374 ANTIQUITIES OF SELBORNE. 



and grange are leasehold under Magdalen College, for twenty-one 

 years, renewable every seven : all the smaller estates in and round 

 the village are copyhold of inheritance under the college, except the 

 little remains of the Gurdon Manor, which had been of old leased 

 out upon lives, but have been freed of late by their present lord, as 

 fast as those lives have dropped. 



Selborne seems to have derived much of its prosperity from the 

 near neighbourhood of the priory. For monasteries were of con- 

 siderable advantage to places where they had their sites and estates, 

 by causing great resort, by procuring markets and fairs, by freeing 

 them from the cruel oppression of forest laws, and by letting their 

 lands at easy rates. But, as soon as the convent was suppressed, 

 the town which it had occasioned began to decline, and the market 

 was less frequented ; the rough and sequestered situation gave a 

 check to resort, and the neglected roads rendered it less and less 

 accessible. 



That it had been a considerable place for size, formerly, appears 

 from the largeness of the church, which much exceeds those of the 

 neighbouring villages ; by the ancient extent of the burying-ground, 

 which, from human bones occasionally dug up, is found to have 

 been much encroached upon ; by giving a name to the hundred ; 

 by the old foundations and ornamented stones, and tracery of 

 windows that have been discovered on the north-east side of the 

 village ; and by the many vestiges of disused fish-ponds still to be 

 seen around it. For ponds and stews were multiplied in the times 

 of popery, that the affluent might enjoy some variety at their tables 

 on fast days ; therefore, the more they abounded the better probably 

 was the condition of the inhabitants. 



MORE PARTICULARS RESPECTING THE OLD FAMILY TORTOISE, 

 OMITTED IN THE NATURAL HISTORY. 



BECAUSE we call this creature an abject reptile, we are too apt to 

 undervalue his abilities, and depreciate his powers of instinct. Yet 

 he is, as Mr. Pope says of his lord, 



" Much too wise to walk into a well: " 



and has so much discernment as not to fall down an haha, but to 

 stop and withdraw from the brink with the readiest precaution. 



Though he loves warm weather he avoids the hot sun ; because 

 his thick shell, when once heated, would, as the poet says of solid 



