OF SEL BORNE. 227 



LETTER XLV. 



TO THE SAME. 



Selborne. 



Mugire videbis 

 " Sub pcdibus terram, et descendere inontibus ornos." 



\\IIFA I was a boy I used to read, with astonishment and 

 implicit assent, accounts in Bakers 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 Splen- 

 did Shilling. 



" I nor advise, nor reprehend the choice 



" Of Marcley 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 



11 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 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 

 ha |>} >ened 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 Selborne, and as the circumstances were 

 singular, may fairly claim a place in a work of this nature. 



The months of January and February, in the year 1774 r 

 were remarkable for great melting snows and vast gluts of 

 rain, so that by the end of the latter month the land-springs, 



Q2 



