ANTIQUITIES OF SELBORNE. 333 



buried on the south side, which is become such a mass of mor- 

 tality that no person can be there interred without disturbing or 

 displacing the bones of his ancestors. There is reason to sup- 

 pose that it once was larger, and extended to what is now the 

 vicarage court and garden; because many human bones have 

 been dug up in those parts several yards without the present 

 limits. At the east end are a few graves ; yet none till very lately 

 on the north side ; but, as two or three families of best repute 

 have begun to bury in that quarter, prejudice may wear out by 

 degrees,* and their example be followed by the rest of the neigh- 

 bourhood. 



In speaking of the church, I have all along talked of the east 

 and 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 conveni- 

 ences ; 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 church-yard of this village is a yew-tree, whose aspect 



* The prejudice seems to have worn out. The objection to bury behind the church is bv no 

 means confined to a Hampshire village. In several towns in the north of England, the same 

 foolish scruple exists.- D. 



