OF SELBOENE. 
259 
LETTER XLIY. 
TO THE HONOURABLE DAINES BARRINGTOX. 
Sjelborne. 
"... raonstrent 
Quid tantum Oceano properent se tingere soles 
Hyberni ; vel quae tardis mora noctibus obstet." 
ENTLEMEN who have outlets might contrive 
to make ornament subservient to utility : a 
pleasing eyetrap 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 helio- 
tropes; the one for the winter, the other for the 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, and close lined with plank, would answer the 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 day, and that the whole disc of 
the sun, at the longest day, might exactly at setting also 
clear the summer heliotrope to the north of it. 
