NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE 



the west of it : for when the sun comes near the summer sol- 

 stice, 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 pedibus terram, 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 deli- 

 cate but quaint vein of humor peculiar to the author of the 

 "Splendid Shilling:" 



" I nor advise, nor reprehend the choice 

 Of Marcely 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 

 Forsaken, to thy neighbor'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 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 fur- 



