abuts upon the late residence of White, and forms part of what was held, and we believe is still held, along with the lease of the house which he occupied. The trees on this are luxuriant, but they stand apart or in well-arranged clusters, so that they have sufficient relief from the grassy surface. The trees near the church conceal most of the village; but the Hanger, the more naked part of Selborne Hill, and the Nore Hill beyond, come very finely out. The Hanger, which consists of beeches, as mentioned by White, exceedingly rich in their foliage, and with the shoots so long as at a distance to bear some resemblance to larches, lies immediately above the lawn or field already mentioned, and the extremity of it slants downward towards the church. On the lower part of the hill here, and immediately over the village, there are some larches, which contrast well with the deeper foliage of the adjoining beeches and the deciduous trees in the village, and also throw back the more naked part of Selborne Hill. The scattered trees on the top of this hill are also near enough for appearing pencilled on the sky, and the woods on Nore Hill are distinct though softened. In short, there is nothing but water wanting to render this a very pretty landscape. A slight idea of it may be formed from the cut

We have been somewhat minute in describing this general view of the village of Selborne, because this is the only one which gives a correct notion of the combined beauties of the place;

the sketch by Grimm inserted in the quarto edition of White's Selborne, published in 1789, and copied on a reduced scale for an edition superintended by Sir William Jardine in 1833, is calculated to give quite a wrong impression, as it makes the village appear to stand on the brow of a hill, omits the Nore Hill altogether, and reduces Selborne Hill absolutely to nothing.

As the above sketch brings before the reader, at one view, all the grand features of Selborne as described by its faithful historian, we shall recapitulate the leading points of it. The point of view is from a field, we believe on the farm of Harteley. The hedge separating the immediate foreground is one of those bordering the deep lane along which the carriage-road from Selborne to Harteley, or the old road from Selborne to Alton, passes; and, if the heights of the hedges are taken into account, no kind of carriage can be seen passing along the lane even by one situated within a few yards of its margin. Beyond this lane the ground ascends into what may be called the dell of Selborne, along which the north-western branch of the "Borne," or "Bourne," flows. This branch consists entirely of surface water, without any deep-seated springs; and consequently, as Mr. White remarks, it becomes dry in seasons of great drought.

Beyond this concealed dell the church appears, though only in part; and to the reader's right of the church there is seen a small portion of the vicarage. The trees around these completely conceal the village, which is rather an advantage, inasmuch as the houses are so straggling that they cannot be grouped with pictorial effect; and the consequence is that, in the sketch made by Grimm, and already alluded to, Selborne appears a scene of desolation, which is the very opposite of its real character; for, setting altogether aside the magical, and we may say immortal charm, with which the sylvan wand of the most delightful of enchanters has invested it, Selborne is a lovely place. Nor ought we to omit observing that a portion of that mantle which sat so gracefully upon Gilbert White appears to have been caught and retained by the population generally; for there is not, perhaps, on the face of the earth a rustic population more orderly in their conduct, more suave in their manners, or better informed in their minds, than at Selborne. Some visitors have asserted that this place is abandoned to wild nature,— doubtless meaning thereby to imply that improvement has not found its way there. Nothing can be more unfounded-more

at variance with the fact, and from actual observation we say with confidence that the best way of securing for any rural place the maximum of rural intelligence and rural enjoyment would be to turn it to a Selborne.

The influence of locality upon character, though often overlooked, is much greater than those who have not made it the subject of direct and continued observation would be led to suppose. We can easily perceive the external differences of appearance which are produced by great differences of latitude and climate; and we can also observe how the expressions of features and the tones of voices vary in different countries or different districts of the same country. Those finer shades, however, in which the moral and intellectual characters of men are influenced by their localities, are not so open to common observation, though in themselves of more importance than the others. Those who are born and bred in towns are less affected by natural causes than those who are born and bred in the country, because their characters are altogether of a more artificial cast, and thus justify the remark of the amiable and philosophic Cowper:

"God made the country, and man made the town."

In forming an estimate of the influence of locality, or of any other natural circumstance, we have therefore to attend chiefly to the difference between one rural district and another; and here it will invariably be found that the finer the air, the more beautiful the scenery, and the more nearly the whole population approximate to an equality with each other, the average character both intellectual and moral is always the higher.

