ANTIQUITIES OP SELBORNE. 209 



to the north of the east that the four corners of the tower, and not the 

 four sides, stand to the four cardinal points. The best method of 

 accounting for this deviation seems to be, that the workmen, who 

 probably were employed in the longest days, endeavoured to set the 

 chancels to the rising of the sun. 



Close by the church, at the west end, stands the vicarage -house ; an 

 old, but roomy and convenient edifice. It faces very agreeably to the 

 morning sun, and is divided from the village by a neat and cheerful 

 court. According to the manner of old times, the hall was open to the 

 roof; and so continued, probably, till the vicars became family-men, 

 and began to want more conveniences ; when they flung a floor across, 

 and, by partitions, divided the space into chambers. In this hall we 

 remember a date, some time in the reign of Elizabeth ; it was over the 

 door that leads to the stairs. 



Behind the house is a garden of an irregular shape, but well laid out ; 

 whose terrace commands so romantic and picturesque a prospect, that 

 the first master in landscape might contemplate it with pleasure, and 

 deem it an object well worthy of his pencil. 



LETTEE V. 



IN the churchyard of this village is a yew-tree, whose aspect bespeaks 

 it to be of a great age : it seems to have seen several centuries, and is 

 probably coeval with the church, and therefore may be deemed an 

 antiquity : the body is squat, short, and thick, and measures twenty- 

 three feet in the girth, supporting an head of suitable extent to its 

 bulk. This is a male tree, which in the spring sheds clouds of dust, 

 and fills the atmosphere around with its farina.* 



As far as we have been able to observe, the males of this species 

 become much larger than the females ; and it has so fallen out that 

 most of the yew-trees in the church-yards of this neighbourhood are 

 males : but this must have been matter of mere accident, since men, 

 when they first planted yews, little dreamed that there were sexes 

 in trees. 



In a yard, in the midst of the street, till very lately grew a middle- 

 sized female tree of the same species, which commonly bore great 

 crops of berries. By the high winds usually prevailing about the 

 autumnal equinox, these berries, then ripe, were blown down into the 

 road, where the hogs ate them. And it was very remarkable, that, 

 though barrow-hogs and young sows found no inconvenience from 

 this food, yet milch-sows often died after such a repast : a circumstance 

 that can be accounted for only by supposing that the latter, being 

 much exhausted and hungry, devoured a larger quantity. 



While mention is making of the bad effects of yew-berries, it may 

 be proper to remind the unwary that the twigs and leaves of yew, 



* This is represented in the front of the vignette which heads Letter III., it 

 s still a striking object, and now measures twenty-three feet in girth. 



P 



