OF SELBORNE. 417 



LETTER IV. 



iE have now taken leave of the inside of the 

 church, and shall pass by a door at the west 

 end of the middle aisle into the belfry. This 

 room is part of a handsome square embattled 

 tower of forty- five feet in height, and of 

 much more modern date than the church ; but old enough 

 to have needed a thorough repair in 1781, when it was 

 neatly stuccoed at a considerable expense, by a set of work- 

 men who were employed on it for the greatest part of the 

 summer. The old bells, three in number, loud and out of 

 tune, were taken down in 1735, and cast into four; to which 

 Sir Simeon Stuart, the grandfather of the present baronet, 

 added a fifth at his own expense ; and, bestowing it in the 

 name of his favourite daughter Mrs. Mary Stuart,, caused it 

 to be cast with the following motto round it : 



" Clara puella dedit, dixitque mihi esto Maria : 

 Illius et laudes nomen ad astra sono." 



The day of the arrival of this tuneable peal was observed 

 as a high festival by the village, and rendered more joyous, 

 by an order from the donor, that the treble bell should be 

 fixed bottom upward in the ground, and filled with punch, of 

 which, all present were permitted to partake. 



The porch of the church, to the south, is modern, and 

 would not be worthy attention did it not shelter a fine sharp 

 Gothic door-way. This is undoubtedly much older than 

 the present fabric ; and, being found in good preservation, 

 was worked into the wall, and is the grand entrance into the 

 church ; nor are the folding doors to be passed over in 

 silence, since, from their thick and clumsy structure, and 

 the rude flourished work of their hinges, they may possibly 

 be as ancient as the door-way itself. 



The whole roof of the south aisle, and the south side of 

 the roof of the middle aisle, is covered with oaken shingles 



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