THE

ANTIQUITIES

OF

SELBORNE.

LETTER I.

Ir is reasonable to suppose that in remote ages this woody and mountainous district was inhabited only by bears and wolves. Whether the Britons ever thought it worthy their attention, is not in our power to determine1: but we may safely conclude, from circumstances,

1 It is curious that Gilbert White should not have felt himself assured as to the residence of Britons within the parish of Selborne. Setting aside the historical fact that the favourite resorts of the ancient Britons were the natural fastnesses of the forests and the morasses, whence it might have been inferred that this wooded and rugged district would have been regarded as peculiarly adapted to the known habits of that people; setting aside also various minor evidences that might be adduced: setting these aside, as probabilities merely, (although on smaller probabilities greater theories have sometimes been raised), Wolmer Forest affords evidence the most visible and most tangible of its having been of importance in the days of the earliest known inhabitants of England. The observer has but to place himself on the northern side of Wolmer Pond, looking towards the south; and on his right hand, and on his left, and in front of him; barrows will be visible. Two of these works rise above the level of Wall Down : one is on the top of the down immediately across the pond: several others are on the elevations in the direction of Greatham. These are remarkable objects in the circuit of the horizon: and on the expanse of the Forest there are many others. Several of them have, from time to time, been opened, and have been found to contain, as usual, in

that it was not unknown to the Romans. Old people remember to have heard their fathers and grandfathers say that, in dry summers and in windy weather, pieces of money were sometimes found round the verge of Wolmer Pond; and tradition had inspired the foresters with a notion that the bottom of that lake contained great stores of treasure. During the spring and summer of 1740 there was little rain; and the following summer also, 1741, was so uncommonly dry, that many springs and ponds failed, and this lake in particular, whose bed became as dusty as the surrounding heaths and wastes. This favourable juncture induced some of the forest cottagers to begin a search, which was attended with such success, that all the labourers in the neighbourhood flocked to the spot, and with spades and hoes turned up great part of that large area. Instead of pots of coins, as they expected, they found great heaps, the one lying on the other, as if shot out of a bag; many of which were in good preservation. Silver and gold these inquirers expected to find; but their discoveries consisted solely of many hundreds of Roman copper coins, and some medallions, all of the lower empire. There was not much virtù stirring at that time in this neighbourhood; however, some of the gentry and clergy around bought what pleased them best, and some dozens fell to the share of the author2.

The owners at first held their commodity at a high price; but finding that they were not likely to meet with dealers at such a rate, they soon lowered their terms, and sold the fairest as they could. The coins

the middle of the mound, fragments of human bones and of pottery. In one instance, but a few years since, an entire urn was obtained, of a substance not unlike unburned clay, capable of containing about a gallon, and having within it fragments of bones. All these indications concur to prove that these barrows were of British origin in Roman times.-E. T. B. 2 Such coins are still occasionally found by labourers and others who work upon the Forest; but their occurrence is now uncommon. They have not been found in numbers since the time mentioned by Gilbert White, and it is only casually that one is met with.-E. T. B.

that were rejected became current, and passed for farthings at the petty shops. Of those that we saw, the greater part were of Marcus Aurelius, and the Empress Faustina, his wife, the father and mother of Commodus. Some of Faustina were in high relief, and exhibited a very agreeable set of features, which probably resembled that lady, who was more celebrated for her beauty than for her virtues. The medallions in general were of a paler colour than the coins. To pretend to account for the means of their coming to this place would be spending time in conjecture. The spot, I think, could not be a Roman camp, because it it commanded by hills on two sides; nor does it show the least traces of intrenchments; nor can I suppose that it was a Roman town, because I have too good an opinion of the taste and judgment of those polished conquerors to imagine that they would settle on so barren and dreary a waste3.

LETTER II.

THAT Selborne was a place of some distinction and note in the time of the Saxons we can give most undoubted proofs. But, as there are few, if any, accounts of villages before Domesday, it will be best to begin with that venerable record. "Ipse rex tenet Selesburne. Eddid regina tenuit, et nunquam geldavit. De isto manerio dono dedit rex Radfredo presbytero dimidiam hidam cum ecclesia. Tempore regis Edwardi et post, valuit duodecim solidos et sex denarios; modo

It is far from improbable that the heaps of coins were the spoils of some successful attack on the invaders, in which the military chest (as it might now be called) fell into the hands of the native conquerors, and was carried away by them into their fastness: and that there, in their haste, it was lost. It may even have been rejected as unworthy of notice, when it was ascertained that its contents were coins of the baser metal only.-E. T. B.