NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 169 



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. 



LETTEE XLY. 



TO THE SAME. 



Mugire videbis 



Sub pedibus terrain, et desceudere 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 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 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 



For law 



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 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 eighth and ninth of that month, a considerable part 



