty different ways, they say; and the oldest inhabitant is less positive than the youngest how to spell it.
This village lies in the mouth, or rather at the eastern end of the mouth, of a long and wide depression among the hills, through which a sluggish river wins its muddy consummation.

This river once went far along the sea-brink, without entering (like a child who is afraid to bathe), as the Adur does at Shoreham, and as many other rivers do.

And in those days the mouth and harbor were under the cliff at Bruntsea, whence its seal and corporation, stick, and other blessings.