552 
THE ANTIQUITIES 
[LETT. 
thought the boys ; and the notion of doing some mischief gave 
a zest to the enterprise. As Dryden says upon another occa- 
sion — 
It look'd so hke a sin it pleased the more." 
Had the Priory been only levelled to the surface of the 
ground, the discerning eye of an antiquary might have ascer- 
tained its ichnography, and some judicious hand might have 
developed its dimensions. But, beside other ravages, the very 
foundations have been torn up for the repair of the highways : 
so that the site of this convent is now become a rough, rugged 
pasture-field, full of hillocks and pits, choked v/ith nettles, and 
dwarf-elder, and trampled by the feet of the ox and the heifer. 
As the tenant at the Priory was lately digging among the 
foundations, for materials to mend the highways, his labourers 
discovered two large stones, with which the farmer was so 
pleased that he ordered them to be taken out whole. One of 
these proved to be a large Doric capital, worked in good taste ; 
and the other a base of a pillar ; both formed out of the soft 
freestone of this district. These ornaments, from their dimen- 
sions, seem to have belonged to massive columns ; and show 
that the church of this convent was a large and costly edifice. 
They were found in the space which has always been supposed 
to have contained the south transept of the Priory church. 
Some fragments of large pilasters were also found at the same 
time. The diameter of the capital was two feet three inches 
and a half; and of the column, where it had stood on the base, 
eighteen inches and three quarters. 
Tw^o years ago some labourers digging again among the ruins 
found a sort of rude thick vase or urn of soft stone, containing 
about two gallons in measure, on the verge of the brook, in the 
very spot wdiicli tradition has always pointed out as having been 
the site of the convent kitchen. This clumsy utensil,^ whether 
intended for holy water, or whatever purpose, we were going to 
^ A judicious antiquarj^, who saw this vase, observed, that it possibly might 
have been a standard measure between the monastery and its tenants. The 
Priory we have mentioned claimed the assize of bread and beer in Selborne 
manor : and probably the adjustment of dry measures for grain, &c. 
