LXXXVI.] 
OF SELBORNE. 
235 
LETTER LXXXVI. 
TO THE HONOURABLE DAINES BARRINGTON. 
" — — — — — — — monstrent 
Quid tantam oceano properent se tingere soles 
Hyberni : vel quae tardis mora noctibus obstet." 
(ViRG. Georg. ii. 477-482.) 
How winter suns in ocean plunge so soon, 
And what belates the tardy nights of June." 
Gentlemen who liave outlets might contrive to make ornament 
subservient to utility ; a pleasing eye-trap 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 heliotropes ; 
the one for the winter, the other for tlie 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, close lined 
with plank, would answer tlie 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 ; the whole 
