tended for holy water, or whatever purpose, we were going to procure, but found that the labourers had just broken it in pieces, and carried it out on the highways.

The Priory of Selborne had possessed in this village a Grange, an usual appendage to manorial estates, where the fruits of their lands were stowed and laid up for use, at a time when men took the natural produce of their estates in kind. The mansion of this spot is still called the Grange, and is the manor-house of the convent-possessions in this place. The author has conversed with very ancient people who remembered the old original Grange; but it has long given place to a modern farm-house. Magdalen College holds a court-leet and court-baron* in the great wheat-barn of the said Grange annually, where the President usually superintends, attended by the bursar and steward of the college.+

The following uncommon presentment at the court is not unworthy of notice. There is on the south side of the king's field, (a large common-field so called) a considerable tumulus, or hillock, now covered with thorns and bushes, and known by the name of Kite's Hill, which is presented, year by year, in court as not ploughed. Why this injunction is still kept up respecting this spot, which is surrounded on all sides by arable land, may be a question not easily solved, since the usage has long survived the knowledge of the intention thereof. We can only suppose that as the prior, besides thurset and pillory, had also furcas, a power of life and death, that he might have reserved this little eminence as the place of execution for delinquents. And there is the more reason to suppose so, since a spot just by is called Gally [Gallows] hill.

The lower part of the village next the Grange, in which is a pond and a stream, is well known by the name of Gracious-street, an appellation not at all understood. There is a lake in Surrey, near Chobham, called also Gracious-pond: and another, if we mistake not, near Hedleigh, in the county of Hants. This strange denomination we do not at all comprehend, and conclude that it may be a corruption from some Saxon word, itself perhaps forgotten.

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.

The time when this court is held is the mid week between Easter and Whitsuntide. Owen Oglethorp, president, &c. an. Edw. Sexti, primo [viz. 1547.] demised to Robert Arden Selborne Grange for twenty years. Rent vili.-Index of Leases.

It has been observed already, that bishop Tanner was mistaken when he refers to an evidence of Dodsworth, "De mercatu et FERIA de Seleburne." Selborne never had a chartered fair; the present fair was set up since the year 1681, by a set of jovial fellows, who had found in an old almanack that there had been a fair here in former days on the first of August; and were desirous to revive so joyous a festival. Against this innovation the vicar set his face, and persisted in crying it down, as the probable occasion of much intemperance. However the fair prevailed; but was altered to the twenty-ninth of May, because the former day often interfered with wheat-harvest. On that day it still continues to be held, and is become an useful mart for cows and calves. Most of the lower housekeepers brew beer against this holiday, which is dutied by the exciseman; and their becoming victuallers for the day without a license is overlooked.

Monasteries enjoyed all sorts of conveniences within themselves. Thus at the Priory, a low and moist situation, there were ponds and stews for their fish: at the same place also, and at the Grange in Culver-croft,* there were dove-houses; and on the hill opposite to the Grange the prior had a warren, as the names of the Coney-crofts and Coney-croft Hanger plainly testify.†

Nothing has been said as yet respecting the tenure or holding of the Selborne estates. Temple and Norton are manor farms and freehold; as is the manor of Chapel near Oakhanger, and also the estate at Oakhanger-house and Black-moor. The Priory and Grange are leasehold under Magdalen-college, for twentyone years, renewable every seven: all the smaller estates in and round the village are copyhold of inheritance under the college, except the little remains of the Gurdon-manor, which had been of old leased out upon lives, but have been freed of late by their present lord, as fast as those lives have dropped.

Selborne seems to have derived much of its prosperity from the near neighbourhood of the Priory. For monasteries were of considerable advantage to places where they had their sites and estates, by causing great resort, by procuring markets and fairs, by freeing them from the cruel oppression of forest laws, and by letting their lands at easy rates. But, as soon as the convent was suppressed, the town which it had occasioned began to decline, and the market was less frequented; the rough and se

Culver, as has been observed before, is Saxon fer a pigeon.

A warren was an usual appendage to a manor.

questered situation gave a check to resort, and the neglected roads rendered it less and less accessible.

That it had been a considerable place for size formerly appears from the largeness of the church, which much exceeds those of the neighbouring villages; by the ancient extent of the burying ground, which, from human bones occasionally dug up, is found to have been much encroached upon; by giving a name to the hundred; by the old foundations and ornamented stones, and tracery of windows that have been discovered on the north-east side of the village; and by the many vestiges of disused fishponds still to be seen around it. For ponds and stews were multiplied in the times of popery, that the affluent might enjoy some variety at their tables on fast days; therefore the more they abounded the better probably was the condition of the inhabitants.

407

THE

INVITATION TO SELBORNE.

SEE Selborne spreads her boldest beauties round
The varied valley, and the mountain ground,
Wildly majestic! what is all the pride
Of flats, with loads of ornament supplied?
Unpleasing, tasteless, impotent expense,
Compar'd with nature's rude magnificence.
Arise, my stranger, to these wild scenes haste;
The unfinish'd farm awaits your forming taste:
Plan the pavilion, airy, light, and true;
Thro' the high arch call in the length'ning view;
Expand the forest sloping up the hill;
Swell to a lake the scant penurious rill;
Extend the vista, raise the castle mound
In antique taste, with turrets ivy-crown'd;
O'er the gay lawn the flow'ry shrub dispread,
Or with the blending garden mix the mead;
Bid China's pale fantastic fence delight,
Or with the mimic statue trap the sight.

Oft on some evening, sunny, soft, and still,
The Muse shall lead thee to the beech-grown hill,
To spend in tea the cool, refreshing hour,
Where nods in air the pensile, nest-like bower ;*
Or where the hermit hangs the straw-clad cell,t
Emerging gently from the leafy dell;

By fancy plann'd; as once th' inventive maid
Met the hoar sage amid the secret shade;
Romantic spot! from whence in prospect lies
Whate'er of landscape charms our feasting eyes;

A kind of an arbour on the side of a hill.

A grotesque building, contrived by a young gentleman, who used on occasion to appear in

the character of a hermit.