OF SELBORNE. 273 
LETTER XLl. 
Selborne, 
— * Mugire videbis 
Sub pedibus terram, et descendere montibus ornos.” 
Wuen I was a boy I used to read, with astonish- 
ment and implicit assent, accounts in Baker’s 
Chronicle of walking hills and travelling mount. 
ains. John Philips, in his Cider, alludes to the 
credit that was given to such stories with a delicate 
but quaint vein of humour peculiar to the author 
of the Splendid Shilling. 
“T nor advise, nor reprehend, the choice 
Of Marclay Hill; the apple nowhere finds 
A kinder mould : yet ’tis unsafe to trust 
Deceitful ground: who knows but that, once more, 
This mount may journey, and, his present site 
Forsaking, to thy neighbour’s bounds transfer 
Thy goodly plants, affording matter strange 
For law debates !” 
But, when I came to consider better, I began to 
suspect that though our hills may never have jour- 
neyed far, yet that the ends of many of them have 
slipped and fallen away at distant periods, leaving 
the cliffs bare and abrupt. This seems to have 
been the case with Nore and Whetham Hills, and 
especially with the ridge between Harteley Park 
and Ward-le-ham, where the ground has slid into 
vast swellings and furrows, and lies still in such 
romantic confusion as cannot be accounted for 
from any other cause. A strange event, that hap- 
pened not long since, justifies our suspicions ; 
which, though it befell not within the limits of this 
parish, yet as it was within the hundred of Sel. 
