Through all his maze of melody; the brake,
Loud with the blackbird's bolder note, resounds.
Sooth'd by the genial warmth, the cawing rook
Anticipates the spring, selects her mate,

Haunts her tall nest-trees, and with sedulous care
Repairs her wicker eyrie, tempest-torn.

The ploughman inly smiles to see upturn
His mellow glebe, best pledge of future crop :
With glee the gardener eyes his smoking beds;
E'en pining sickness feels a short relief.

The happy schoolboy brings transported forth
His long-forgotten scourge, and giddy gig:
O'er the white paths he whirls the rolling hoop,
Or triumphs in the dusty fields of taw.

Not so the museful sage :-abroad he walks
Contemplative, if haply he may find

What cause controls the tempest's rage, or whence, Amidst the savage season, Winter smiles.

For days, for weeks, prevails the placid calm. At length some drops prelude a change: the sun With ray refracted, bursts the parting gloom, When all the chequer'd sky is one bright glare.

Mutters the wind at eve; th' horizon round With angry aspect scowls: down rush the showers, And float the deluged paths, and miry fields.

THE

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

IN A SERIES OF LETTERS ADDRESSED TO

THOMAS PENNANT, Esq.

AND

THE HON. DAINES BARRINGTON.

THE

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

LETTER I.

TO THOMAS PENNANT, ESQ.

THE parish of Selborne lies in the extreme eastern corner of the county of Hampshire, bordering on the county of Sussex, and not far from the county of Surrey; is about fifty miles south-west of London, in latitude 51, and near midway between the towns of Alton and Petersfield. Being very large and extensive, it abuts on twelve parishes, two of which are in Sussex, viz. Trotton and Rogate. If you begin from the south, and proceed westward, the adjacent parishes are Emshot, Newton Valence, Faringdon, Harteley, Mauduit, Great Ward-le-ham, Kingsley, Hedleigh, Bramshot, Trotton, Rogate, Lysse, and Greatham. The soils of this district are almost as various and diversified as the views and aspects. The high part to the south-west consists of a vast hill of chalk, rising three hundred feet above the village; and is divided into a sheep-down, the high wood, and a long hanging wood, called the Hanger. The covert of this eminence is altogether beech, the most lovely of all forest trees, whether we consider its smooth rind or bark, its glossy. foliage, or graceful pendulous boughs.* The down, or

The beech is certainly a beautiful tree, either when planted singly or in lumps; but I cannot agree with our author, in thinking it the "most lovely of all forest trees." The ash and birch, and perhaps the Huntingdon willow,