a place which is washed by the sea, or by some large river.
Count Marsigli divides the sea-shore into three portions; the first of which is that tract of land which the sea just reaches in storms and high tides, but which it never covers; the second part of the shore is that which is covered in high tides and storms, but is dry at other times; and the third is the descent from this, which is always covered with water.
The first part is only a continuation of the continent, and suffers no alteration from the neighbourhood of the sea, except that it is rendered fit for the growth of some plants, and wholly unfit for that of others, by the saline steams and impregnations; and it is scarcely to be conceived by any but those who have observed it, how far on land the effects of the sea can reach, so as to make the earth proper for plants which will not grow without this influence; there being several plants frequently found upon high hills and dry places, at three, four, and more miles from the sea, which yet would not grow unless in the neighbourhood of it, nor will they ever be found elsewhere.
The second part or portion of the shore is much more affected by the sea than the former, being frequently washed and beaten by it. Its productions are rendered salt by the water, and it is covered with sand, or with the fragments of shells in the form of sand, and in some places with a tar-tarous matter deposited from the water. The colour of this whole extent of ground is usually dusky and dull, especially where there are rocks and stones covered with a slimy matter.
The third part of the shore is more affected by the sea than either of the others; and it is covered with an uniform crust of the true nature of the bottom of the sea, except that plants and animals have their residence in it, and the decayed parts of these alter it a little.
Jane, the celebrated mistress of Edward IV., was the wife of Matthew Shore, a goldsmith in Lombard-street, London. Historians represent her as extremely beautiful, remarkably cheerful, and of most uncommon generosity. The king, it is said, was no less captivated with her temper than with her person. She never made use of her influence to prejudice any person; and if ever she importuned him, it was in favour of the unfortunate. After the death of Edward, she attached herself to Lord Hastings; and when Richard III. cut off that nobleman as an obstacle to his ambitious schemes, Jane Shore was arrested as an accomplice, on the ridiculous accusation of witchcraft. This, however, terminated only in a public penance, excepting that Richard rifled her of all her little property; but whatever severity might have been exercised towards her, it appears that she was alive, though sufficiently wretched, under the reign of Henry VIII., when Sir Thomas More saw her, poor, old, and shrivelled, without the least trace of her former beauty.
Mr. Rowe, in his tragedy of Jane Shore, has adopted the popular story related in the old historical ballad, of her perishing by hunger in a place where Shoreditch now stands. But Stow assures us, that that street was so named before her time.