ANTIQUITIES OF SELBORNE. 379 



and grange are leasehold under Magdalen College, for twenty-one 

 years, renewable every seven ; all the smaller estates in and round 

 the village are copyhold of inheritance under the college, except 

 the little remains of the Gurdon Manor, which had been of old 

 leased out upon lives, but have been freed of late by their present 

 lord, as fast as those lives have dropped. 



Selborne seems to have derived much of its prosperity from the 

 near neighbourhood of the priory. For monasteries were of con- 

 siderable advantage to places where they had their sites and 

 estates, by causing great resort, by procuring markets and fairs, 

 by freeing them from the cruel oppression of forest laws, and by 

 letting their lands at easy rates. But, as soon as the convent was 

 suppressed, the town which it had occasioned began to decline, 

 and the market was less frequented ; the rough and sequestered 

 situation gave a check to resort, and the neglected roads rendered 

 it less and less accessible. 



That it had been a considerable place for size, formerly, appears 

 from the largeness of the church, which much exceeds those of 

 the neighbouring villages ; by the ancient extent of the burying- 

 <*round, which, from human bones occasionally dug up, is found 

 to have been much encroached upon ; by giving a name to the 

 hundred; by the old foundations and ornamented stones, and 

 tracery of windows that have been discovered on the north-east 

 side of the village ; and by the many vestiges of disused fish-ponds 

 still to be seen around it. For ponds and stews were multiplied 

 in the times of popery, that the affluent might enjoy some variety 

 at their tables on fast days ; therefore, the more they abounded 

 the better probably was the condition of the inhabitants. 



MORE PARTICULARS RESPECTING THE OLD FAMILY TORTOISE, 



OMITTED IN THE NATURAL HlSTORY. 



BECAUSE we call this creature an abject reptile, we are too apt 

 to undervalue his abilities, and depreciate his powers of instinct. 

 Yet he is, as Mr. Pope says of his lord, 



" Much too wise to walk into a well :" 



