CHAPTER VIII. 



On New Year's Day, 1788, Bishop Brownlow 

 North issued from Farnham Castle a paper of 

 questions to each incumbent in his diocese, to be 

 returned before the last day of March in the same 

 year, the object of the inquiry being to gain 

 information prior to an approaching Episcopal 

 Visitation. 



One of these papers of questions found its way to 

 Selborne. The return was made by the Curate in 

 charge there in his usual careful manner, and is 

 now in the muniment-room at Farnham Castle. It 

 is headed, "Answers to the several questions re- 

 specting the parish of Selborne," and contains 

 particulars respecting the extent of the parish, its 

 number of tenements, population, baptisms, burials, 

 and marriages. It continues — 



"The Curate for the present (who is not licenced) is 

 Gilbert White, A.M., nominated by the Vicar, the Eev. 

 Christopher Taylor, b.d. For more than a century past 

 there does not appear to have been one Papist, or any 

 Protestant dissenter of any denomination. 



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