NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 235 



alludes to the credit that was given to such stories with a 

 delicate but quaint vein of humour peculiar to the author 

 of the Splendid Shilling. 



" I nor advise, nor reprehend the choice 

 Of Marcely 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 befell 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 1774, 

 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 ; when, in the night 

 between the 8th and 9th of that month, a considerable part 

 of the great woody hanger at Hawkley was torn from its 