Selborne enjoys all these advantages. Its air is exceedingly pure and healthy, its scenery beautiful and diversified, and there is no great man resident within the parish, beneath whose shadow the people grow up feeble and etiolated, as herbs do under the shade of a great tree. There is no doubt that those were the circumstances which so strongly prompted Gilbert White to the observation and study of nature, and which made him prefer following nature herself, in his lovely retreat at Selborne, to the ambitious wars and wranglings of College Sophs and Society's Councils. Learning, leisure, and the absence of worldly ambition, of course enabled White to carry his pursuits to that perfection which has so deservedly won him a name; but still he was indebted to Selborne for the germ and the im

pulse; and, though White has conferred more general celebrity on Selborne than perhaps any other man ever conferred upon any other village, yet his doing so must be considered as partaking much of the nature of discharging a debt of gratitude. This reciprocity of advantage between Selborne and White is a subject well worthy the attention of all who wish to promote the knowledge of nature, and those arts, and those amiable feelings of which the study of nature is so sure a foundation. Gilbert White did not possess that acuteness of critical discernment which he might have acquired had he been formally drawn into the vortex of science at this time, and there are many points upon which he shows a very strong leaning towards superstitions which are now exploded; but still, in every thing that came fully within the scope of his own observation, the words of White are the express image of nature; and, without the slightest straining after lofty figures or sounding phrases, his "Natural History of Selborne" is one of the most genuinely eloquent books in the English language.

Immediately over the part of the vicarage which is seen, there appears, as already hinted, a little park finely sprinkled with pretty large and very thriving trees, tastefully arranged in small clusters, and giving depth and breadth to the rich grassy turf between them. This beautiful piece of ground, which extends upwards to the foot of the Hanger, was in the occupation of White. The garden of his late residence abuts upon it by a “haha,” or sunk fence, alluded to by him; but this is not perceived from the windows or the garden, so that the house has all the appearance of facing a park which extends to the Hanger.

The Hanger, of which a small portion only is shown in the sketch, is one of the richest masses of foliage that can well be imagined, and has a very considerable effect upon the air at Selborne. The dry rock on which the town is situated, and the fields of white malmy clay, would make the summer air at Selborne intolerably hot, were it not that the Hanger sends down its cooling breeze, breathing freshness and health over the heated part of the surface, in the same manner as the sea-breeze fans the burning shores of tropical countries. The opposite side of the village answers in this respect to the call of the Hanger; for the Temple Hanger, and the hanging woods, on the left hand of the "Liths" as one looks to them from the village, furnish their complement of cool air for the mitigation of the heat.

To the left of the Hanger, there is the contour of the naked part of Selborne Hill. A road winds round the extremity of this; and there are various foot-paths and zig-zags, even on the steepest parts, some of which are inclined at an angle of fifty or even forty-five degrees from the horizon, and yet it is not long since an adventurous horseman dashed down at full speed without sustaining the slightest injury.

The two or three trees which appear against the sky are a few stragglers of the high wood, the trees upon which are scattered and stunted compared with those on the Hanger; but the place affords sweet though not rich pasturage; and the villagers have a cricket-ground on the summit, in one of the finest situations imaginable for that hearty and healthy rural exercise. Nore Hill appears to one's left, and with it the sketch terminates. There is not a deep and abrupt valley between this and Selborne Hill, but rather a sort of saddle, though the evening light, throwing a shadow upon Selborne Hill and a light immediately behind it, produces the same effect as if the one hill actually cut upon the other. Nore Hill is fine in its outline; and there is something particularly natural in the wood upon it. That wood fades off into small bushes toward the upper common, and also in great part along the lower margin; while the trees become larger, are closer together, and have a bolder outline upon the abrupt slope of the hill eastwards.

Such are the principal localities of Selborne as at first seen from the Alton foot-path; and, though there are many places not visible which are in themselves highly beautiful, yet this is perhaps the best of any as a general sketch upon which, as a tablet of artificial memory, to fix the details of what still remains, as well as to bring the others more clearly to the mind of the reader, or guide the visitor in surveying to the greatest advantage this classic ground of British natural history.

This view does not continue long; for, though Selborne appears to lie in a valley, it does not do so in fact, for it is rather on an elevation. The grounds sloping down from the Hanger are, toward the north at least, lower than that upon which the principal part of the town stands, and the church and vicarage stand on the brow of a steep acclivity, bearing some resemblance in elevation and in form to a mud-fort of the largest dimensions. After crossing the deep lane to Alton, the descent is rapid, so that the back-ground soon becomes concealed; and, were it not for Sel