242 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 



setting, towards the object westward, till, in a few nights, it would 

 set quite behind it, and so by degrees, to the west of it : for when 

 the sun comes near the summer solstice, the whole disc of it 

 would at first set behind the object; after a time the northern 

 limb would first appear, and so every night gradually more, till at 

 length the whole diameter would set northward of it for about 

 three nights ; but on the middle night of the three, sensibly 

 more remote than the former or following. When beginning its 

 recess from the summer tropic, it would continue more and more 

 to be hidden every night, till at length it would descend quite 

 behind the object again ; and so nightly more and more to the 

 westward. 



LETTER XLV. 



-Mugire videbis 



Sub bedibus terrain, et descendere montibus ornos." 



SELBORNE. 



WHEN I was a boy I used to read, with astonishment and 

 implicit assent, accounts in " Baker's Chronicle " of walking hills 

 and travelling mountains. John Philips, in his " Cyder," 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." 



" I nor advise, nor reprehend the choice 

 Of Marcely Hill ; the apple no where 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 

 Forsaken, 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 journeyed far, yet that the ends 

 oi many of them have slipped and fallen away at distant periods, 



