OF SELBORSE. 259 



LETTER XLIY. 



TO THE HONOURABLE DAINES BARRINGTON. 



SELBORNEi 



monstrent 



Quid tantum Oceano properent se tingere soles 

 Hyberni ; vel quae tardis mora noctibus obstet." 



ENTLEMEN who have outlets might contrive 

 to make ornament subservient to utility : a 

 pleasing eyetrap might also contribute to 

 promote science : an obelisk in a garden 

 or park might be both an embellishment 

 and a heliotrope. 



Any person that is curious, and enjoys the advantage of 

 a good horizon, might, with little trouble, make two helio- 

 tropes ; the one for the winter, the other for the summer 

 solstice : and these two erections might be constructed with 

 very little expense, for two pieces of timber framework, 

 about ten or twelve feet high, and four feet broad at the 

 base, and close lined with plank, would answer the purpose. 

 The erection for the former should, if possible, be placed 

 within sight of some window in the common sitting parlour, 

 because men, at that dead season of the year, are usually 

 within doors at the close of the day ; while that for the 

 latter might be fixed for any given spot in the garden or 

 outlet, whence the owner might contemplate, in a fine 

 summer's evening, the utmost extent that the sun makes 

 to the northward at the season of the longest days. Now 

 nothing would be necessary but to place these two objects 

 with so much exactness that the westerly limb of the sun, 

 at setting, might but just clear the winter heliotrope to the 

 west of it on the shortest day, and that the whole disc of 

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

 clear the summer heliotrope to the north of it. 



