302 ANTIQUITIES OF SELBORNE. 



west-end, as if the chancel stood exactly true to those points of 

 the compass; but this is by no means the case, for the fabric 

 bears so much to the north of the east that the four corners of the 

 tower, and not the four sides, stand to the four cardinal points. 

 The best method of accounting for this deviation seems to be, that 

 the workmen, who probably were employed in the longest days, 

 endeavoured to set the chancels to the rising of the sun. 



Close by the church, at the west end, stands the vicarage-house ; 

 an old, but roomy and convenient edifice. It faces very agreeably 

 to the morning sun, and is divided from the village by a neat and 

 cheerful court. According to the manner of old times, the hall 

 was open to the roof; and so continued, probably, till the 

 vicars became family-men, and began to want more conveniences ; 

 when they flung a floor across, and, by partitions, divided the 

 space into chambers. In this hall we remember a date, some 

 time in the reign of Elizabeth ; it was over the door that leads to 

 the stairs. 



Behind the house is a garden of an irregular shape, but well laid 

 out ; whose terrace commands so romantic and picturesque a 

 prospect, that the first master in landscape might contemplate it 

 with pleasure, and deem it an object well worthy of his pencil. 



LETTER V. 



IN the churchyard of this village is a yew-tree, whose aspect 

 bespeaks it to be of a great age : it seems to have seen several 

 centuries, and is probably coeval with the church, and therefore 

 may be deemed an antiquity : the body is squat, short, and thick, 

 and measures twenty- three feet in the girth, supporting a head of 

 suitable extent to its bulk. This is a male tree, which in the 

 spring sheds clouds of dust, and fills the atmosphere around with 

 ts farina. 



As far as we have been able to observe, the males of this species 

 become much larger than the females ; and it has so fallen out 



