OF SELBORNE. 
variety at their tables on faft days; therefore the more they 
abounded the better probably was the condition of the inha- 
bitants. 
More PARTICULARS refpeBing the old family tortoise, 
omitted in the Natural Hiftory, 
Because we call this creature an abjedt reptile, we are too apt 
to undervalue his abilities, and depreciate his powers of inftind. 
Yet he is, as Mr. Pope fays of his lord, 
— — , — " Much too wife to walk into a wel!:'* 
and has fo much difcernment as not to fall down an haha ; but 
to ftop and withdraw from the brink with the readiefl precaution. 
Though he loves warm weather he avoids the hot fun ; becaufe 
his thick fhell, when once heated, would, as the poet fays of folid 
armour — fcald with fafety." He therefore fpends the more 
fultry hours under the umbrella of a large cabbage-leaf, or amidft 
the waving forefts of an afparagus-bed. 
But as he avoids heat in the fummer, fo, in the decline of the 
year, he improves the faint autumnal beams, by getting within the 
refledion of a fruit-wall : and, though he never has read that 
planes inclining to the horizon receive a greater fliare of 
lii z warmth J 
