234 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 



the sun, at the longest day, might exactly at setting also 

 clear the summer heliotrope to the north of it. 



By this simple expedient it would soon appear that there 

 is no such thing, strictly speaking, as a solstice ; for, from 

 the shortest day, the owner would, every clear evening, see 

 the disc advancing at its setting, to the westward of the 

 object ; and, from the longest day, observe the sun retiring 

 backwards every evening at its setting, towards the object 

 westward, till, in a few nights, it would set quite behind it, 

 and so by degrees, to the west of it : for when the sun 

 comes near the summer solstice, the whole disc of it would 

 at first set behind the object ; after a time the northern 

 limb would first appear, and so every night gradually more, 

 till at length the whole diameter would set northward of 

 it for about three nights ; but on the middle night of the 

 three, sensibly more remote than the former or following. 

 When beginning its recess from the summer tropic, it 

 would continue more and more to be hidden every night, 

 till at length it would descend quite behind the object 

 again ; and so nightly more and more to the westward. 



CHAPTER XLV. 



-Mugire videbis 



Sub bedibus 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, 



