OF SELBORNE. 
417 
LETTER lY. 
E "have now taken leave of the inside of tlie 
churcli, 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 work- 
men 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, bestowing it in the 
aame of his favourite daughter Mrs. Mary Stuart^ caused it 
oo 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, and 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 door- way. 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 door- way itself. 
The whole roof of the south aisle, and the south side of 
the roof of the middle aisle, is covered with oaken shingles 
E E 
