Great Britain -- Description and travel; Great Britain -- Rural conditions
law, in virtue of which John Cockbain of Whitehaven in the county of
Cumberland was, by two clergymen and three other magistrates of that
county, sentenced to pay one half-penny for damages and seven shillings
costs, for going upon a field, the property of William, Earl of
Lonsdale. In the passing of this Act, which was one of the first passed
in the present reign, 'Squire Scot, the brickmaker, had nothing to do.
Go on, good 'Squire, thrust out some more of the Normans: with the
fruits of the augmentations which you make to the Wen, go, and take from
them their mansions, parks, and villages!
At Tisted I crossed the turnpike road before mentioned, and entered a
lane which, at the end of about four miles, brought me to this village
of Selborne. My readers will recollect that I mentioned this Selborne
when I was giving an account of Hawkley Hanger, last fall. I was
desirous of seeing this village, about which I have read in the book of
Mr. White, and which a reader has been so good as to send me. From
Tisted I came generally up hill till I got within half a mile of this
village, when, all of a sudden, I came to the edge of a hill, looked
down over all the larger vale of which the little vale of this village
makes a part. Here Hindhead and Black-down Hill came full in my view.
When I was crossing the forest in Sussex, going from Worth to Horsham,
these two great hills lay to my west and north-west. To-day I am got
just on the opposite side of them, and see them, of course, towards the
east and the south-east, while Leith Hill lies away towards the
north-east. This hill, from which you descend down into Selborne, is
very lofty; but, indeed, we are here amongst some of the highest hills
in the island, and amongst the sources of rivers. The hill over which I
have come this morning sends the Itchen river forth from one side of it,
and the river Wey, which rises near Alton, from the opposite side of it.
Hindhead which lies before me, sends, as I observed upon a former
occasion, the Arun forth towards the south and a stream forth towards
the north, which meets the river Wey, somewhere above Godalming. I am
told that the springs of these two streams rise in the Hill of Hindhead,
or, rather, on one side of the hill, at not many yards from each other.
The village of Selborne is precisely what it is described by Mr. White.
A straggling irregular street, bearing all the marks of great antiquity,
and showing, from its lanes and its vicinage generally, that it was once
a very considerable place. I went to look at the spot where Mr. White
supposes the convent formerly stood. It is very beautiful. Nothing can
surpass in beauty these dells and hillocks and hangers, which last are
so steep that it is impossible to ascend them, except by means of a
serpentine path. I found here deep hollow ways, with beds and sides of
solid white stone; but not quite so white and so solid, I think, as the
stone which I found in the roads at Hawkley. The churchyard of Selborne
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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