Page:White - The Natural History and Antiquities of Selborne.djvu/266



Letter XLV To The Honourable Daines Barrington

Selborne.

... Mugire videbis Sub pedibus terram, et descendere montibus ornos.

When I was a boy I used to read, with astonishment and implicit assent, accounts in Baker's Chronicle of walking hills and travelling mountains. John Philips, in his Cyder, alludes to the credit that was given to such stories with a delicate but quaint vein of humour peculiar to the author of the Splendid Shilling.

I nor advise, nor reprehend the choice Of Marcley Hill: the apple no where finds A kinder mould: yet 'tis unsafe to trust Deceitful ground: who knows but that once more This mount may journey, and his present site Forsaken, to thy neighbour's bounds transfer Thy goodly plants, affording matter strange For law debates!

But, when I came to consider better, I began to suspect that though our hills may never have journeyed that far, yet the ends of many of them have slipped and fallen away at distant periods, leaving the cliffs bare and abrupt. This seems to have been the case with Nore and Whetham hills; and especially with the ridge between Harteley Park and Ward-le-ham, where the ground has slid into vast swellings and furrows; and lies still in such romantic