OF SELBORNE. 
475 
LETTER IV. 
We 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 workmen 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, bestow- 
ing 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 sud 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 
doorway. 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 doorway itself. 
The whole roof of the south aisle, and the south side of the 
roof of the middle aisle, is covered with oaken shingles instead 
of tiles, on account of their lightness, which favours the ancient 
and crazy timber frame. And indeed, the consideration of 
accidents by fire excepted, this sort of roofing is much more 
