236 NA TURAL HISTOR Y OF SELBORNE. 



LETTER XLV. 



TO THE SAME. 



" 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 stones with a delicate but 

 quaint vein of humour peculiar to the author of the " Splendid 

 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 

 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 happened not long since, justifies our suspicions ; 

 which, though it befel 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 1 774, were 

 remarkable for great melting snows and vast gluts of rain ; so that 

 by the end of the latter month the land-springs, or lavants, began 

 to prevail, and to be near as high as in the memorable winter of 

 1764. The beginning of March also went on in the same tenor; 



