SELBORNE AND WOLMER FOREST 85 



the romantic glen called the Leith, below the church, 

 bear out all that has been written of them. The one 

 striking feature of the place is the position of the 

 church, on a promontory jutting out into this Leith 

 valley, looking from which the square tower stands 

 like some small fortress closing the steep and narrow 

 glen, backed by the great beech-wood of Selborne Hill. 

 The ancient yew-tree in the churchyard still flourishes, 

 and the interior of the church, with its double row of 

 massive pillars, has all the dignity which Norman or 

 very Early English architects knew how to give to 

 buildings, however small, and the monuments and 

 fabric show every sign of decent and reverent care. 

 Still, the features of Selborne itself are hardly such as 

 might be expected to inspire a classic. 



Wolmer forest, on the other hand, three- fifths of 

 which lie in the parish of Selborne, is a strangely 

 fascinating region, containing some of the wildest 

 scenery of the South, full of strange birds and rare 

 plants and insects, and improved, rather than lessened, 

 in natural beauty, since it afforded White " much 

 entertainment both as a sportsman and a naturalist." 

 In his day it " consisted entirely of sand covered with 

 heath and fern, without having one standing tree in its 

 whole extent," but was studded with large meres and 

 marshes. Now the waters have shrunk ; but much of 

 the forest is covered with plantations of pine, and even 

 of oak. The fir-plantations were made by Cobbett's 

 enemy, " the smooth Mr. Huskisson," and formed the 

 text for a ferocious attack on him as Commissioner of 



