OF SELBORNE. 
483 
this money, lent on private security, was in danger of being 
lost, and the bequest remained in an unsettled state for near 
twenty years, till 1700; so that little or no advantage was 
derived from it. About the year 1759 it was again in the 
utmost danger by the failure of a borrower ; but by prudent 
management, has since been raised to one hundred pounds 
stock in the three per cents, reduced. The trustees are the 
vicar and the renters or owners of Temple, Priory, Grange, 
Blackmore, and Oaldianger House, for the time being. This 
gentleman seemed inclined to have put the vicarial premises 
in a comfortable state ; and began by building a solid stone 
wall round the front court, and another in the lower yard, 
betw^een that and the neighbouring garden ; but was inter- 
rupted by death from fulfilling his laudable intentions. 
April 1680, Barnabas Long became vicar. 
June 1681. This living was now in such low estimation in 
Magdalen College, that it descended to a junior fellow, Gilbert 
White, M.A., who was instituted to it in the thirty-first year 
of his age. At his first coming he ceiled the chancel, and also 
floored and wainscoted the parlour and hall, which before were 
paved with stone, and had naked walls ; he enlarged the kitchen 
and brewdiouse, and dug a cellar and well : he also built a large 
new barn in the lower yard, removed the hovels in the front 
court, which he laid out in walks and borders ; and entirely 
planned the back garden, before a rude field with a stone-pit 
in the midst of it. By his will he gave and bequeathed " the 
sum of forty pounds to be laid out in the most necessary repairs 
of the church ; that is, in strengthening and securing such 
parts as seem decaying and dangerous." With this sum two 
large buttresses were erected to support the east end of the 
south wall of the church; and the gable end wall of the west 
end of the south aisle was new built from the ground. 
By his will also he gave " One hundred pounds to be laid 
out on lands ; the yearly rents whereof shall be employed in 
teaching the poor children of Selbourn parish to read and write, 
and say their prayers and catechism, and to sew and knit: — 
and be under the direction of his executrix as long as she lives ; 
and, after her, under the direction of such of his children and 
J 1 '2 
